The Law of Nines

Alex sat back on his heels, holding the screw in his fingers, looking at the thing he had drawn. Blood covered his fingers and ran down his wrist.

Unexpectedly, Alice ceased to be there. She didn’t become transparent and slowly fade away like in a ghost movie. It didn’t look like some spooky special effect. There was no drama to it. She was there one moment, and the next instant she simply wasn’t.

Alex blinked in astonishment. He looked around. The blood across the floor was gone. The puddle of urine was gone. He looked at his bloody fingers holding the screw. There was no blood. He sat still for a moment, taking it in.

He had just drawn a spell and made someone disappear before his very eyes. He had done it. It was so astonishing, and such a huge relief, that Alex laughed.

He heard orderlies coming down the hall. By their brief, muffled words, he could tell that they were putting their head into each room along the way, asking if anyone had seen Alice.

Alex scrambled to his chair and sat, working up a dazed look. He stared ahead, waiting for the door to open.

That was when he saw the med tray on the bed.

Alex jumped up and snatched the tray. He shoved it under the mattress. He wiped his sweaty hands on his thighs as he looked around the room. Everything looked normal. Nothing looked out of place.

He plopped down in the chair, letting his hands lie limp at his sides.

The door opened partway as an orderly leaned halfway in and glanced around the room. “Have you seen Nurse Alice?”

Alex gave the man a stuporous look. “She gave me my medicine and left.”

The orderly nodded and hurried away. When the door shut, Alex let out a sigh of relief.

Now he had to wait for night, when they would come to get him. They would expect him to be more awake but they would also believe he would still be sufficiently sedated that they could torture answers out of him and he wouldn’t fight back.

Alex allowed himself a smile of triumph for this much of it. The next part would be vastly more difficult, and he didn’t know if he would succeed, but he had finally taken back control of his life.

As he sat waiting, he worried about Jax, hoping she could hold out. He couldn’t fail. The price of failure was unacceptable.

He had promised her that as long as he could help it, he wasn’t going to allow them to hurt her. He meant it.

36.

LONG AFTER DARK ALEX WAS STILL WAITING. He worried that they might have hatched some new plan. A thousand different terrors ran through his mind as he waited. As the night wore on, there might have hatched some new plan. A thousand different terrors ran through his mind as he waited. As the night wore on, there was nothing he could do but wait. He had no way to get to Jax on his own.

Henry and Dr. Hoffmann finally showed up long after lights-out. The doctor was without his usual stethoscope, although he was wearing his white coat. Henry, looking smug—as smug as he could look with bandages covering his nose—waited back near the door.

Before the door had closed, Alex had seen two more orderlies fold their arms and take up posts just outside. They apparently were going to be ready if his reduced medication had rendered him more alert than they expected. They expected him to be at least aware enough to care what happened to him and Jax, but rather slow and submissive. Alex wanted them to see what they expected to see, so that was the part he played.

He rose from his chair as the doctor approached, trying to do it in a way that would look dull and a little awkward.

“Alice gave you your medication this morning?” the doctor asked as he smoothed thin strands of hair over his bald patch.

“Yes.” Alex gestured to the wastebasket. “I threw the cups away after I took the medication.”

The doctor glanced toward the trash. Alex didn’t think that the man would actually go through the trash and inspect the discarded paper cups, and fortunately he didn’t. He instead looked back at Alex’s eyes.

“Throughout this entire thing I’ve tried to do this without people having to get hurt. I believe that such methods are the best way of actually getting the truth. Torture is a poor way to get good information. It isn’t reliable. People being tortured will say anything they think the questioner wants to hear. People being tortured will confess to witchcraft if that’s what is expected. But whether I like it or not, the time for trying to find answers my way is past.”

He pressed his lips tight for a moment. “Take my advice, Alex. Answer their questions.”

“Did they touch her?”

The doctor glanced back over his shoulder at the big orderly waiting by the door. “No. But she’s been hanging there since last night. The drugs are wearing off and she’s coming around, but that may only be making it worse for her. Hanging by your arms like that is dangerous in and of itself. She’s having trouble breathing.”