Linger

“Are you right?”

“I don’t know.”

I closed my eyes. Without opening them, I asked, “And I’m guessing you have a theory on how to get her to shift.”

Oh, God, Grace. I couldn’t believe what I was saying.

Cole said, “Simplest is easiest.”

I had a sudden image in my head of Grace’s brown eyes looking out from a wolf’s face. I wrapped my arms around myself.

“She needs to get bitten again.”

My eyes flew open and I stared at Cole. “Bitten.”

Cole made a face. “It’s an educated guess. Something got messed up in the shifting chain of command, and if you reintroduced the original trigger, it might start her over from square one. Only this time don’t cook her in the car.”

Everything in me rebelled against the idea. Of losing Grace, losing what made her Grace. Of attacking her while she was dying. Of making decisions like this, on the fly, because there was no time. I said, “But it takes weeks or months to shift after you get bitten.”

“I think that’s how long it takes for the toxin to build up initially,” Cole said. “But she’s already there, obviously. If I’m right, she’d shift immediately.”

I linked my arms behind my head and turned away from Cole and Isabel, staring at the pale blue concrete wall. “If you’re wrong?”

“She has wolf spit in an open wound”—Cole paused, then added, “that she’ll probably bleed to death from right now, because it sounds like the toxin is destroying her ability to clot.”

They let me pace for several long moments, and then Isabel, a low voice out of the silence said, “If you’re right, Sam’s going to die, too.”

“Yes,” Cole said, in such an even way that I knew he’d already considered that. “If I’m right, when Sam gets ten or thirteen years down the road, his cure won’t be a cure, either.”

Could I believe the science concocted in a hospital cafeteria over lukewarm coffee and crumpled napkins?

It was all I had.

I turned, finally, and looked at Isabel. With her smudged makeup, her hair rumpled, her shoulders hunched up with uncertainty, she looked like an entirely different girl, trying to wear an Isabel disguise.

I asked, “How would we get into the room?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

• ISABEL •

It fell to me to get Grace’s parents out of the room. They hated Sam, so he was out, and Cole’s brawn would be needed elsewhere, so he was out. It occurred to me, as I clicked down the hallway to Grace’s room, that we were counting on Cole’s solution not working. Because if it did, we were all going to be in big trouble.

I waited for a nurse to exit Grace’s room, and then I opened the door a crack. I was in luck; only her mom was sitting by her bed, looking out the window instead of at Grace. I tried not to look at Grace, who lay silent and white, her head turned limply to the side.

“Mrs. Brisbane?” I asked in my best schoolgirl voice.

She looked up, and I noted, with some satisfaction for Grace’s benefit, that her eyes were red. “Isabel?”

I said, “I came as soon as I heard. Could I—could I talk to you about something?”

She stared at me for a moment, and then she seemed to realize what I had asked. “Of course.”

I hesitated at the door. Sell it, Isabel. “Um. Not near Grace. You know, where she could…” I pointed to my ear.

“Oh,” her mother said. “Okay.” She was probably curious about what I was going to say. Honestly, I was, too. My palms were sticky with nerves.

She patted Grace’s leg and stood up. When she got out into the hall, I pointed behind my hand at Sam, who was, as we’d advised, standing a few feet on the other side of the door. He looked like he was going to throw up, which was about how I felt. “Not near him, either,” I whispered. I remembered, suddenly, having told Sam that he wasn’t cut out for deception. As my stomach churned and I planned what I was going to confess to Grace’s mother, I thought that karma was a terrible thing.

• COLE •

As soon as Isabel had gotten Mrs. Brisbane out—Was she the only person in there? Only one way to find out, I supposed—it was my turn. While Sam watched out to make sure no nurses came in, I slipped into the room. It stank of blood, rot, and fear, and my wolfish instincts crawled up inside me, whispering at me to get out.

I ignored them and went straight to Grace. She looked like she was made up of separate parts that had all been brought to the bed and assembled at awkward angles. I knew I didn’t have much time.

I was surprised, when I knelt by her face, to find her eyes open, although the lids were heavy on them.

“Cole,” she said. It was the long, low timbre of a sleepy little girl, someone who just couldn’t stay awake much longer. “Where’s Sam?”

“Here,” I lied. “Don’t try to look.”

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” whispered Grace.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said, but not for the reason she said. I pulled out drawers on the cart by the bed until I found what I was looking for: an assortment of shiny sharp things. I selected one that looked logical and took Grace’s hand.

“What are you doing?” She was too far gone to care, though.

“Making you into a wolf,” I said. She didn’t flinch, or even look curious. I took a breath, held her skin taut, and made a tiny cut on her hand. Again, she didn’t move. The wound was bleeding like hell. I whispered, “I’m sorry, this is going to be disgusting. But unfortunately, I’m the only guy who can do the job.”

Grace’s eyes opened just a little further as I worked up a big mouthful of saliva. I didn’t even know how much she would need to be reinfected. I mean, Beck had had it down to a fine science, had thought everything out. He’d had a tiny syringe that he kept in a cooler.

“Believe me, less scarring this way,” he’d said.

My mouth was getting dry as I thought about Isabel losing her hold on Grace’s mother. The blood was pumping out of the tiny cut like I’d slashed a vein.

Grace’s eyes were falling shut, though I could see her fighting to keep them open. Blood was pooling on the floor underneath her hand. If I was wrong, I’d killed her.

• SAM •

Cole came to the door, touched my elbow, pulled me inside. He latched the door and pushed a surgery cart up against it, as if that would stop anything.