When they reached the hospital, Nest and Robert chained their bikes to the rack by the front entry and went inside. It was after nine o’clock, and the waiting room was quiet, most of the visitors gone home for the night. Side by side, they walked up to look in on Nest’s grandfather, but he was sleeping again, so they didn’t stay. Instead, they found a stairwell that connected the six floors of the hospital and stood just outside, glancing around surreptitiously.
“So, what’s the plan, Stan?” Robert asked, lifting one eyebrow.
“He’s in five fourteen,” Nest answered. “Just off the stairway. You go up the elevator and talk to whoever’s working the nursing station. Ask about Jared or something. I’ll go up the stairs and slip into his room while they’re busy with you.”
Robert smirked. “That’s your whole plan?”
“Assuming you intend to help.”
He stared at her. “Tell you what. I’ll help if you’ll tell me what you did to me last night. The truth, this time.”
She stared back at him without answering, thinking it over. Then she said, “I used magic on you.”
He hesitated, and she could tell that for just half a second he believed her. Then he smirked dismissively. “You’re weirder than I am, Nest. You know that? Okay, let’s go.”
She waited until she saw him stop in front of the elevator; then she entered the stairwell and began to climb. She reached the fifth floor, inched the door open, and peered out into the hall. It was virtually deserted. She could see room 514 almost directly across from her. When Robert stepped out of the elevator a moment later and walked over to the nursing station, she slipped from her hiding place.
A moment later, she was inside Jared’s room.
Jared Scott lay motionless in a hospital bed, looking small and lost amid an array of equipment, eyes staring at nothing behind half-closed lids, arms and legs laid out straight beneath the covers, face pale and drawn. The room was dark except for the lights from the monitors and a small night-light near the door. The blinds to the street were closed, and the air conditioner hummed softly. Nest glanced around the room, then back at Jared. A bandage covered the top half of his head, and there were raw, savage marks on his face and arms from the beating he had received. She stared at him in despair, her eyes shifting from his face to the blinking green lights of the monitoring equipment and back again.
She had been thinking about coming to see him all afternoon, ever since leaving her grandfather. Spook had decided her. She would use her magic to help Jared. She didn’t know for certain that she could, of course. She had never used the magic this way. But she understood its potential to affect the human body, and there was a chance she could do some good. She needed to try, perhaps as much for herself as for him. She needed to step out from her father’s shadow, from the dark legacy of his life, something she would never be able to do until she embraced what he had given her and turned it to a use he would never have considered. She would start here.
She walked over to Jared’s bed and lowered the railing so that she could sit next to him. “Hey, Jared,” she said softly.
She touched his hand, held it in her own as she had held her grandfather’s that afternoon, and reached up to stroke his face. His skin felt warm and soft. She waited to see if he would respond, but he didn’t. He just lay there, staring. She fought to hold back her tears.
This would be dangerous, she knew. It would be risky. If the magic failed her, she might kill Jared. But she knew as well, somewhere deep inside, that if she failed to act, she would lose him anyway. He was not coming back alone from wherever he had gone. He was waiting there for her to come get him.
She leaned over him, still holding his hand, and stared down into his unseeing eyes. “Jared, it’s me, Nest,” she whispered.