The police have been questioning me for over an hour.

In their defense, it’s a long story with a lot of details. And while it’s a very crazy story, they don’t look at me like I’m crazy. They hang

on my every word and write everything I say down on a little notepad.

“You had quite a night,” a tall dark-haired officer named Moreno comments.

“Yeah.” My hands have not stopped shaking for the last hour. I’m not sure if they’ll ever stop shaking. Good thing I don’t want to be a surgeon. “Where did you take Jade and Damon?”

“To jail,” Moreno says. “Don’t worry—they won’t be able to hurt you ever again.”

Of course, that’s not much consolation after all the things that they’ve already done. Five dead bodies on the unit. And Will down in the ICU, a tube stuck down his throat so he can breathe.

Over Moreno’s shoulder, I can see them wheeling a stretcher out of the seclusion room. Unlike when they were taking Will out of the unit, there’s no urgency now. All the people in that room are already dead. The stretcher has a body on it, covered head to toe in a white sheet.

As the stretcher hits a crack in the floor, something drops out from under the sheet. It takes me a second to realize what it is.

It’s a package of Ring Dings.

It must be Cameron under the sheets. I should have guessed based on the bulky outline of the body—the former college football player. I clasp a hand over my mouth, my eyes filling with tears. I was such a jerk to him the

last time we talked. He tried to extend an olive branch, and I shut him down.

In my defense, I didn’t realize it would be the last time we would talk

ever.

And now he’s dead. He’ll never be an orthopedic surgeon. He’ll never be anything. How could this be? He was only twenty-four years old. Yes, he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good guy. All he wanted was to put people back together again after they got hurt.

“You okay?” Moreno asks me.

I consider lying and trying to be strong, but instead I shake my head. “No. Not at all.”

My phone buzzes inside my scrub pocket. With the door to the unit open, we seem to be getting cell reception, although I’ve been too busy to spend any time on my phone. Eventually, I need to tell other people what happened here, but I’m not ready for it. Not yet.

I did do one thing though when I had a spare moment. I googled The Daily Chronicle and brought up a list of the staff members. And there he was, third from last, along with a color photograph. William Schoenfeld, Staff Reporter.

He was telling the truth all along.

My phone buzzes again, and I pull it out of my scrub pocket. There are a bunch of text messages from Gabby that are equal parts curious, irritated, and concerned. I skim to the final message:

Where are you??? There are like a million police cars here!

 

I clear my throat. “Hey, is it okay if I leave? My roommate is waiting outside and I’ve been up the whole night.”

Moreno hesitates. “Okay, but I’m going to give you my card. After you get some rest, give me a call right away. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

I don’t doubt that.

It’s like I’m in a haze as I walk down the hallway to the elevators. Last night, I did this exact same walk in reverse. I was a completely different person back then. It feels like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe where my whole life has changed overnight.

When I get into the elevator, I consider stopping off at the ICU. I’m desperate to know if Will is doing okay. But Gabby is waiting for me downstairs, and I don’t even know what floor the ICU is on. I’ll call when I

get home. I may even try to visit if I can work up the nerve to ever set foot in this building again.

The elevators are just as slow on the way down as they were on the way up. There are a handful of people in the elevator, all oblivious to what happened last night on the ninth floor. I’m sure most people know something happened, but the details will probably emerge over the next twenty-four hours. It’s surreal to be in a small space filled with people who have no idea what I have just been through.

I lean against the side of the elevator, resting my head on the metal surface. I have been running on adrenaline the last couple of hours, but now the exhaustion hits me like a ton of bricks. I could sleep standing up at this point. My eyes sag shut, and for a moment, I almost start to drift off until my phone buzzes again. It’s a text message from my mother.

Are you busy this weekend? I thought I could take you to lunch tomorrow.

 

Lunch with my mother? Oh God, that sounds exhausting. And yet, I find myself punching in:

Sure.

 

And then:

I love you.

 

That may have been the wrong thing to say. Almost immediately, a text message appears on the screen:

I love you too. Is everything okay?????

 

And then I tell my mother the biggest lie I have ever told her in my entire life:

Yes.

 

I shove my phone back in my pocket just as the elevator doors slide open. It’s the lobby.

Without thinking about it, my legs move me forward. I keep walking until I get to the entrance to the hospital. I scan the entranceway until I spot

that gray Toyota all the way on the side—the one that brought me here twelve hours ago, although it feels like twelve years. Somebody is honking at Gabby, but she’s not moving. She waves at me vigorously.

I walk over to the Toyota and slide into the passenger seat without saying hello. Gabby flashes me a smile. “I thought they were going to tow me away or something,” she says. “There’s something seriously crazy going on at the hospital. Did you see all those cop cars?”

“I guess,” I murmur. Sooner or later, Gabby will find out about everything that happened last night. She’ll find out that our classmate is dead. But right now, I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.

“So how did you like Dr. Beck?” she asks. “He’s pretty great, isn’t he?” “Yep.”

“If I decide to do psychiatry,” she says, “I want him to be my mentor.”

As Gabby turns her key in the ignition and the engine roars to life, I dig around inside my scrub pocket, pushing aside the packet of saltines. After a second, I retrieve the crinkly plastic package that I had surreptitiously swiped off the floor of Ward D just before I left.

“Ring Dings!” Gabby exclaims. “Your favorite! Where did you get them?”

“Cam brought them,” I mumble. “He, uh… he switched with Stephanie to be on-call tonight.”

“Oh, wow,” she sighs. “You know, I ran into him last week and he was asking me if there was any chance you would take him back. I told him absolutely not. I told him you hated him.”

I use my teeth to rip open the plastic packaging. “Oh…”

“But I’ve been thinking about it, and he’s not such a bad guy,” she says. “I mean, he’s an idiot, for sure. But he likes you a lot. You think you would ever get back together with him?”

I ignore her question as the plastic tears under my teeth. I rip the bag the rest of the way open. “Do you want one of these?”

“Sure. I never say no to chocolate cake.”

I pass her one of the two chocolate cake pies as I take a bite of my own. I close my eyes, chewing on the chocolate and cream mixed together. It’s the last Ring Ding I’ll ever eat.