I couldn’t get the smell of the players’ fear off my skin.
Granted, I didn’t feel feral, like I might attack anyone at any given moment, but I no longer felt the oppressive calm of post-ritual fog either. Something darker had taken root in me; something that felt more sinister and more permanent than the fleeting bursts of anger I experienced before I came to Carvell. This was a calm, almost indifferent knowledge that I would hurt anyone who hurt me – or Lottie.
I would hurt them, and I would enjoy it immensely.
Ward sixteen was mostly empty of patients. It was a dated hospital, with lacquered pine furniture and linoleum floors that might have once been cheery mint green but were now faded beige. The pale blue curtain that enclosed Lottie’s bed had come loose of several hooks, slouching defeatedly at one end.
Lottie was propped up in bed with an impossible smile on her face. There was a misshapen lump on the top left of her forehead, and her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders, wavy from where her French plaits had been. Her easy laugh carried around the whole of the ward as she told the nearest nurse what had happened.
I smiled to myself.
Just because I’m sunshiney as fuck doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.
A couple of her teammates who’d ridden in the ambulance occupied the two chairs beside her bed, and the three of them were laughing with the nurse when I entered – but they quickly fell silent at the sight of me. I shifted my weight from brogue to brogue, unsure how to begin.
After an awkward beat, Lottie laughed again and said, ‘Oh hey, Jack Unterweger.’
I frowned. ‘Jack . . .?’
‘The Vienna Strangler. I hear you got a bit . . .’ She held her hands up to her throat and mimed strangling herself, then she dropped them again and looked at me pointedly. ‘As much as I’m grateful for you defending my honour, dearest knight in shining armour, I really don’t want you to murder anyone on my behalf.’
Her tone was light and airy, likely for the benefit of her teammates, but there was an intensity in her stare that only I could read.
She was scared for me. I shouldn’t have wanted to hurt anyone at this point in the cycle.
I swallowed hard, gesturing to her bump. ‘How’s the head?’
‘They’ve given me some pretty excellent pain meds.’ A lopsided grin. ‘I’m off for a CT scan in a bit, but they’re not too worried. I seem to largely be making sense.’ She turned to her teammates. ‘Hey, can you give me and Alice a minute alone?’
Her teammates gave her a coy smile, and she rolled her eyes.
What had she told them about me? Or were their reactions based solely on me leaping to her violent defence?
Once we were alone, though, there was nothing tender or romantic between us. I perched on the edge of the nearest chair, tension pulling taut up the ridges of my shoulders.
‘Alice,’ she said in a low voice, the vowels elongating thanks to her meds. ‘What the hell happened?’
Slowly rotating my silver serpent ring around my index finger, I couldn’t meet her eye as I answered.
‘Something bad. My soul is no longer split, but it’s not mended either. I think . . .’ I swallowed the dry-ice lump in my throat. ‘I think I tore through the veil.’