I hear beeping. My head is in a vice as I try to wake up but it's so hard. Like forcing yourself to wake up from a bad dream. I manage to slit my eyes open and I can barely make out a man in a lab coat standing beside me. Am I in bed?

"Nurse Hale, I need you in Room 302, stat," he says into the intercom and bends over to stare me in the face. "Can you hear me?"

I try to nod but the only thing that happens is a spasmodic jerk.

"Take it easy, son," he says and starts shining a pen light in my eyes. "Can you tell me your name?"

My tongue feels swollen and dry as cotton. "Matt-Mathew Walker." I don't know if my words are actually as slurred as they sound or if the buzzing in my head is just distorting them.

"You're lucky to be alive, Mr. Walker," he tells me.

No crap.

I need to know about the kid.

"…kid..," I only manage that one word this time. What I'd give for some water.

His expression was serious before. Now it's dismal.

"Detective," he says, turning to the door.

Another man walks in and flashes his badge at me. "Detective Anders. Glad to see you awake, Mr. Walker."

"The…kid…" I try again.

He hesitates. "We're looking for him."

"He's dead," my words are flat, like I don't feel anything about what happened that night.

"You know that for sure?" he asks.

I actually manage a nod this time.

"Can you tell us who did it?"

"Excuse me? Just what do you think you're doing?" a woman's voice demands. That voice has made me cringe many times in my life. I'm glad someone else is suffering this time.

"I'm sorry, miss…?"

"Walker. Stella Walker, Detective," I watch her spin around on the doctor next. "I was supposed to be notified the minute he woke up. Not the police. Me." Back to the detective. "Your questions can wait until he can at least speak coherently." She points to the door and after a moment, he leaves. When she finally looks at me, her temper vanishes and she becomes the warm and concerned big sister. "How are you feeling, Matt?"

I'll never cease to be amazed at how quickly she transitions between aggressive protector and loving sibling. I don't even get to answer because she puts a cup of water to my mouth and insists I drink it all.

"Like I've been run over," I tell her and I'm startled at how raspy my voice sounds. "My chest hurts."

"You were stabbed three times with a ten inch blade. You've spent the last forty-eight hours in a comatose state," the doctor tells me.

That explains why those punches felt weird.

One of those went through my heart, though.

"How am I alive?" I dare to ask.

"The night shift guard arrived in time to see you bleeding out," he says. "He called 911 and the paramedics spent ninety percent of the ride trying to keep you among the living."

"Did he see anybody else?" I ask. I'll never forget that shadow. Or the fact I never saw his face.

"Do you feel up to talking to the police?" Stella asks me.

I nod.

The detective walks in immediately. Probably waiting right outside the door.

"Don't push him too hard, Detective," the doctor tells him. "He flat-lined ten times in surgery and I don't want him stressed."

What?!

"You wanna run that by me again?" I ask.

"I'll be as brief as I can," Anders promises, resolutely ignoring my sister's steely look. "Were you able to identify the perp?"

I don't hear the question. Those moments are playing through my mind and it's all I can see. The red-striped shirt. The shadow. I never even saw he had a knife. The broken puppet—

I died!

"Matt?"

I blink and see my sister staring at me. She's always had a tough, can-handle-anything attitude whenever one of us was in a serious situation but the fact that her expression is nothing but unguarded concern just makes this worse.

"Sorry, I'm a little hung up on the fact that I died ten times," I say, trying to ignore the scenes playing in the back of my mind.

"More than that," the doctor says. "The paramedics had to resuscitate you in the restaurant, five more times in the ambulance and you were in cardiac arrest when they brought into the E.R."

My pulse spikes and I wince. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Stella looks away and runs her hands through her short blonde hair.

Now it really is worse.

"Did you see his face?" Anders repeats the question.

The emotions I wasn't feeling when I woke up pour into me now. Shame. Regret. Grief.

Rage.

Whoa, where'd that come from?

"No," I answer. "I saw him. I saw the kid. I just went for him—just reacted."

And he's still out there.

"How did he even get in? I locked that place down myself."

"Were you the only one in the building?" Anders asks.

I'm suddenly under the impression that I've made an error. No way is the blame for any of this getting passed off on me.

But I am to blame. I was supposed to protect those kids.

Vengeance.

"I was supposed to be," I reply, doing my best to ignore the sudden jolt I feel as that word settles into me.

"What did you see?" Anders asks.

His tone sets me off. "I saw a kid get killed, Detective," I growl. "What would your reaction have been, huh? 'Oh my God, I better make sure I get a good look at this guy so I can identify him to the police as the child murderer' or 'Oh my God, I've gotta stop him from killing this kid'?!"

"Matt," Stella says my name.

I don't hear her. "What would you have done, Anders?" I demand. "What would your priorities have been, huh? Don't you dare talk down to me! I've walked this beat before. I used to be a cop until my partner decided to hamstring me and I got drummed out of the department. I know how this works and I'm not sharing the blame for he did. I did my job as a guard to the best of my ability and I did my job as a human being to the best of my abilities!"

"Matthew, please calm down!" Stella raises her voice to get my attention.

I calm down but I'm not finished. "The kid was wearing a red and white shirt. Jailbird style stripes. Curly red hair. Maybe ten years old. The last time I saw him was in the prize room. Check the cameras."

A muscle twitches in his jaw. He doesn't like being told how to do his job. Get over it. He'll probably look me up. Good.

"Thank you," he says. "That's something to work with, at least." He starts to leave, then turns back. "How important is that puppet in all of this?"

"The puppet?" I ask in bewilderment, all the anger gone.

"Before you fell into a coma, you kept muttering about the puppet," the doctor said.

I shake my head. "We talked about it. Me and the kid. He wanted to know what its job was. All the animatronics had a job. Singing. Serving food. I told him the puppet was hanging with the plush toys because it was his job to keep them safe. Ten-year-old logic, I guess. It got smashed in the fight."

"Is this it?" Anders pulls it out of a plastic bag.

I blink in disbelief. The puppet is not only intact, but it doesn't have a scratch on it. "He slammed me into that thing. I can't believe it's in one piece."

A thought skims my mind and I flash back to that night. The kid. The fight. Could there have been two people there? No, I know without a doubt that I only saw one guy.

"You alright?" Anders asks.

"I don't know," I can't stop staring at the puppet. "There was something else…something else that happened that night…but I'm—I'm missing it."

"That happens," he says. "If you remember, let me know."

"I'll do that," I tell him.

He leaves and Stella is settling me in bed, not giving me a say in whether I sleep or not, talking to the doctor about me like I'm not even there. Normally, I would protest this but my mind is far too preoccupied to even really acknowledge that it's happening.

I know for a fact that there was only one guy in that room that night.

I also know, with equal surety, that something else was there, as well.