I can feel Dr. Hooter’s breath on my back as I scroll through my PowerPoint later in the afternoon.
“So, as you know, Zach turned back after he ate this cooked herb—Holly Basil, also known as tulsi.” I skipped to the bibliography page and pointed at Wikipedia. “Reference.”
For a moment, I thought that Dr. Hooter was processing this chunky bit of new knowledge, which, as a former professor at Kendall High, he does NOT know at all about his research programs, meetings, and studies.
“This is very neat research. But we aren’t going to take your idea,” he said.
“But we spent five days researching, referencing, and making sure it’s right!” I said, getting on my feet, burning with frustration.
“We are NOT going to risk that!” Hooter raised his voice a little, but do I even care? My chest was going up and down in a very frantic way. I can hear nothing—not the warnings from the nurse, not the soothing words from Zach, not the tugs from Chloe, but blood roaring in my ears.
“SHE IS GOING TO DIE!” I screamed wildly at everyone in the room. Fighting the pulls from Zach and losing to it, I was in a frenzy, trying to run away, smashing at anything that got in my way. But Zach was Zach; one of the strongest and fastest people in the grade, perhaps the school. He pulled me back easily with Chloe’s help. I let out screeches after screeches, trying to wiggle myself to freedom, but Zach’s hands were locked around my waist and Chloe’s on my shoulder.
“Get off, you idiots!” I snarled as I struggled. “If Zoe dies, it’s all your fault!”
“For once, what are you doing?” Chloe snarled back, clutching harder, digging her nails into my shoulders.
“Katina! Calm down! Look at me!” Zach said, turning my face toward him, nearly breaking my neck. I twisted, avoiding his burning gaze. “LOOK AT ME!” His emerald green eyes fixed on mine.
“I know you want to save Zoe,” he said as I stopped struggling. “But you can’t risk causing chaos and getting caught by your aunt!”
“Who cares?” I shouted, devastated. “I don’t care if my aunt blows up the whole hospital!”
“I know, but you shouldn’t risk that,” Chloe chimed in.
I just dipped my head to the ground.
Zach shooed everybody away using his ultimate commanding voice. Then he looked at me.
“Kat,” he said gently. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Chloe tucked her jacket around my shoulders. “The night’s chilly,” she whispered.
“Katina, my mom isn’t the science teacher,” he said.
“What?” Chloe and I both exclaimed, meeting Zach’s undoubtedly certain eyes.
“Then, who else?” Chloe asked for me since I didn’t really feel like talking right now.
“She killed herself. I apparently have no idea how she looks or whether she loves me or not. I only know her name: Irene Hummerson.”
“Irene Hummerson? That’s my real mom!” I frowned at Zach, wondering if he was making it up just to distract me from Zoe.
“Wait, what? Your surname’s Crown!” He looked very confused, making a face like he does when he’s doing his math homework.
“She married a man called Shaun Crown. He died in a lab explosion,” I responded briefly.
“Stop making things up! My dad also died!” Zach mumbled through a mouthful of Coke Zero, spitting some out.
“Zach, stop spitting—and listen up: You guys look alike,” Chloe said fairly.
Well, that made things complicated. Imagine you just realized your classmate looked 100% like you and your dead mothers shared the exact same name.
We didn’t talk about it for the rest of the day, though Zach shoved me and Chloe under the bed in the afternoon.
“What are you doing?” Chloe hissed at him when Zach shoved her under the bed.
“Sorry. But I think Kat’s aunt is coming to post the poster about finding her,” he said.
“Then she will ask the reception! They know me!” I shrieked, panicking.
“Then our best chance is to sneak out and get out of this stinking place.”
“What about Zoe?” I asked.
“We will take her if she’s in good shape,” Zach said in a ‘Captain’ voice.
Deal, I think. We will have an extra person if Zoe’s okay and more trouble if she’s not.
We sneaked out of the room and quickly got to the stairs because we might get noticed if we took the elevator. And Zach wasn’t supposed to be there anyway. The sky became cloudy with a storm as the whole corridor grew darker and more ominous. As we stalked through the hospital—nearly getting caught a few times—the door in front of us closed in like a weird rectangular monster. Chloe peered inside from the tiny bit of clear glass, then gasped.
“She’s gone,” she said, puzzled.
I squeezed toward the cold glass and peered in: the room looked so normal as a CICU room, though it was…Zoe-less. The bed looked like it had been trampled by a crazy person trying to break it. There was a smashed window, tangled tubes that had previously kept Zoe from dying, and the worst; weird, thick black liquid oozing from the bottle in the middle of the bed. I shivered. Only three people in this world who were still conscious knew the meaning of it—we’ve lost Zoe.
