When Devils Sing(2)

The nurse was still talking. She reached out and grabbed Sam’s arm.

Sam jerked back. “Don’t you touch me,” she snapped.

The nurse sighed. “Your brother is in good hands. You won’t be helpin’ a thing if you try and follow him. Understand?”

Sam crossed her arms. Something in her shoulder popped a little. “Fine.”

“All right,” the nurse said. “Now, let’s get you looked at.”

Sam followed the woman into an examination room. She motioned for Sam to sit on the table, but she hovered along the wall instead. The tiny space felt like a cage.

“Someone will be in shortly,” the nurse said. She hesitated at the door, then asked, “Is there anyone you need me to call? Your parents?”

Sam blinked, then swallowed. “Yeah. My daddy. Wiley Calhoun.”

The nurse’s eyes widened. “Is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sam recognized familiar fear bleed into the woman’s face. It was the same fear her daddy inspired in everyone around Carrion, including herself. Being the one to call about Ben was out of the question.

She scrawled down the number Sam recited. “Anything you want me to tell him specifically?”

Sam’s chin quivered. “Tell him his son is dying.”

The nurse gave her an awful, pitiful look. “We don’t know that.”

Sam turned her eyes to the hard tile floor. “I can feel it.”

The nurse left Sam without another word. A few minutes passed. Sam’s body shook from adrenaline. Her head pounded. The room began to spin and shrink around her. She peeled away from the wall and opened the door, finding the hallway empty. The fluorescent lights lining the ceiling buzzed overhead. It was too loud, too much.

Sam stumbled down the hall, through the hospital doors, and out into the smoky summer night, her vision swimming.

Angry, fearful tears streaked her freckled cheeks as she stood outside Clearwater Regional Hospital. The tears of a girl who believed her brother was dying somewhere in the building behind her.

And it was all her fault.

Sam never cried. Not at the hands of her daddy, nor the sharp tongue of her mama.

But this was Ben. Her baby brother who crawled into her bed during thunderstorms, or when their daddy was three bottles in, searching for something to hurt.

It felt as if the things she’d tried to protect Ben from had added up to nothing. Misfortune had a way of befalling her like a tornado leveling a town, taking everything with it.

Sam swiped at her face, trying to wipe away the tears, but it only left her skin feeling grimy and half-wet. She glanced around the dark, quiet parking lot. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. She couldn’t go back inside to the tiny, claustrophobic exam room. Couldn’t just stand there, waiting for an ambulance to run her over.

She walked. Whatever direction her feet would take her.

As she stalked along the rows of parked cars, Sam fumbled in her pocket for her phone—although who she planned to call, she had no idea. Her former best friend, Dawson Sumter, was the one person she used to go to when things got bad. But they hadn’t spoken for weeks.

Not since their fight a month ago that had severed the connection between them.

Sam wanted to scream. She resisted the urge to throw her phone onto the paved ground of the parking lot, but she wanted to break something. Needed to break something.

She was like her daddy in that way.

Sam lashed out with her fist and hit the nearest parked car. Less of a punch and more a slap across steel. It stung her hand, but what was one more injury, one more little ache? She hit the car again, and then again. Over and over until her good hand was numb and red, her knuckles swelling with fresh blood.

Sam stood there, breathing hard, her hand throbbing in time with her pulse. The vehicle didn’t have a scratch on it. No trace of her hand, of her fury.

No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t leave a mark.

“You look like you could use a light,” a voice said.

Sam whirled. A man leaned against an old Jeep a few spaces down, the car caked in Georgia red clay and dirt. He took a drag on a cigarette, his silhouette barely visible beneath the dim parking lot light.

“Sorry.” Sam stood there, too numb from the accident to feel frightened. Or to feel much of anything at all. “I thought I was alone.”

The man shrugged. “I’ve seen worse in this parking lot. Rough night?”

“Yeah.” Only one word, but even that came out strained.

The man extended an unlit cigarette out to her.

Sam inched closer, studying him with a wary eye. He had a young face with a shadow of facial hair. Dressed like any Carrion man—tattered button-down, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Faded jeans with fraying bottoms. His work boots were dull and weathered.

But it was his eyes that stood out to her. Irises so dark they looked black. Even in the glare of the parking lot light, his gaze was razor-sharp.

“Care to talk about it?” The man exhaled smoke from his nose. “I’m a fine listener.”

Sam hesitated, then reached out to take the cigarette from his hand. He leaned closer and flicked his lighter. Sam watched the tip of her cigarette glow bright orange in the dark. She put the filter between her lips but didn’t inhale. The man stared at her as she held the cigarette like it was a prop.