Alice glared down at him a moment, then lowered the tray with the three cups. "Time for your medications. Don"t give me any grief. I have things to do, other patients waiting for my caring touch, so hurry it up."
Alex nodded and took the cup with the Thorazine. He trapped the syrupy liquid in his mouth under his tongue as before, then added the pills to it. He spit the whole thing into the water cup after drinking down the water. He crushed the cup and threw it in the wastebasket with the first two.
Alice had watched him the whole time. Her gaze moved to the wastebasket. She stood for a moment, then tossed the tray on the bed and bent to retrieve the larger of the three cups, the one that had held the water and now contained the discarded drugs.
She looked in the cup and then angrily threw it in his lap.
"Nice try. You have ten seconds to drink it all down or I"m going to go get a couple of orderlies and we"re going to put you in a straitjacket."
Alex blinked as he had when he"d been heavily drugged. "But I"ll need water to swallow this."
"Clock"s ticking, Alex."
He caught a glimpse of her other hand behind her back. She had a syringe.
Alex exploded out of the chair.
A brief, clipped cry of surprise was all that made it out before he broke her jaw.
He immediately grabbed her throat with both hands. He saw her hand with the syringe come up. He kept hold of her throat with one hand and with the other seized her hand and bent it downward until her wrist snapped. The syringe dropped to the floor, bouncing several times.
Alice couldn"t cry for help, not only because he was crushing her windpipe, but because her jaw was broken and hanging crookedly. Blood ran in strings from the side of her mouth, leaving a bright red stain that spread across the shoulder of her stark white dress.
Her back arched as she tried to get away, but Alex had her throat in a death grip. She beat her good fist against him to no effect as he took her to her knees. All the while she tried to lean back away from him.
Alex was lost in a life-or-death rage. He could see as well as feel his thumbs crushing her throat closed. He put every fiber of his strength into squeezing harder yet. He gritted his teeth, letting out a low growl with the effort.
Alice"s eyes bulged. She frantically swung her arm, trying to beat him back. Alex was immune to her impotent blows. She began turning blue. Her tongue swelled from her mouth as she desperately tried to gasp a breath, but it was impossible.
Alex followed her to the ground, straddling her as he choked the life out of her. He held her head against the floor, using his weight to help crush her throat. Her arms flailed weakly. Her mouth moved as if she was trying to say something, but her distended tongue prevented her from even mouthing words for which there was no air.
Alex let his anger rage at this woman who intended to be a party to torturing Jax. He wanted this woman dead. He wanted them all dead.
Alex had for so long been holding back his rage, his need to strike out and fight back, that it felt exhilarating to finally be able to let that fury loose.
He didn"t know how long she had been dead before he even realized it.
He finally sat back on his heels, catching his breath. With the back of his wrist he wiped sweat from his brow.
She was purple. Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. Her tongue bulged from her mouth, lying over to the side. Saliva and blood trickled out.
Alex raked his fingers back though his hair. He thought he might be sick.
He finally got up off the corpse. He saw the syringe and picked it up. The cap was missing. He realized that she must have popped it off with a thumb. He cast about and finally found the cap under the bed. He replaced it and put the syringe in his pocket.
In the eerie silence, the bed squeaked as Alex leaned back against it. He stared at the dead woman sprawled in the middle of the floor.
He"d had no choice, of course, but this complicated things. He had to figure out what he was going to do with her now. He considered stuffing her in the wardrobe, but when he opened the door to check its size, he realized that there was no way she would fit. He could push her under the bed, but the bedcovers didn"t hang down far enough to hide anything under such a high hospital bed.
He paced, trying to think. Soon, someone was going to come in and they would see her. If nothing else they would come that night to get him and take him over to their private torture session in the women"s shower.
He considered putting Alice against the wall, behind where the door opened, cleaning up the mess, and then going down to the sunroom to wait. It would probably be Henry who came looking for him. If Alex only left on the reading lamp over the bed, Henry might pop his head in, not see Alex, and go to the sunroom.
He realized that that was a lousy plan. Any number of things were likely to go wrong. People were soon going to wonder where Alice was and start searching for her. The orderlies were quick to pick up on such things. Some of the patients could be dangerous and they didn"t allow staff to go unaccounted for. They knew that she was doing med rounds. It was probably only a matter of minutes before they came looking for her to make sure she was all right.
Alex paced, frantically trying to think of what he could do, glancing over at the corpse every time he turned to pace in the other direction. He needed to somehow make Alice disappear.
He stopped suddenly and stared down at the woman. She was a mess. Blood from when he had struck her and broken her jaw lay in a long string halfway across the floor. Alice had lost control of herself as he had strangled her. There was a spreading puddle of urine under her sprawled legs.
He needed her to disappear.
Alex wondered if it was possible.
He could try. At this point he had no other ideas and nothing to lose.
He ran to the bed. It was old and squeaked whenever someone leaned against it. When things squeaked like that it usually meant that screws had worked loose. He ran his fingers along the metal bars and quickly found a self-tapping metal screw sticking up at the end of the side rail. He used his thumb and the side of his first finger to loosen it. He gritted his teeth with the effort. Had he not been so frantic he might not have been able to unscrew it with his bare hands.
The screw wasn"t long-certainly not long enough to be an effective weapon-but it had a relatively sharp point and was long enough for his purpose. He hurried over to Alice and squatted down beside her purple face.
He held the screw over the dead woman"s forehead as he thought. He closed his eyes as he worked to remember. He had seen Jax activate a lifeline several times. The first time it had been shocking to see her carving in Bethany"s forehead. Such surprise helped indelibly fix the picture in his mind.
More than that, though, he was an artist. Designs stuck in his head. He remembered forms, spatial relationships. He clearly recalled that every time Jax had drawn the design it looked the same. He was pretty sure that he remembered the way Jax had cut that design into foreheads. He let himself see it in his mind.
He could hear orderlies talking as they walked along the hallway outside his room. He had no choice but to try.
With the point of the screw Alex started carving the lines into Alice"s forehead. He made the arc that Jax had done first, then added two angled lines on the right and one on the left. He cut each line in turn, concentrating on the mental picture he had of the lines in Bethany"s forehead, making them precisely the same angles he remembered.
Alex lost himself in the task, just as he lost himself in painting. He made each stroke with confidence, the way Jax had. The point of the screw dragged against bone as he pulled it across the skin of Alice"s forehead. He finished with the pattern that overlaid the beginning arc, just as Jax had done.
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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, m.u.f.fled 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.
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."
Alex"s insides roiled. He remembered Jax telling him about how Sedrick Vendis liked to hang people up by their arms and how it slowly and painfully suffocated them. He was so angry that it was making him dizzy. Rage strained to be let loose.
Instead, he kept quiet as he waited. He knew that the doctor was working up to something.
"I have a deal to offer you, Alex."
Alex frowned a little. "What kind of deal?"
"If you cooperate and tell us everything we want to know, right now, right up front, I"ll see if I can"t get them to let me give you both an overdose."
"An overdose? You mean to kill us?"
Dr. Hoffmann nodded as he looked into Alex"s eyes. "One way or another, after you both give up what you know, you"re both going to die. They"re pretty adamant about wanting you dead and being rid of the Rahl line-after they get what they need from you, of course-but they"re especially eager to waste Jax."
"Do they know you"re making such an offer?"
"No," he admitted. "But if you cooperate and tell me everything, I"ll see if I can"t talk them into letting me give you each an injection. They want the information, and they want you both dead. Give me the information without having to resort to torture and I can make it a peaceful death for both of you. You"ll just go to sleep and never wake up."
Alex knew that Vendis, Yuri, and Henry would never go for such a deal. They were looking forward to what was coming and they had well-founded confidence that they would get all the information they wanted in their own way.
"You"re in the wrong line of medicine, Dr. Hoffmann. You should have become a veterinarian."
The doctor frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"Because veterinarians get paid for performing euthanasia. When you do that to people it"s called murder. Murder is punishable by death."
A small, cruel smile touched the corners of his mouth. "But if you don"t let me help you, I won"t be committing murder-they will."
Alex tried to act a little slow in his response, as if he had to work to talk. "The nurses" station is filled with records. You"ve no doubt been billing the state for care while trying to extract information from people. After all, you have to justify the patient count and all the drugs you"ve been using. I"m sure that you"ve been going through large quant.i.ties of controlled substances.
"Sooner or later when the state authorities audit the hospital"s drug records they"re going to discover that something strange has been going on here, that the numbers don"t match. They"re going to want to talk to your patients, but your patients, listed in those records, will be dead.
"By the way, what do you plan to do with the bodies? Are you experienced at disposing of dead people? How many deaths have you been party to, Doctor? What are you going to do if corpses of your patients are found? The authorities will certainly have a lot of questions for you." Alex let him wonder how he would explain it, let him worry about all the evidence sitting there in those records that would tie him to murder.
The doctor glanced briefly in the direction of the nurses" station, where the files were kept on shelves.
"They aren"t going to learn anything," he finally said.
He didn"t sound confident. He sounded concerned.
"How much are they paying you to be a party to murder, Doctor? Or were you a killer before they ever came along? Did you become a psychiatrist to hide your need to kill? To hide your urges? Did you think that being a doctor to psychopaths would be the perfect cover for your own perverted needs?"
Dr. Hoffmann"s expression soured. "Have it your way. You can"t say I didn"t offer to help you out. Maybe if you give up the information quickly enough you"ll get lucky and they"ll cut your throat before they start in on Jax. I would have thought you would have taken the offer for her sake if not your own."
Alex almost grabbed the man by the throat the way he had Alice. With the greatest of effort he restrained himself. He had to get to Jax. After what he had just heard about her condition, that was more important than ever.
"Let what they do to her be on your conscience, since that"s the choice you made for her." The doctor gestured toward the door. "Let"s go."
"Any ideas?" Henry asked as they approached.
"Alice must have gotten cold feet and taken off," Dr. Hoffmann said.
He sounded annoyed and short-tempered. Alex knew that he had gotten to the man. He wanted him distracted and preoccupied.
"Just as well." Henry"s face betrayed anything but worry for the woman. "She was too uppity for my taste. I often suspected that she was planted here to watch us. Maybe now that it"s being wrapped up she was recalled. We have more important things to worry about. Let"s go."
Alex fell in behind Henry as they turned down the hall. The lights were mostly off, leaving the corridor to gloomy shadows. Two more orderlies that Alex hadn"t known were part of the scheme shadowed the doctor. He wondered if the whole place could be a front for their activities.
The nurses" station was staffed by three nurses, all engaged in a light conversation with an orderly sitting at a desk to the side. Charts and a jumbled stack of files sat on the desk. When they saw the somber group enter their station on the way through, they made themselves busy.
The women"s ward on the ninth floor was just as dark as the men"s wing had been. The small group paused when Alex"s mother unexpectedly shuffled out of the bathroom. She was wearing pajamas and a pink robe that Alex had given her. She only briefly glanced in their direction before yawning and turning back toward her room. She had looked at Alex, along with the rest of the party, but he didn"t think she had recognized him.
When she had shuffled down the hall and turned in to her room without looking back, Henry shoved Alex into the women"s bathroom. It was better lit than the hall so that patients could use the bathroom in the night if they needed to. A sign saying "Out of Order" was taped to the shower door.