With All My Soul
Page 77
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Or anywhere.
Finally I was grasping what I should have understood much earlierwe brought danger to Eastlake, not the other way around.
Sabine nodded. You dont have to talk me into skipping school.
I started to blink out of the hall, then turned to her again at the last second. Oh, how do you feel? In all the commotion, I almost forgot that shed been poisoned only twelve hours earlier.
Tired. But fine other than that, she said, and I spared a moment to wonder if shed actually admit to a weakness if she had one. Other than an unwavering devotion to Nash.
Good. And thanks for finding me. Ill see you as soon as I can get Emma out of there.
Okay. Sabine frowned at my cardigan. Did you change clothes?
Yeah. Long story. Gotta go. I blinked out of school and into the hospital before she could ask any more questions.
The E.R. was nearly deserted, as it was most school daysTod said the peak hours were always nights and weekends.
Invisible to all human eyes, I ran past rows of empty waiting room chairs, the lady at the check-in desk, and three different triage rooms, where nurses and techs took patients vital signs and typed their symptoms into computers. I jogged right through the electronic-assist door into the main part of the E.R., past the nurses stationa large square countertop with several work areas spaced out inside itand made a quick round of the E.R. patient rooms, looking for Emma.
Four of the rooms were occupied, but Em wasnt in any of them. Had she already been admitted or released? Could they possibly have done the paperwork that quickly?
When I couldnt find her in the bathrooms or at the vending machines, I stopped in the center of the E.R. again, studying the nurses station. They would have the information I needed, either stored on computers I didnt know how to access or printed in files I couldnt pick up without freaking out people who couldnt see me.
Id have to look without touching anything. Or wait until no one was looking to go through the charts stacked in a vertical organizer. But someone seemed to be looking in nearly every direction. Thats the problem with a room full of people.
I entered the nurses station and turned in a full circle, watching the doctors and nurses all around me typing, chatting, and jotting things on forms clipped to clipboards. Because I was faking life, Id only done the invisible-in-a-crowd thing a couple of times beforemost of the time, my incorporeity was a precaution, in case someone walked in on meand watching people talk and act like I wasnt there felt more like a colossal prank perpetrated by the in-crowd than a supernatural ability.
I was visually scanning some random form over a nurses shoulder when anothernurseAnne, according to her name tagsat next to her. You missed all the excitement, the first nurseGinasaid.
Another eighty-year-old nudist?
Gina laughed as I moved to the right, wishing I could open a folder on the desk in front of her. No. Remember the girl who came in right before you went to lunch? Ambulance brought her from Eastlake?
I froze. They were talking about Emma.
The mumbler? Yeah. Dr. Cohen ordered a psych evaluation right before I left. Did she get it?
She got more than that. You know Claudia transferred here from Lakeside, right? Gina said, and Anne nodded. Well, she recognized the girl from this morning as a psych patient. Get thisthe girl was admitted to Lakeside under another name nearly two years ago. She hardly said a word the whole time she was there, then, several weeks ago she just disappeared from a locked ward. They have no idea how she got out. All the exits were locked and video-monitored, and no one saw her leave. Just poof, like Houdini.
Weird. They take her back?
Yeah. The psych ward took her off our hands fifteen minutes ago. Her parents are on the way.
Crap! Em was at Lakeside. Next to the Netherworld, the mental health ward was my least favorite place in either world. Yet somehow, it had become my afterlifes version of Rome.
All roads led to Lakeside.
Chapter Eighteen
My skin began to crawl the moment I blinked into the dayroom on the adolescent floor of the Lakeside mental health unit. The psychiatric unit was associated with the hospital but was a separate building. A beast all its own.
Id been there as a visitoran invisible, unauthorized visitortwice and made it out just fine both times, but on this third visit, as on the other two, memories of my involuntary residence at Lakeside overshadowed everything else. I was only a resident for a week, but that was one of the worst weeks of my life.
After a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I headed into the nurses station, an enclosed, locked room with windows set into the top half of the wallsvery different from nurses stations in the main hospital. A room chart hung on the rear wall, the only part that didnt overlook the rest of the floor, but Ems name wasnt on it yet. Neither was Lydias. She evidently hadnt been there long enough to be penciled in. But the chart showed two empty rooms on the girls wingsurely she was in one of those.
I headed out of the nurses station, through the dayroom, past the dining room, and into the girls hall, trying my best to ignore the residents. And not to notice the familiar faces of several girls whod been there when I was a resident almost two years earlier.
Finally I was grasping what I should have understood much earlierwe brought danger to Eastlake, not the other way around.
Sabine nodded. You dont have to talk me into skipping school.
I started to blink out of the hall, then turned to her again at the last second. Oh, how do you feel? In all the commotion, I almost forgot that shed been poisoned only twelve hours earlier.
Tired. But fine other than that, she said, and I spared a moment to wonder if shed actually admit to a weakness if she had one. Other than an unwavering devotion to Nash.
Good. And thanks for finding me. Ill see you as soon as I can get Emma out of there.
Okay. Sabine frowned at my cardigan. Did you change clothes?
Yeah. Long story. Gotta go. I blinked out of school and into the hospital before she could ask any more questions.
The E.R. was nearly deserted, as it was most school daysTod said the peak hours were always nights and weekends.
Invisible to all human eyes, I ran past rows of empty waiting room chairs, the lady at the check-in desk, and three different triage rooms, where nurses and techs took patients vital signs and typed their symptoms into computers. I jogged right through the electronic-assist door into the main part of the E.R., past the nurses stationa large square countertop with several work areas spaced out inside itand made a quick round of the E.R. patient rooms, looking for Emma.
Four of the rooms were occupied, but Em wasnt in any of them. Had she already been admitted or released? Could they possibly have done the paperwork that quickly?
When I couldnt find her in the bathrooms or at the vending machines, I stopped in the center of the E.R. again, studying the nurses station. They would have the information I needed, either stored on computers I didnt know how to access or printed in files I couldnt pick up without freaking out people who couldnt see me.
Id have to look without touching anything. Or wait until no one was looking to go through the charts stacked in a vertical organizer. But someone seemed to be looking in nearly every direction. Thats the problem with a room full of people.
I entered the nurses station and turned in a full circle, watching the doctors and nurses all around me typing, chatting, and jotting things on forms clipped to clipboards. Because I was faking life, Id only done the invisible-in-a-crowd thing a couple of times beforemost of the time, my incorporeity was a precaution, in case someone walked in on meand watching people talk and act like I wasnt there felt more like a colossal prank perpetrated by the in-crowd than a supernatural ability.
I was visually scanning some random form over a nurses shoulder when anothernurseAnne, according to her name tagsat next to her. You missed all the excitement, the first nurseGinasaid.
Another eighty-year-old nudist?
Gina laughed as I moved to the right, wishing I could open a folder on the desk in front of her. No. Remember the girl who came in right before you went to lunch? Ambulance brought her from Eastlake?
I froze. They were talking about Emma.
The mumbler? Yeah. Dr. Cohen ordered a psych evaluation right before I left. Did she get it?
She got more than that. You know Claudia transferred here from Lakeside, right? Gina said, and Anne nodded. Well, she recognized the girl from this morning as a psych patient. Get thisthe girl was admitted to Lakeside under another name nearly two years ago. She hardly said a word the whole time she was there, then, several weeks ago she just disappeared from a locked ward. They have no idea how she got out. All the exits were locked and video-monitored, and no one saw her leave. Just poof, like Houdini.
Weird. They take her back?
Yeah. The psych ward took her off our hands fifteen minutes ago. Her parents are on the way.
Crap! Em was at Lakeside. Next to the Netherworld, the mental health ward was my least favorite place in either world. Yet somehow, it had become my afterlifes version of Rome.
All roads led to Lakeside.
Chapter Eighteen
My skin began to crawl the moment I blinked into the dayroom on the adolescent floor of the Lakeside mental health unit. The psychiatric unit was associated with the hospital but was a separate building. A beast all its own.
Id been there as a visitoran invisible, unauthorized visitortwice and made it out just fine both times, but on this third visit, as on the other two, memories of my involuntary residence at Lakeside overshadowed everything else. I was only a resident for a week, but that was one of the worst weeks of my life.
After a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I headed into the nurses station, an enclosed, locked room with windows set into the top half of the wallsvery different from nurses stations in the main hospital. A room chart hung on the rear wall, the only part that didnt overlook the rest of the floor, but Ems name wasnt on it yet. Neither was Lydias. She evidently hadnt been there long enough to be penciled in. But the chart showed two empty rooms on the girls wingsurely she was in one of those.
I headed out of the nurses station, through the dayroom, past the dining room, and into the girls hall, trying my best to ignore the residents. And not to notice the familiar faces of several girls whod been there when I was a resident almost two years earlier.
