I spent a good part of the rest of the night sleeping in the hospital. I’d been through a lot of shit, I absolutely deserved a rest. And thanks to Regeneration (Tier 1), I was actually doing a hella ton of healing in that short, four-hour cat nap. By the time I woke up, I was feeling almost great. My head was clearer, there was no pain, all my limbs could move, my joints didn’t snap or pop.
The only thing making this ‘almost great’ instead of ‘great’ were the police officers in my room.
“We’ve been trying to wake you,” Joni said, lips twisted disapprovingly. Next to her, Christopher’s eyes shifted nervously side to side, and Blair was checking out her reflection in one of the cops’ badges. “They rolled in a few minutes ago.”
My lips opened into a little O. Had my lies worn off? Were there limits? It probably made sense that there would be, and that would be a very good line of thought to pursue after I made sure I didn’t spend however long my God life was counting bars in a prison cell.
“Hello, officers.” My words were a little slurred, and I remembered all the drugs that I’d begged for the night before. Apparently my body had been more focused on healing my injuries than working through the drugs, which normally would’ve been fine with me, but right now I could do with a little bit of clarity.
“Ma’am.” The shorter, heftier one gave me a nod. His face was already red, like he’d been shouting and ranting and waving around batons and tasers.
I swallowed and nodded back. “Sir.”
“We’re investigating a Jane Doe case that was called in.” He squinted beady little eyes at me before holding out his hand. His taller partner, who’d been scratching at his chin, cleared his throat and handed the first cop a tablet. “Early this morning at 3:38, you were taken in by the overnight shift. You gave your name, date of birth, and the details of an accident. While intake clearly saw nothing off with the information you provided, the morning shift, upon reading over the forms… well let’s just say, this whole story lit up full of holes.”
“Ohhhhhhh.” Now that did make sense. The doctor or nurse or whatever who took me in definitely would have believed my lie, but as soon as someone who didn’t hear it from me wandered in, I guess the jig was up. It would take maybe half a minute to see all the holes my friends had pointed out. Like April being 30 days long or route 30 being far too far from here.
“So you know what we’re talking about?” the taller one asked. His hand had moved from massaging his chin hairs and now was furiously rubbing at his patchy mustache. I winced out of sympathy. The officer was just too old to be sporting such an unimpressive stache. Some people aren’t destined for facial hair, and that’s okay, but you have to accept it. “And you’ll know that you were admitted with massive blood loss, TBI, fractured ribs, multiple sprains and contusions, and lacerations to your face?”
Now it was my turn to squint. “TBI? Isn’t that tuberculosis?”
“Naw, dude, it’s like brain damage,” Christopher said. “Gnarly stuff.”
“Oh shit,” I said. “I had brain damage?”
“Had?” The shorter officer snorted. “That’s the only diagnosis on here I believe. You’re sitting upright, chatting all pleasant–” he sneered this last word and the hairs on my arms stood up “–and trying to get us to believe that the scar on your face, clearly weeks old, is an indication that you were in an accident last night?”
“Oh shit.” Another good point. Clearly Regeneration (tier 1) wasn’t helping me sell my story.
“Okay, so like, timeout,” Christopher said. The cops, unaware of his presence, continued on, reading out the laws I was breaking and my rights. Christopher ignored them. “Okay so, like, how does the lie stuff even work? You know, obviously you didn’t make these things true, so other shift nurses saw the data and was like ‘woah dude what the fuck’ and reported the situation when your story didn’t add up, but do you suppose they called the other guys? If someone says ‘yeah but like, April’s only got thirty days,’ do the intake people go all ‘ohhhh shit you right’ and then remember? Or are they stuck forever believing the lie? Kinda makes you think.”
“Might make us think,” Joni said, huffing a piece of ghostly hair out of her face. “I think it’s just boiling Sammi’s brain right now. Hey dipshit,” she snapped twice in front of my face, “anyone home?”
It was a valid question. With the police and Christopher talking at once, my opium flooded brain had decided that they were speaking at the same frequency and was trying very hard to cancel them out. But I wasn’t letting it. I had heard Christopher.
“No, I did hear him,” I said. “And I agree.”
“Well that’s good to hear,” said the short officer. “Because we’re about to take you into the station for questioning.”
“Oops.” Blair covered her lips with her fingers. “Sammi got busted talking to a ghost.”
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It really wasn’t fair that I couldn’t communicate with my friends without other people hearing. “No I’m not,” I said. “Or, uh, I mean, don’t take me to the station?”
The two police looked confused, before the taller one put an arm on my wrist. I could see two scraggly pieces of facial hair stuck to his fingers. “Look, ma’am, you can either come easily or we can arrest you. Whichever you’d like.”
“I don't want either,” I said, trying to muster some confidence in my voice. “So just go and leave me alone!”
“Tell a god damned lie and let’s get out of here!” Joni said, barely contained rage seething through her teeth. “You can’t just tell them what to do.”
“Oh right,” I said. “Can’t do orders.” Blame it on the opioids. “You can’t actually take me to the station because neither of you are real cops. You’re just here trying to steal some, uh, morphine and shit to fund your underground drug smuggling ring, and you know that sticking up a poor girl like me is just getting in the way of your ulterior goals! In fact, as you were talking earlier, your boss sent you a text that says you gotta act now or the real cops will come.”
Joni, whose jaw had dropped lower and lower as I’d rambled on, finally snapped it back into place. “Sammi no!”
The two police stared at me, dumbstruck for a moment, before snapping to action. “All right, Borris,” the short one started, “you hit the pharmacy, I’ll hit the bathroom. Rendezvous at the entrance once you’ve obtained the goods.”
“Sounds good, Boxer.” The tall one saluted and headed to the door.
“Tell them not to hurt anyone, my God Sammi!” Joni’s voice, normally a lazy growl, broke as it jumped an octave. “Sammi, they’re gonna shoot the pharmacist!”
“This is a no-blood mission by the way!” I shouted as they left the room. “You can’t kill anyone!”
“Why’s he going to the bathroom?” Christopher asked as I crawled out of the bed.
Blair giggled. “Cause Sammi said they’re here for morphine and shit.”
Shit. I had said that. I didn’t even want to think about how Boxer was gonna interpret that. Didn’t have the time to either.
“Okay, okay, okay, okay.” I fumbled for the little bag that had all of my belongings: my clothes and a skull-and-bones hair clip.
“You don’t need that,” Joni said. “Just get out.”
“People will notice! Joni, my hospital gown’s got blood on it. I’d rather not be stopped every ten feet once we get outside.” I wrestled my sweater on. “Between me talking to you all and the bloody gown, I’m gonna have cops showing up within an hour.”
“Would be quicker than that.” Joni sighed, the little sigh she always gave when someone else was right. “Well hurry up. And for what it’s worth, your clothes have blood on them too.”
I grimaced at the dark, rusty stain that spread across my Northbridge High hoodie. “Well, it’s a maroon sweater anyway. Beats a bloody gown. Now we gotta–”
My words were cut off by my own startled, dog-like yelp as gunfire started outside.
“Yeah, and we gotta fucking discuss when a complicated lie is necessary and when a simple one will fucking work,” Joni said, raising her voice over the shots. “Cause that was so much more complicated than necessary.”
“It was the first thing that popped into my head!” I pulled on my second sneaker and tucked the laces in with my feet. I could tie them later. Finally I put the clip in my ratty hair and tossed the bag aside, ready to go. “I just wanted to be thorough.”
“Yeah but maybe ‘oh, no, the person you’re looking for is on the other end of the hospital’ would have worked,” Blair said.
My heart sank at Blair’s words because, yeah, and yeah. Yeah that would have worked and yeah I saw Joni’s point, and now two cops were firing their guns in the air to intimidate a hospital full of sick people and doctors to give them drugs and poop.
Yeah, I’d overcomplicated this.
“Okay, we’ll have that conversation once we’re out,” I said. I threw open the door to the hallway, more dramatically than was smart, given the gunfire, and popped my head into the hall. The ER ward had not been the location of the action, so I was able to make it pretty far. The whole place seemed pretty deserted, which from my school’s active shooting drills, seemed like the point.
I got all the way up to the barricaded door before realizing that no amount of sugar talking was gonna get a reinforced, locked door to open.
“Go out a window?” Christopher suggested.
“Uh uh.” Blair had her head stuck out the closest window. “We’re on the second floor and it’s a steep hill outside.”
“Yeah, but we can lift Sammi out, you know?” Christopher mimed lifting something that was definitely heavier than I was.
“Okay, but this place is gonna be swarming with even more cops in like, ten seconds,” I said. “And I don’t wanna keep shouting lies if I can avoid it. I’m not sure how I’d be able to explain how I’m floating out the window. Like, you know, sun’s coming up and I don’t know what they’ll do if they see me fly.”
“New idea,” Blair said, holding up a finger–likely to indicate either how many brain cells had got into this plan or how many microseconds she’d spent coming up with it. “Sammi jumps and we all lie at the bottom and cushion her.”
“She’ll still roll down the hill,” Joni said. “I mean, we can try to grab her, but it’s only gonna take a bad fall for her to twist an ankle, and yeah she’s clearly healing fast but not fast enough to escape cops on.”
“Yeah. I’m still feeling oofy from last night.” I massaged my ribs. Fractures they’d said. Sounded about right. And yeah I was feeling better but I wasn’t looking to get hurt again. Instead, I was looking to get sad again, because I was starting to feel overwhelmed.
“Okay okay okay, plan.” Christopher held up his hand, all five fingers showing, and just from the grin on his face, I started to have faith again. “Sammi gets in the wheelchair and takes that out the window. One of us holds her shoulders to make sure it stays upright, the other two cushion her. The wheelchair lands, wheels down, and Sammi zooms down the hill on it.”
“That,” Joni started, in an expression of the group's sole voice of dissent, “is literally the worst idea anyone has ever had.”