Page 29

Not for a man who will cut himself open, in public, on a schedule, just to buy an hour of your time. As I knew there was no ignoring that level of crazy. That there was nothing good you could take away from a man like that. There was no consequence you could threaten a man with when he has already proven, in front of an entire prison yard, that he will do worse to himself than anything you could ever do to him.

And my file is gone.

And so is his.

I turned the faucet off and dried my hands. Then I put the veil back on, one careful piece at a time. Because there was a saline order to sign for and a sharps container that didn’t need emptying and six weeks of a contract I couldn’t afford to break.

So, I went back to work in a building where I no longer officially existed.

Little nurse… I thought, as steadily as I could manage.

You have got to get out of here before there are no more chains between you and…

…The insane killer who wants you.

8

SING FOR ME, LITTLE BIRD

ANNA

Ididn’t sleep… Again.

But then, that was hardly surprising and quite frankly was becoming a theme of my life. I was also starting to resent it, because there had been a time in my life when I could sleep anywhere. Bus depot chairs. A friend’s floor. The back of a car in a hospital lot with my coat over me. Sleep used to be the one thing my body would still do for me when everything else had gone wrong. Then I started running, and it turned into something else. Something panicked and fragile.

The kind that leaves you more tired than when you lay down. Because a restful night never comes to anyone who is frightened of what she might sleep through. Not when the sound you miss could be a lock giving way.

Of course, as the years went on it had gotten marginally better, to the point I no longer felt exhausted every time I woke.

But now, well, it felt like being back in those first six months on the run, and all because of a man with no name who had looked at me across an infirmary.

Now I lay in the dark, running the last three days around and around my head, like some macabre carnival ride I couldn’t get off. It was only the night before that I had lain awake thinking about him and that had been bad enough. Hell, at least that reason had been simple. A man, a name I didn’t have, a look that had gone through me like a blade through paper.

But now… I had a great deal more than that.

I turned over and put my face in the pillow and screamed in frustration. Because there was no being boring, not if a man like that wanted me. The Ghost, they called him. But to me he felt more like the grim reaper, here to steal my soul.

And what about next time? What if he pulled something else that got him sent to the infirmary? What if next time his chains were even longer? Which was why I lay there until the ceiling went gray, and around five I started building my case for calling in sick.

It was a good case… an excellent case, in fact. Especially if he was crazy enough to open up his own arm just to get my attention. Everything in me was screaming at me to run, to grab my bags and head to the next state. But then the practical side of me spoke up. The kind that needed money to fill her car with gas and provide those pesky little needs like food. That was the side of me that asked what exactly I intended to run on.

Because here was the deeply unglamorous truth of my situation. Running costs money. It costs more money than anybody who hasn’t done it before would ever believe. And I had put down a deposit on that apartment and had a car with tires that would not see the winter if I didn’t replace them soon. Which meant sticking out this job would guarantee a paycheck at the end of the contract. Money that I had already spent four times over in my head.

You can’t vanish without money, Anna. You can only move somewhere worse. I released a sigh, hit a frustrated fist to the bed and did what I had no choice but to do. I got up just before my alarm went off and got ready for a job I didn’t want to do.

And all because of the fear of what might be waiting for me when I got there. Of the killer I suspected wanted me as his next plaything.

Of the killer I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Despite getting no sleep and being awake before my alarm, I still ended up late.

Not spectacularly, but by a little over twenty minutes. Which was entirely thanks to a red light and my own doubt making me slow. As if I was subconsciously trying to delay the inevitable.

It meant that when I did finally get there, I came through the gate at a jog with my coat half on and a glucose chew going soft in my fist, because I had not had a spare hand to eat it. Mick was already halfway through his crossword puzzle by the time I got to the wand.

“There she is.” He waved me forward, unhurried, in a way that made those twenty minutes feel like a personal failing.

“Thought you’d finally taken my advice and run for the hills.” I laughed nervously at this, as he had no idea just how close to the mark he was with that comment.