Props to you if you spot the song reference in this chapter! I only noticed it as I was editing but I was listening to that song on repeat as I wrote it, so I think little lyric chunks just leaked into this unintentionally.
"Kate!" Jonny's yell terrified me. I kept firing at the hornet's nest of angry operatives.
"Jonny, I could use some help!" I spun, firing a bullet at a very mad-looking bulldog of a man.
"Kate! Kate!" I turned to see my best friend bleeding all over the ground. Her lips were moving but I couldn't hear her.
"We have to get out of here, Jonny!" I shouted, shooting another bullet at another Circle operative.
"Kate, I'm so sorry!" Jonny knelt over her, refusing to budge.
"It's not your fault," I was close enough to hear her now. "You didn't know," she closed her eyes. But we should have known!
"Kate, stay with me! Stay with me!" He shook her shoulders. Kate is dying!
"We have to go, Jonathan!" I grabbed his shoulder and he roughly shoved me away. Typical me, I shoved him right back. Which was not what we needed, I knew, but I was scared.
"He ran away," Jonny said angrily, "The coward!" Jonny put his head in his hands. "That coward..."
"Jonny! She's losing blood!" I grabbed my best friend's hand. "We have to get her somewhere fast!"
"Jonny," Kate whimpered.
"Everything's gonna be alright, Katie," he whispered to her.
"Jonny!" I shouted. He picked her up. She was so limp, so helpless… so un-Kate when she was hurt. I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault.
"I know where we need to go," I told Jonny, Kate, and a few of the other operatives confidently. "There's a building downtown that I tailed a suspected operative to. I estimate less than a dozen operatives when we break in."
"I think you three can handle it," Gary Wilson looked up from picking his fingernails, "Right?" I nodded.
"I think we can." So Jonny, Kate, and I set out.
When we burst into the building, I had vastly underestimated the number of operatives within. I'd cornered us when I led us out into the street.
Katie was dying because I was reckless. I didn't do my research.
The next thing I knew, we sat in the waiting room of a hospital.
"The bullet went into her lung," a doctor explained to the two of us. I gripped at my own bullet injury. It wasn't nearly of the same caliber as Kate's, "Which gave her a pneumothorax. We let the pressure off her heart and got the bullet out, but there's no telling…" the doctor cleared his throat. I ran my fingers through my hair. "But she's alive right now. You might want to just… I mean, don't lose hope, but… just in case, start telling her goodbye."
"This is all my fault," I said aloud to Jonny. Jonny didn't look at me, just stared straight ahead at the white wall of the hospital. "Jonny," he shook his head slowly, not looking at me.
"She's just…" I left him there to wander the halls of the hospital.
"Excuse me, miss," A nurse interrupted my guilty thoughts, "You can't be back here unless you're a patient or a doctor."
"I'm looking for a patient."
"These aren't visiting hours."
"I don't care," I told her snappily, storming past.
"I can call security," she threatened.
I threatened back, "I think my authority overrides theirs. Now, in which room is Katharine Norman?"
"I can't give you that information. Miss, if you could please-?"
"I'm not in the mood to hear I can't see her." I interrupted. "No, I'll find her myself if you won't help!" I pushed past the tiny nurse.
"Miss, wait!" She caught up with me. "Follow me." She led me through a maze of hallways until we reached a musty room that smelled more hospital-y than the rest of the hospital I had experienced. There was a small window and a very old TV, neither of which provided very much light.
Katie was fresh out of surgery, still under anesthesia. More of the doctor's words rang in my head.
The loss of blood could have caused a stroke. We have no idea if she'll ever be the same. She could easily get a lung infection, since the bullet was doubtfully sterile. If that happens, it will be very hard to give her any help. She lost a lot of blood, she's very, incredibly lucky to be alive.
He had told us all of those things. All I heard was, It's all your fault, Abby. Abby, you and your careless ways got Kate shot. Abby, you should have planned better. I can't believe you were so reckless! The voice in my head adopted Rachel or Cammie's voice. I honestly couldn't tell which of them was reprimanding me, but I was sure it was one of them. If Kate dies, it will be on your shoulders forever. She'll never live to get married to the man of her dreams. She'll never have kids, daughters to see graduate from the Gallagher Academy. She'll never be on another mission with you. Goldfish will be gone. Her parents will cry at her funeral.
My vision blurred but I didn't cry. I took Kate's hand. Her fingers were chilly from the over-air-conditioned room.
"Oh, Kate," I whispered, "I'm so sorry! This was all my fault!" My phone rang. It couldn't have been anything important; agents were way too smart to use phones (even if they were protected by the highest firewalls technology had come up with).
"Abigail Cameron," the accented voice said through the phone.
"Edward Townsend," I answered back bitterly, "What do you want?"
"Information," he said.
"Then why did you call me on my cell?" That was stupid of you.
"Because I had no other method of getting in touch, and I know that your phone is protected from most line-tapping." I was quiet. He was quiet.
"So?"
"I know you were in a relationship with one Joseph Solomon," he told me.
"Was," I repeated, "And sort of."
"How do you reach Gallagher's sublevels?" He whispered. I froze.
"There's a mirror-"
"The sublevels have been blocked from the world by Joe Solomon himself. Do you have any idea how to break the codes?"
"Zero," I answered, shocked. "But the students are smarter than you'd think, if that's any help at all." He snorted like he didn't believe me one bit. He thought they were a bunch of idiots. "No, I'm serious! Ask Cammie or-"
"I admire your confidence in your niece," Townsend said with a condescending smirk that I could just feel over the line, "I really do, but I was calling to get your expert advice. Your professional opinion."
"My professional opinion," I said icily, "is that you should stay out of the sublevels." The line on the other end went dead. My iPhone slipped out of my hand and onto the linoleum floor of the hospital. "Katie, what do I do?" I refused to let myself cry, but I held my friend's hand and listened to the hum of machines and thought of Joe and Rachel and Cammie and Lia and Viv.