Edwards sat at his desk, head in his hands, thinking about what he had just seen. How was it even possible?
Beth was clear across the room from that table. There was no earthly explanation for how it could have moved on its own, but as he puzzled over it, a feeling of deja vu came over him. There had been a few other strange happenings since yesterday morning, now that he thought about it.
The first was when he came out into the hallway, where Beth was waiting for him with the body of that young boy, to see that one of the doors further along the corridor had mysteriously slammed shut on its own. No one else had been around that he saw. Edwards remembered how shaken Beth had seemed at the time, but he didn't know at the time if it was connected in any way.
The second was likely just a coincidence, but he overheard one of the girls in the cafeteria laughing quietly with another ward about seeing Gorman harassing Beth yesterday and how he threw a fit when his pen burst ink all over him afterward.
The other incident was just after Dawn had slapped Beth for the first time.
He had been starting to tend quietly to Joan after the officer's outburst, but something drew his attention to Beth. He didn't know what it was, but the air in the room felt like it had become charged with electricity.
He'd glanced over at the young woman to find her staring at her hands, but something else about her didn't seem right. Looking closer, he realized it was the air around her. It was shimmering like heat waves above the pavement on a hot day.
If that wasn't disturbing enough, then the look of sheer animosity that spread over Beth's face actually made him cringe back slightly in fear. It was true, he didn't know her very well, but he'd gotten pretty good at reading people over the past year in the interest of self-preservation. He had never come across someone so transparently kind and unassuming before, which was why the brief glimpse of her obvious rage startled him.
And then there was the mess left in Dawn's office after Beth stole the keys and tried to escape with Noah.
He had been called to bring a gurney in and start carrying the bodies to the elevator shaft for disposal, but upon entering the room he stopped short at Gorman's appearance. The top of the man's skull was cracked and buckled upward, and he had just stared at it until one of the other officers inquired about what was wrong.
He'd pointed at Gorman's head and asked how that happened and the cop had just shrugged, said he must have fallen and hit it when he was attacked. Edwards recalled looking at them and wondering if they'd failed high school biology.
Out of curiosity, he went back to his office afterward and flipped through one of his anatomy reference manuals, finding that it takes a force of at least 520 lbs to fracture a human skull.
The common denominator in all these odd events was Beth, but how could it be? She was just an ordinary young woman.
Yes, it was extraordinary that someone who'd been bitten could appear as healthy as she seemed now. After all, her rate of healing was nothing short of remarkable. In fact, Edwards thought back to that first slash on her cheek that he stitched up the night she came in, a mere 32 hours ago. It was healed to the point that he should really have removed the stitching by now, but just hadn't got to it yet.
Come to think of it, the bruising that was all over her cheeks from the beating Dawn gave her yesterday was completely gone today. Why had he only just realized it?
For someone to heal that quickly, their immune system would have to be accelerated beyond comprehension. He wished he had the equipment to study her white blood cell count, not to mention the fibroblast growth factor in her tissues that determine the speed at which wounds heal.
The science of it was almost enough to take his mind off his worry over the other symptoms he'd witnessed, but couldn't explain.
Edwards decided to go into Beth's room and have a quick look around while she was at breakfast.
Moments later he walked in, hands in his pockets, feeling a bit embarrassed and hoping Dawn wouldn't pass by and ask him what he was doing. He went over to the small desk and judged it to be about 15 feet from the bed where she had been sitting.
The doctor pulled it away from the wall, which took quite a bit of force, and noted how much noise it made dragging on the tiles. Even if she had been strong enough to push it across the floor from where she sat and have it slide it perfectly against the wall, it would have made enough of a racket for him to hear even before opening the door.
He pushed it back against the wall with a frustrated sigh and stepped to the window. He had spent a lot of time in these rooms, looking out at a world that he wasn't really a part of anymore.
As his gaze moved over the top of the adjacent building, some subtle changes caught his eye. One of the bodies that had been laying on its side for more than a solid year was now on its back.
Why would anyone risk there life entering a rotter infested building to go up to the roof and push a dead corpse into a different position? The Grady cops had already checked them ages ago for weapons. There was nothing of use to anyone on that rooftop.
Edwards' eyes were drawn to the one remaining bucket where there used to be two, and he shook his head in confusion. This was making absolutely no sense, but then it occurred to him that this same view would also have been Beth's, at least a couple of times since she'd awoken.
If she really had developed the ability to move things with her mind, as crazy as it sounded, then she could have knocked one of the pails over the edge and possibly moved the body from here.
He almost laughed out loud, wondering if this was one of the first signs of oncoming insanity, and took a deep breath.
The question was if he, as a scientist, actually believed that telekinesis was a possibility. If the treatment she'd undergone here had somehow affected her biology then it was up to him to figure it out, which meant he couldn't rule out any hypothesis.
Thinking back to his molecular biology courses, he knew that as of the end of the world, approximately 98% of human DNA had no known function ascribed to it. So he supposed it wasn't unbelievable that where he knew so little about the DNA sequencing of the virus itself, lowering its pH may have caused its DNA to somehow have an effect on her own.
He closed his eyes for a moment and debated whether or not he should tell Dawn about any of this. She had already told him last night that she wanted to be updated on Beth's condition and if the treatment he gave her could be used again on someone else.
Officer Lerner was a very practical, no nonsense person though, and Edwards wasn't sure how well she would receive his suspicions. Honesty was rarely the best policy around here, but if even part of his conjecture turned out to be real then he should probably give Dawn forewarning and save face if another incident occurred and someone got hurt.
With his mind made up, he headed out into the corridor to find her.
Beth moved the mop back and forth across the floor in the hallway outside Carol's room. Dawn and Officer O'Donnell were inside talking quietly, but she couldn't hear what they were saying over the sound of the ventilator that was helping her friend breathe.
She rolled her bucket in to the foot of the bed, hoping to overhear something, but Dawn's radio transmitter squawked to life. It sounded like Shepard but Beth couldn't make it out. Something about a gunshot.
Dawn pressed the button to reply. "Get Lamson and go track it down."
"Yes, ma'am."
Edwards appeared in the doorway, glancing at Beth before spotting the officers and clearing his throat to get their attention. "Dawn, I need to speak with you."
She watched Dawn walk away with the doctor, and then sank her mop into the water, pretending like she was going to clean the floor. O'Donnell started to walk past her but stopped and leaned in to speak with a low menacing voice in Beth's ear. "I know you killed Gorman."
She flinched briefly but then chose to ignore him, and kept swishing the mop head up and down in the bucket as he went on.
"He was a good man. He saved your life, and that's how you repay him? Let me make one thing perfectly clear, you little whore. You are nothing here. Nobody is going to save you now. And when my shift ends in an hour we're going to continue this conversation in private and I'll get to decide what your punishment will be."
O'Donnell slid the tips of two fingers along her jawline. "You're going to be in a lot of pain, and I want you to understand that it's nobody's fault but your own."
He left without another word, and Beth walked over to the bedside slowly, taking her friend's hand and willing her to wake up.
She stayed there a moment before walking over to the wall and sliding down to the floor, her mind racing with the hopelessness of the situation.
How was she going to get them both out of here? Carol was in a coma, and Beth didn't know if she'd even survive being moved, but she couldn't just leave her, and staying was too dangerous for them both.
Drawing her knees up to her chest, Beth folded her arms and leaned her head against them. There was only one solution she could think of, but she didn't know if she was even capable of doing it, or if she could live with herself afterward.
Edwards followed Dawn into her office, feeling anxious about how the conversation would play out. The officer sat down behind her desk and looked across as he perched nervously on the edge of his seat.
"So, what is it?" She folded her hands in front of her and waited.
The doctor cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, agonizing over how to word what he needed to say. "It's about Beth."
Dawn nodded. "I'd say congratulations are in order, Doctor. As headstrong as she is I'd say Beth seems to have responded very well to the treatment."
He picked at a loose thread hanging off one of the buttons of his white coat. "Well, yes and no."
Her controlled gaze changed to one of bewilderment. "What do you mean? She seems fine to me. If anything, healthier than any of the other wards here."
Edwards shook his head in disagreement. "No, no. She's doing well that way. Her vitals are perfectly normal except for still having a slightly elevated body temperature. It's...something else."
Dawn raised her eyebrows, waiting impatiently and motioning with her hand for him to go on. "Well?" He just looked at her and sighed. "For Christ's sake, just spit it out, Edwards."
He rubbed his hands back and forth across the top of his legs and continued on in a jumble of words. "I think that the treatment somehow caused the DNA in the virus to alter or bond with Beth's DNA and now it appears she has telekinetic abilities, at the very least. I...I mean, she could be capable of more than that, I don't know. I just know what I've seen so far. I think I've witnessed her move a couple things, and one time the air looked funny around her, like heat waves. I think she has accelerated healing now, as well. I'd have to study her to know more, but I thought you should know because she could be dangerous." He swallowed nervously. "That's...that's it."
There was a long pause before Dawn responded quietly. "You're telling me that Beth has powers," using her fingers to do air quotes around the word," and is now dangerous?"
"Yes. I mean, a door shut in the hallway the first day she was here, and I thought I saw the table in her room move when I went in to get her this morning." He gestured excitedly, remembering something else. "Oh, and one of the rotters on top of the building outside her room was moved and there was also a bucket missing from the roof."
The doctor tapped his finger on the arm of his chair as he finished. "I don't understand it yet, really, but I think in time I might be able to. It's very compelling, the thought of being able to change our own DNA but I wouldn't recommend doing the same treatment on any more wards until I can investigate further. It would be too risky."
Dawn got up out of her chair and slowly walked around in front of Edwards, never taking her eyes of him. She folded her arms and sat on the edge of her desk, making him move further back into his chair in response. "Are you losing it, Doctor?"
He sat up straighter in his seat, and snapped back at her. "What? No, I'm not losing it. I'm just giving you the information you requested, and as crazy as some of it sounds, don't say I didn't warn you if someone gets hurt."
Edwards got up and headed for the door, having said his piece.
Before he opened it, Dawn's next words reached him. "I don't know what's going on with you, Edwards, but if you're starting to crack under the weight of your responsibilities then I'll have no choice but to replace you as soon as an opportunity arises. You just dug your grave a little deeper."
The doctor opened the door and stepped into the hall, but not before turning around to look her in the eye. "Don't kid yourself, Dawn. We've all been digging our graves deeper since this started."
Edwards, honey, you need to work on your delivery. That was tres week, man. No wonder Dawn didn't believe you.
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