Pines

the dark until his finger found the switch.
    Flicked the light.
    There was a hand towel hanging from a rack beside the shower. He grabbed it, wrapped it around his hand, and faced the mirror.
    Cocked his arm back.
    You have thirty seconds, maybe less.
    But his reflection derailed him.
    Oh God
. He’d known it was bad, but Pope had beaten the shit out of him—his upper lip twice the size, his nose giant and bruised like a rotted strawberry, a gash across his right cheek closed with what must have been twenty stitches, and his eyes...
    A miracle that he could see at all. They were black and purple and encased in folds of swollen skin like he was in the throes of a near-fatal allergic reaction.
    No time to dwell on it.
    He punched the lower right corner of the mirror and held his towel-wrapped fist against the broken glass so it didn’t all fall out at once.
    He’d struck a perfect blow—minimal damage, large fractures. He quickly picked the pieces away with his free hand, laid them out on the sink, and chose the largest of the bunch.
    Then he unwrapped his right hand, hit the lights, and felt his way back out into the bedroom.
    There was nothing to see but a razor-thin line of light beneath the door.
    Edging forward, he pressed his ear against it.
    The sound was faint, but he could hear the distant noise of doors opening and closing.
    They were checking every room, and the slams sounded far enough away that he thought they were probably still in the main corridor.
    Hoped he wasn’t wrong about that.
    He wondered if the elevator doors were still open. If they saw the car down here, no doubt they’d surmise he’d fled to the basement. He and Beverly should have sent the elevator back to four, but there was no way to fix their oversight now.
    Reaching down, he found the doorknob and grasped it.
    As he turned it slowly, he tried to steady his breathing, to drive his BPMs back down into a range that didn’t make him feel on the verge of fainting.
    When the latch had cleared its housing, Ethan gave the gentlest tug.
    The door swung in two inches, the hinges mercifully silent.
    A long triangle of light fell across the checkered linoleum under his bare feet.
    The sounds of the door slams were louder.
    He held the mirror shard and slid it between the open door and the jamb, inching it farther and farther, millimeter by millimeter, until it showed a reflection of the corridor behind him.
    Empty.
    Another door swung closed.
    Between the slams, there was the impact of rubber-soled shoes on the floor and nothing else. One of the fluorescent bulbs nearby was malfunctioning, flickering intermittently and throwing the corridor into alternating bursts of darkness and light.
    The shadow preceded the person—a faint darkening across the floor in the vicinity of the nurses’ station—and then Nurse Pam strolled into view.
    She stopped at the intersection of the four corridors and stood absolutely still, holding something in her right hand that Ethan couldn’t identify from this distance, although one end of it cast off shimmers of reflected light.
    Thirty seconds elapsed, and then she turned and started down Ethan’s corridor, walking carefully, purposefully, in short, controlled strides and with a smile that seemed too wide to fit across her face.
    After several steps, she stopped, brought her knees together, and knelt down to inspect something on the linoleum. With her free hand, she wiped a finger across the floor and held it up, Ethan realizing with a jolt of anxiety what it was, how the nurse had known which corridor to take.
    Water from Beverly’s raincoat.
    And it was going to lead her straight to the door across the hall. To Beverly.
    Nurse Pam stood up.
    Slowly, she began to walk, studying the linoleum as she crossed the tiles.
    Ethan saw that the object in her hand was a syringe and needle.
    “Mr. Burke?”
    He hadn’t expected her to speak, and the sound of her bright, malignant voice echoing down the empty corridors of the hospital put a sliver of ice in the small of his back.
    “I know you’re near. I know you can hear me.”
    She was getting too close for comfort, Ethan fearing that any second now, she’d spot the mirror in his hand.
    Ethan drew the shard of glass back into the room and eased the door closed with even greater care and precision.
    “Since you’re my new favorite patient,” the nurse continued, “I’m going to make you a special deal.”
    Ethan noted something at the base of his