I entered the hospital at a run. This place gave me the creeps. Something here scratched at my hind brain, and made my skin crawl. I didn’t want to find out what it was.

I tried to ignore the strange stains on the old hospital beds, the stale, sour smell that spoke of past occupation by human bodies—pretending I still was underground and the windows I saw did not lead outside to a darkened world. To a place where it was night…Pretending I could not hear muffled traffic noises on a street far below, or see people moving in lighted buildings across the way.

I knew if I stopped to be curious, I’d get pulled into my-future/Not-me’s past again. Bad things. A kind of horror of the mind, but it was worse than being chased by men with guns. I wanted to stay away from them, but I could feel the bad memories stalking me. It was the smell.

Death has a smell. You don't know it until you've seen enough of it, but it becomes familiar. It's a background of pain that you can't ignore, like an ache in a tooth, and this place smelled of death. Old death, decay, sad death, grief. Grief has a particular feel to it as well. I wouldn't call it a smell, but when enough people have spent enough time in a deep enough state of grief in a place, you can tell. It lingers. This place was like that—smelled of death and grief. The black and white checkered tiles told a pattern of loss.

I was almost to the door in front of me, hopeful that I would be transported, or whatever Not-me had been calling it, when I heard a small sound. It was like a mouse, soft, quiet, tentative. I froze, trying to decide if this place really was haunted, and I was hearing the gentle moan of a specter, or if I had heard someone. I backpedaled, listening hard for the sound. Swallowing down my nerves, I drummed up the courage and called out, "Hello? Is anybody here?"

I heard it again. It was so soft that I thought maybe it was my imagination. Holding my breath, I was able to hear it.

"Please help me, please help me, please help me, please help me, please—”

The words were being muttered over and over, like a mantra or prayer. Almost sub-vocal. Only the occasional word would squeak. I moved towards the source of the noise. The room I was in was laid out with beds in rows, curtains available to draw around the bed, a long makeshift hallway in between the rows running the center of the room.

Moving closer, I caught a glimpse of the lighted city windows across the street. The reality that I had been trying to ignore slapped me in the face as I stepped up to the window and looked outside. It looked like I was about 20 or 30 stories up in a downtown full of high rises and skyscrapers. I reached for the pane of glass, but a static buzz threatened to leap out and slap my fingers, and I withdrew. What was it Not-me who had said? Doors and windows? Or any opening into another space?

Backing up, I proceeded towards the source of the whispered prayer. Stepping around one of the beds, I saw her. A girl. She was curled in on herself, head on her knees, formless gray shift pulled down around them, rocking back and forth, hair covering up her features.

Was this one of the girls from Caroline’s trafficking ring? Was her magic sending her girls all over the world too? How did she manage that?

"Hey," I said, unsure what to say.

She looked up. My eyes grew wide in recognition. Her sharp features were already burned into my memory. It was the same girl who had brought the food in Caroline's pompous arboretum-library. Recognition washed over her face, and she smiled.

"Red Sox," she said. "You came."

This threw me for a loop until I saw her gaze was fixed on my chest. I looked down and realized she was right. Gregor had dressed me in a Red Sox t-shirt. I had been so focused on my core, I hadn't once looked at it.

The girl looked like she wanted to get up. But after one attempt, it became evident she couldn't. I bent down, concern flooding me. For all my earlier determination to save these children, I now wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t even sure what part of the world I was in, or if Caroline just just magic us back to her lair whenever she felt like it.

I almost asked if she was okay, but it seemed like a stupid thing to say, because the fact she wasn't was as plain as the pain on her face. So instead, I asked her,

"Where are you hurt?" She looked up at me, a strange pleading expression on her face.

"Inside," she said, being nonspecific, and my mind flashed to horrible things. "One of the men hit me," she said, "in the stomach. But it’s getting worse, not better. It hurts… I ran. I didn't know what else to do… But you came.”

I didn't want to give the girl false hope in my abilities. I shook my head. "I'll do everything I can to help," I said. "But I don't know where we are or how we got here. I found you by accident."

The girl shook her head, insisting. "No, you don't understand. You came. You really came. You only could have stepped through my portals if you were..." She coughed and regained herself. "If you cared about me."

That hit me like a bucket of cold water. I wanted to hurt the people who had hurt her, but it didn't occur to me that might equate to caring. Then my brain caught up with what she had said. I looked her in the eye.

"Your portals?" I asked, feeling relieved that it might not be Caroline's magic that was sending me all over the world. The girl nodded and then winced.

"Oh," she whimpered, and began to cry softly for a moment before stifling it. "I think they broke something important."

On instinct I looked down at her when she said this, as if I could see what was broken. She was still curled around herself, and if she had internal injuries, of course I wouldn’t be able to see anything. As I looked T.E.C.C. training from the army kicked in, and I went on autopilot. I began muttering as I looked her over with a practiced eye.

“M.A.R.C.H.” I said under my breath as I stepped closer, “M, is for massive hemorrhage.”

“Are you bleeding?” I said louder, trying to redirect her focus before she went into shock. “I need to touch your abdomen. Tell me when and where it hurts so I can help you.”

The girl uncurled a little, her eyes a mix of pleading and worry. She was looking at me, not lost in a vacant stare. That was good.

“I need you to lie down,” I said, using my soldier voice. “I’m going to check for internal bleeding.”

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“You sound like a doctor,” she said, squinting at me in the gloom of the abandoned hospital. “But you look younger than me…”

I put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her firmly back. "Lay down, do it now, I have to check you," I said.

She gave me a funny look, her face forming into a sort of half smile as she began to chuckle and then winced, but she laid down; compliance was good enough. A lot of times, when people were on the edge of shock or delirium due to blood loss, they would behave in a strange fashion, so I ignored her behavior and went through my training.

I checked her over first for blood and then put a hand on her abdomen, looking for any warning signs.

"Let me know if you feel pain," I said, "and whether it feels like pressure or sharp stabbing."

I began to press methodically around her abdomen, paying close attention to points of pressure or indications of swelling. I wished I could look at her stomach to see if she had a hematoma, but I doubted that would go over well since all she was wearing was a thin shift. Instead, I focused on what my fingers were feeling, watching her face for any signs of shock.

Her eyes stayed fixed on my face, her breathing rapid and shallow. I could tell she was in pain and trying to keep it together. Honestly, I had seen soldiers with less composure than this girl was showing. What sort of lessons had life taught her the hard way?

I couldn't detect any firmness in her abdomen that would indicate signs of internal bleeding. With that test completed, and no visible sign of blood, I moved on to the A in the MARCH acronym.

A is for airway management. She was breathing well enough, perhaps too fast. First sign of shock. So I moved on to R.

R is for respiratory. It seemed unlikely that she had gotten into something that required a respirator. I didn't detect any smell of smoke on her clothes, so I guessed she had not been close to that burning generator and gotten poisoned that way. Moved on to C.

C is for circulation. I picked up her hand and placed my fingers on her wrist in search of a radial pulse. I began a slow count, trying to figure out whether or not she was going into shock. It was hard to assess with someone this young who had recently experienced trauma. She seemed like she was desperately scared. The chances that she would go into shock were strong. I finished with H.

H is for hypothermia and head injuries. I looked her in the eyes.

"When you were struck, did you hit your head?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Listen, I need you to focus on breathing. I want you to breathe long and slow. Breathe in for a count of two and breathe out for a count of two. Focus on the sound of my voice.”

I wished that I had a penlight. It would be useful to check her responsiveness. She followed my instructions and began to breathe, visibly beginning to calm as she took slow, even breaths.

"You don't just sound like a doctor," she said, looking at me, studying me intently as if I was a curiosity. "You sound like a grownup.”

"Now, when I pressed on your abdomen," I said, staying focused on the task, "did you feel any pain when I pressed?"

“A little.”

"Show me where.”

She brought a hand up and pointed to her upper abdomen. I my fingers where she indicated and felt once more for signs of swelling or firmness. As I did, all at once, the unreality of what I was doing hit me.

I was executing a full tactical emergency casualty care kit, getting ready to apply field dressing like I had, I don't know how many thousands of times. But I hadn't been through the training yet…

I experienced extreme dissociation for a moment, feeling as if I was both me and Not-me at the same time. Two people in two places in two times all at once, picturing myself in the future on the battlefield, trying to keep my assessment down to thirty seconds, gunfire streaming overhead, a wounded soldier at my fingertips, trying to figure out if I could move him or not. And I was Timmy, a brand new high school student. A kid who was not even out of his mom's house and didn't know what the hell he was doing.

In this state of dissociation, feeling like I was caught between two worlds, I zoned out, looking past the person in front of me, looking past the floor and past the middle distance. And her core came into focus as I did this. I could see the luck that she had spinning there. She had enough strands that should have been forming knots, but they were all chaotic, in complete disarray, spinning wildly. I couldn't quickly or easily tell how much luck she had.

As I focused, the luck seemed to call to me, as if asking me to take it. Like walking down the sidewalk and seeing a wad of folded money laying on the ground, asking to be picked up. I had no interest in taking her luck, so I resisted the urge to lay hold of it, but the disordered nature bothered me deeply. As I concentrated, I found I could move it without pulling it away. I focused, quickly weaving it into the shape that I was familiar with, ordering the layers of knots until they began to rotate and form a sphere.

As I moved them, I noticed that she was just two short of forming the third knot, or what I usually thought of as zero—a balance point in which you weren't lucky or unlucky. Without thinking about it, I pushed the two I had taken from my encounter with Caroline's goons earlier into her core, causing them to form the final pieces of the third knot. As I finished this, I became intensely lightheaded and nearly fell over. It was the girl's turn to put a hand on my shoulder.

She steadied me as I sat back on the floor. She sat up and felt at herself, a look of wonder on her face.

"What?" She started—stopped, collected herself, and started again. "What did you just do?" she asked, looking at me with wonder.

That was a good question. What had I just done? I wasn't sure. Instead, I deflected. "How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Better," she said. "Mr. Little Doctor," she smirked at me.

I shook my head. "Call me Freak," I said. "Just your friendly neighborhood luck vampire."

She nodded. "Freak," she said, sounding out the word. The way she said it emphasized an accent I hadn't noticed before, something foreign, but not one I could place.

"I'm Isabella," she said, feeling her abdomen. As she spoke, she winced. "Not all better… But not as bad.”

We sat on the floor a minute, looking at each other. We were between two hospital beds, only one of which contained a mattress. The other was a broken frame. I noticed for the first time that there was writing on the machinery that caused the bed to go up and down. None of it was in English. There were three separate layers of languages there, probably instructions on how to operate the machinery. I wasn't as familiar with any of the written languages, and so I had to take a guess at them. Chinese, Japanese, and possibly Korean. Was I in Asia?

I looked back at Isabella, checking that her luck was neat and ordered. I didn’t know what the knots had to do with healing, but it felt important. She’d said she felt better when I’d brought the chaotic strands into order. Her breathing had calmed and her color looked improved. As I watched, one of the knots unraveled, breaking into individual strands. The two I’d given her stood out, their color slightly different than the rest. They moved up from her core as I watched, streaming to the place she’d said was hurt. They encountered something I couldn’t see, then broke apart, disintegrating into shining dust.

“Oh!” Isabella said, clasping a hand over the spot the strands had broken. She probed the spot with fingers, then stretched, a grin breaking across her features. “Now it is all better! You have magic like me! You healed me!”

My mouth fell open and I felt numb. Had I really healed her? Could I use luck like that whenever I wanted? What were the limitations? Could I use a person’s own luck to heal them? My mind spun with the possibilities.

Isabella’s got up and began doing a little happy dance. My mind spun in circles, thinking of all the good I could do in the war. I was still sitting on the floor, feeling too shocked to get up. How many people could I help? How much good could I do now?

“Freak?” Isabella said.

It took a second to register she was addressing me.

“Huh?” I looked up at her.

She had stopped dancing and was frowning at me, blinking furiously, like she’d had sand thrown in her face.

“You’ve suddenly become very hard to look at. My eyes want to dance away from you, without my permission.”

“Oh, yeah… I think that happens when my luck is completely zeroed out. Caroline said something similar.”

Isabella’s face darkened. She turned head to the side and spat. “Do not speak of her, she can hear you if you speak her current name. Maybe even this far away. She’s worse than you know… Monstro.”

“I’m going to find a way to kill her.” My voice sounded flat and matter of fact to my own ears.

Isabella turned her head to the side, then made a disgusted sound as her gaze slid past me, “I can’t study your face to see if you are being truthful. Can you stop making yourself hard to look at?”

“I don’t think so. I need to take some luck to do that. Actually, that’s a good idea. Help me look for a pen.”

I got up and began to search for a place that might have a pen. I figured the chances I could find one in an abandoned hospital were good. Isabella put a hand on my arm, stopping me.

“Why did you call yourself a vampire? Are you really a vampire?”

“Sort of,” I admitted, “Not at all like the movies. I don’t suck blood. Sunlight doesn’t kill me… I don’t think garlic does, but I haven’t tried it…”

“If you don’t drink blood, what makes you think you’re a vampire?”

My gremlin groupies caught up to me. The fuzzy little puffballs began exploring the hydraulic mechanism under the hospital bed. I took a step back from it.

“I do need to take something from people,” I said, watching the mouse gremlins as I spoke. “It’s more like some invisible vital energy everyone has. I’ve been calling it luck, because when people are low on it,” the bed collapsed with a thunderous bang, causing Isabella to scream, “Bad stuff happens.”

I gestured to the bed for emphasis. Another bed collapsed, this time a little farther away. There was a groaning sound from somewhere overhead, then a loud pop, followed by the hiss of running water. The ceiling overhead was another drop ceiling, and the water began pouring from several seams of the rectangular tiles.

Isabella and I both flung our hands over our heads and ran out from underneath the impromptu shower. Another bed collapsed as we ran. We stopped and looked back, just in time to see the ceiling tile distorting with the weight of the water. It broke, sending a torrent of water crashing to the floor, splashing us and washing over our feet.

“What’s happening?” Isabella shouted, as we moved farther back from the falling water.

“This is what happens to any place I’m in when I’m all out of luck.”

The chaos slowed, one more bed crashing down before the flowing water became the only sound in the room.

“Little invisible creatures follow anyone low on luck and make bad things more likely to happen. They seem to enjoy making things fall apart.” I turned to look at Isabella, “So, where are we and how do we get back?”

***