Page 75 of The Turning of the Tables

I slumped against the door, resting my forehead against the cool glass. It wasn’t a particularly cool day, but it also wasn’t warm. I couldn’t decide if it was a good thingor a bad thing that the window felt cool. Not that it mattered.

“I’ll be right back,” Noah told me, then ran back into the apartment building. I stayed where I was, my muscles fatigued by the short journey to the car, watching the heat of my breath as it condensed on the glass.Condensating.The word reminded me of something…

It’s what Tierney had said about the last victim. How he knew that the body had been chilled and dumped. Because it had beencondensating.

The temperature of my own skin was making me wonder just how long the killer would have had to have chilled the victim to get them cold enough to condensate if they’d had a fever like mine.

And if they’d had a fever, would they have been taken to the hospital?

Who would have taken them?

Did someone? I wasn’t in charge of notifying next of kin or anything, but I couldn’t imagine that all three of them had no one in their lives. They’d all lived alone, but Jessica Haverill at least had friends she saw regularly. People who would have taken care of her if they’d known she was sick.

I wondered if the neighbor woman who had found Haverill had been going over to visit her friend, to walk with her, or maybe just to check on her, to see if she needed anything.

I wondered who checked on the other victims—Lisa Johnston and Miles Volkov.

I had Noah, but if I hadn’t, who would check on me?

I didn’t know.

My relationship with Devin had ended so catastrophically that there was no way I could have called him or any of ‘our’ friends to help me. I would have felt tooguilty about asking someone who could contract Arcana to come take care of me, which meant I wouldn’t have asked Quincy. Or Ward Campion. Hart, maybe? He didn’t strike me as being particularly nurturing, but he’s probably who I would have ended up with, since Mason had his nephew to take care of, and everyone else I knew had either been at the scene or was still human and vulnerable.

Would I have managed to figure out that I needed to go to the hospital?

I couldn’t decide. While I was thinking about it, Noah returned to the car, passing me a bucket with a trash bag inside it. I looked stupidly down at it.

“In case you need to throw up,” he said as he started the car.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d need it, so I just held it loosely in my lap, not bothering to lift my head from the window.

I had needed the bucket,although only once, which I considered a personal victory. I also considered it a victory that I managed to throw upintothe bucket, as opposed to on myself or some part of the car.

Noah pulled up to the Emergency entrance, ran around the car, and leaned in, taking the bucket from me to set it on the ground, then gently putting a mask over my ears. “Come on, Sethy,” he coaxed, and I made a soft involuntary noise as he helped me out.

“What’s the matter, sir?” a businesslike voice asked, and I lifted my head, trying to focus through the exhaustion on the scrub-clad figure, also masked, who was pushing an empty wheelchair.

“He has Arcana,” my brother said brusquely.

I watched the nurse or orderly or doctor’s gold-brown eyes narrow over their mask, light brown skin furrowing with a frown. “And you?”

“I’m a shifter,” Noah replied flatly.

If I’d expected derision or something else, I was pleasantly surprised, as the nurse/orderly/doctor simply nodded once, then maneuvered the chair so that Noah could deposit me into it. It made a vaguely inanimate sound of protest as my weight hit it harder than I’d meant to, my legs not wanting to function terribly well.

“He also has chronic Lyme and alpha-gal,” Noah said hurriedly.

“We’ll get you the paperwork inside,” the nurse/orderly/doctor told him. “And take medical history. But we need to get him into isolation. Has he been keeping anything down?” The nurse/orderly/doctor looked pointedly at the bucket.

“Up until the car ride, yeah, he was doing pretty well the last few days,” Noah answered. “His fever spiked today, though.”

“What’s his name?” the nurse/orderly/doctor asked Noah.

“Seth,” my brother answered.

“Hi,” I managed.

“Hi, Seth,” the nurse/orderly/doctor replied. “My name is Wyatt. I’m a nurse here at St. Cyprian’s.”