The sound of high heels clicked leisurely through the empty hallway, echoing in the silence that surrounded them.
It was impossible not to hear her coming, but still, Irene Stone refused to look up from what she was doing until Anna had noisily crossed the room and was standing directly in front of her.
Only after making the younger woman wait a few moments longer, did Irene look up with a weary sigh. "Yes, Anna?"
Anna narrowed her eyes at her. "I thought you'd want to know that there is a car outside."
Irene made a show of setting down her pen. She heaved another, more exaggerated sigh and gave the girl a patronizing look. Though they had been fairly close when she was a little girl, Anna had been getting more and more difficult as she'd gotten older and now, as an adult, it was hard to even be in the same room with her. She shirked her duties, talked back, and walked around with that air of superiority that Irene found to be ever so grating. On top of that, she'd been utterly unbearable since that blonde woman gashed her face open last night. Even though her announcement might indeed be important, Irene chose not to give her the satisfaction of thinking so.
She looked down her nose at the girl. "And?" she replied expectantly.
"And it might be something that concerns you." Anna answered in that smug tone she so often used.
"It's probably your cousin. He said he'd come by tonight with supplies."
This had Anna's face twisting into a scowl, made all the more grotesque by the coarse stiches in her face. "Do you think I'm stupid? If it was Gunther, then I wouldn't be here."
Irene leaned back in her chair. "Then who is it, Anna?"
"I don't know. It's a white car. The police perhaps."
Irene laughed. "No, no. It's not the police. It's those girls from last night." Her smile twisted into a sneer. "Those girls you let get away. I'm sure you remember them, they seemed to have left-" She took a moment to rub the smooth skin of her right cheek before smiling broadly at Anna. "…quite an impression on you."
Anna's face flushed. Her wound was swelling, tugging the stitches tight. It had been aching all day, though she would by no means demean herself by asking Irene to tend to it. Having it rubbed in her face was salt in her wound. "I remember." She answered darkly. "What are you planning to do about it?"
"Do?" Irene echoed, picking up her pen and resuming her work. "I'm not going to do anything, dear. This is God's plan coming to fruition. Let them come."
There was nothing inside of Divinity's Reach but a gloomy, foreboding darkness that stretched as far as she could see no matter which way she turned her head.
Sabrina held tight against the outer ledge of the windowsill she was perched on and blinked a few times, hoping her eyes would adjust. The full moon outside had lent them enough moonlight to easily find a way in but unfortunately, it would be less help now that they were inside. Fighting her ever increasing uneasiness, Sabrina gripped her windowsill and, with some effort, managed to turn her body until she was able to carefully lower both legs down toward a floor that she couldn't see.
The hand that grabbed at her calf was enough of a surprise to ensure that the rest of her descent was much less careful. With a startled shriek, Sabrina flailed her legs, let go of the window entirely and felt herself thud into someone else before she and that someone else went tumbling to the cold tiled floor.
"Dammit, Max!" Sabrina hissed through her teeth, as she fought to orient herself in the darkness. Underneath her, she heard Max groan.
"I was just trying to help." He muttered.
"Help?" Sabrina huffed. "You nearly scared me to death."
Above them a quiet snicker caught their attention.
"Is this what I think it is?" Kris whispered, stepping into the moonlight.. "Because, I don't think I can take any more bombshells today."
Sabrina pushed herself off of Max and managed to roll to her knees. "Oh shut up." She grumped. "And help me up, would you? I think we're going to have a matching limp."
Kris grinned and offered her a hand.
"Now what?" Kris whispered, once both Sabrina and Max had climbed to their feet.
Sabrina squinted her eyes and was able to make out a little more in the gloom. That was a good question. They seemed to be in a straight hallway. She could make out a corner to her left and to her right, but what lay beyond was anybody's guess. She shivered and reached into her back pocket to pull out the map Jill had drawn for them and held it up to the moonlight streaming in through the broken window.
The three crowded around it, staring at Jill's drawing in uncertainty. If Jill's memory was accurate, the hallways formed a square with an entrance to the main lobby on both the upper right and left corners.
"Well-" Sabrina said finally. "I guess the first step is making sure there's no one inside."
Max gave a wry laugh. "If there is, they sure do like the dark."
"Looks that way." Sabrina answered. She gave Kris a nudge with her elbow. "Which way was the staircase you said they came out of?"
Kris jerked her head toward the left. "That way."
"Are you sure?"
The look sent her way made it very clear to Sabrina that, yes, her younger friend was quite sure. With Kris's hand blocking half of the flashlight beam to minimize being seen, the trio slowly made their way down the hallway. As they neared its end, a double door materialized out of the darkness and Sabrina felt Kris slow beside her.
"We were right here" Kris said quietly, her voice dropped to a low whisper. "She came out of those doors and I..I shot at her."
"Did you hit her?" came Max's nervous voice.
Kris shook her head. "No. I was scared. I missed."
Sabrina was only halfway listening. Unless it was her imagination, she could still smell the gunpowder. She watched as Kris's half beam of light swept back and forth across the hallway, searching the floor, before it landed on what Kris must have been looking for.
There, illuminated by the weak flashlight beam, the tile floor was cracked in a spider's web pattern, the chips and lines leading toward the center of the tile where a neat round bullet hole marred its surface. The bullet was still in there, lodged deep into the floor. Sabrina stared at it, feeling ill.
"This is it, alright." Kris whispered, her voice soft and nervous. Her flashlight beam danced around the bullet hole. "She was standing there. I hit the ground and she stopped."
"I bet I could buff that right out." Max tried to joke. It fell flat. The memories from last night were fresh, leaving no one in the mood for jokes.
"Then Jill's map was right. The lobby must be that way." Sabrina whispered, ignoring him. The group mumbled quiet affirmatives, but didn't venture further. The three stood staring at the corner to the right, not quite sure who was brave enough to round it first and face whatever was down this second hall. Finally, Max stepped forward.
"I'll go first." He whispered bravely.
Sabrina rolled her eyes. "I have the gun."
Max stopped and considered this. "Oh. Okay, then you go first."
"Just stand back." Sabrina groaned and, Kris's gun ready in her hands, carefully rounded the corner. As Kris and Max watched intently, the expression on her face became one of confusion before she slowly lowered her gun.
"What?" Max asked anxiously, rushing forward to her side.
"Turn off the light, Kris."
Sabrina hadn't answered his question, but she didn't need to. As soon as Max rounded the corner, his question answered itself. This new hallway ended at yet another set of double doors, much like the previous one had. Only these double doors were streaming bright lights through their long vertical windows.
"They're still here. We should go." Kris blurted out, voicing the groups' immediate concern.
Sabrina muttered a curse under her breath, but raised the gun nonetheless. "They...they might not be. Let's take a closer look." Without waiting for her companions to reply, she hurried forward, as quietly as she could.
Details began to emerge beyond the windows of the double doors the closer she got. Not many, but she could see the opposite wall. A desk. Probably the same desk that Jill had hidden under while she made her frantic call. Definitely the lobby and the cold shudder that ran down her spine made Sabrina all the more glad that, while Kelly and Jill were out of commission, she at least had Kris and Max right behind her.
She wasn't sure how close she had planned to actually get, surely she wouldn't have been stupid enough to press her face against the glass to see inside, but two thirds of the way down the hall, her decision was suddenly made for her.
The shadow of a person passed across the windows in front of them.
Sabrina felt her heart free-fall into her stomach. Instinctively, she dropped into a crouch and scrambled to the side, pressing herself into the wall.
They were too far away to have been seen, she told herself frantically, trying to slow her pounding heart. No way they had been spotted.
"Shit!" Kris hissed to her left. Sabrina jumped and was a bit ashamed that she hadn't thought to make sure her inexperienced companions had gotten out of sight. To her relief though, she saw that Kris and Max had reacted exactly as she had without being told. Both were crouched and both pressed up against the wall, Kris right beside her and Max across from them.
"They're still here!" Kris went on. "I knew it!"
Sabrina grabbed her arm to quiet her. "Shhh! I'm gonna go get a better look. We need to know how many are inside."
Kris made a face at her. "Are you crazy? No! One is enough, that was the plan!"
Sabrina would have continued arguing, but movement from across the hall distracted her. She turned her attention away from Kris to see Max, bent into a crouch and hurrying toward the double doors.
"What are you doing?!" She called after him in a harsh whisper, but he either didn't hear her question or ignored it completely.
"Ugh! Will you please stay here and not be stupid?" Sabrina whispered to Kris as she released her hold on her younger friend's arm. Muttering curses under her breath, she followed after Max, keeping her back pressed against the wall. She didn't dare get much closer to him for fear of her extra movement alerting someone in the lobby, and was forced to content herself with being his backup. She dropped into a crouch and quietly leveled her gun towards the double doors.
Not even yelling at him was an option right now, Sabrina thought to herself irritably, much less shooting him. She gripped Kris's gun tightly and watched helplessly as Max crawled up to the left of the windows and carefully raised himself enough to be able to glance inside from a relatively safe angle. He stayed like that for an excruciatingly long time before seemingly getting bolder and stepping directly in front of the windows to peer inside.
Sabrina felt her stomach clench as she watched him standing there, in full view of whatever might be on the other side. Was he crazy? Or stupid? Either way, maybe he made a better match for Kelly than she'd previously thought.
After what seemed like hours, Max finally stepped away from the window, dropped into a crouch and began hurrying back towards them. Sabrina felt her shoulders relax and realized just how tense she'd been.
"What the hell, Max?!" Kris snapped, taking Sabrina's sentiment right from her throat.
Max stood as he rejoined them. "What? I had to see what was in there."
The urge to hit him was slowly melting away. Sabrina heaved a relieved sigh. Her jaw hurt, she realized. She'd been clenching her teeth the entire time he'd been at the door. "And just what the hell did you see that kept you so interested?"
"It's the lobby." Max answered, ignoring her sarcasm. "I saw the cabinet where Kelly said Jill's gun was. And I saw a nurse."
"Just one?" Sabrina asked quickly.
"That I could see." Came Max's reply. Even he was looking nervous now.
"Which one? The old fat one?" Kris blurted out. "The one I tried to shoot?"
Max nodded. "The older one. Irene, or whatever her name is. She went through a door towards the back. She gave me the creeps. I don't like this, we should get back to Kelly and Jill."
"I won't argue with that." Sabrina muttered. She gave both Kris and Max a gentle push back in the direction they had come from, and the three scurried quickly out of the hall and back toward the broken window.
"What do you think they're doing in there?"
Kelly pursed her lips. That was at least the tenth time Jill had nervously asked the same question and, just as she did each previous time, Kelly stared at the dark window and shook her head.
"I don't know, Jill. Why don't you ask me again in another twenty seconds? I might have something for you then."
Beside her, Jill huffed and Kelly knew immediately that she'd gone too far.
Jill whirled on her. "Don't you get sarcastic with me, Kelly. This was your stupid idea, remember? I'll ask you anything I damn well please."
With that, Jill's attention snapped back to the window and Kelly silently let her gaze follow her there. Jill had every right to be angry, she knew, and chose not to reply. The fact that she was the reason Sabrina, Kris, and Max were crawling around a dark , abandoned hospital was not at all lost on her, nor was the fact that it would be her fault if anything went wrong. And if something did go wrong...
Well... here she was, helpfully sitting in the back seat of a stolen police cruiser, unable to do anything about it but sit and listen to Jill talk to herself.
A wave of guilt and uncertainty washed over her. Had she made a mistake? Put her friends, the father of her child, in possible danger for nothing? Kelly felt her empty stomach roll. Maybe she was lucky all Jill had done was get snappy with her.
An agonizing few minutes ticked by as the two women crouched in the backseat, staring hopefully at the broken window their three friends had disappeared into. Jill had just opened her mouth to once again ask for Kelly's thoughts on what the rest of their group was up to, when pale, yellow light suddenly washed out the distanct fence in front of them.
Both women shared an alarmed look and, all bickering aside, dropped down as low as they could in the backseat of the cruiser.
From their hiding place, they could see the light, a pair of headlights, slowly climb up the side of the run down hospital as it approached their car. Tires crunched over gravel as the vehicle grew ever closer.
"Cops?" Jill breathed, her face looking drawn and pale with fright.
Beside her, Kelly had no answer. "I…Maybe. Or maybe someone's lost and-"
The beam of headlights swung towards them, bathing the building in front of them in its bright lights as it turned towards them, slowly crawling along the side of the building where their friends were inside. The inside of their hiding place suddenly lit up. The vehicle was coming towards them.
"Shit." Kelly breathed. She grabbed at Jill's arm to pull her lower to the ground, but to her surprise, her blonde friend shrugged her off and popped up to her knees.
"What are you doing!?" Kelly hissed, making another grab for her. "Get down!"
Jill slapped her away. "Shh!" she snapped. She climbed up onto the backseat and lowered herself below the window. Helpless, Kelly watched her, not breathing until the vehicle had passed and the interior of the cruiser was dark again.
Jill immediately popped up to peek out the back window. "It's a truck." She whispered.
Kelly flopped back against her door. She felt like throwing up. "Cops?" she asked weakly.
"No." came Jill's quick answer. "No, I don't think so. It just looks like a white truc-"
Kelly almost shrieked when Jill suddenly bounced down from her perch and lunged across the backseat until she was almost on top of her.
Her blue eyes were wide, wild with fright.
"Jill, what?!"
"It's Gunther!" Jill blurted out in a frightened whisper. She had snatched Kelly's arms in her panic and was hurting her friend's injured hand. "The guy in the truck! It's him!"
Kelly felt her blood run cold, her hand immediately forgotten. "Are you…are you sur-"
Jill swore loudly. "Yes, I'm sure!" she snapped, giving her another shake. "Look!"
She tugged hard on Kelly's arm, much more strongly than Kelly would have thought her capable of being. Jill either didn't realize or didn't care that pulling on Kelly's one good arm made it that much more difficult for her friend to get her legs under her, because she didn't stop until Kelly had managed to climb up on the backseat next to her.
"Look." Jill repeated, she moved her iron grip to the collar of Kelly's shirt and tugged her in the direction the white truck had gone.
Kelly peeked out the rear view mirror and the slim hope she'd been holding onto that Jill had been mistaken was instantly gone. Concussion or no concussion, she'd know that white truck anywhere. It was Gunther, without a doubt.
As the two women watched, the white truck parked several yards away from them, engine still running. The driver's side door opened and both women recognized the blonde bearded man that stepped out. He'd left the headlights of his truck on, the bright lights focused on the side of the hospital, where Kelly had already guessed he would take notice.
The glass of the broken window gleamed and sparkled in the bright headlights.
Gunther appeared confused as he walked towards it.
"Oh shit." Jill breathed. She finally let go of Kelly's shirt and sunk down into the seat. "We have to warn them."
Kelly nodded. For once they were on the same page.
"They won't come out that way if they see his headlights. We'll wait till he leaves and I'll go in through the win-"
"I can't get through that window." Jill interrupted.
"Nobody said you were. You're not going." Kelly said quickly. "You'll stay here an-"
"You're not climbing through a window either." Jill snapped at her. "Are you crazy? You can hardly walk. We'll have to go in the same way we did last night."
Kelly breathed a curse. But, Jill was right and she knew it. "The emergency room?"
"Yeah." Jill answered with a quick nod. "We'll have to go now, while he's distracted."
"And if he sees us?"
Jill gave her a hard look. "We'll have to take a gamble, won't we?"
There weren't many other options to choose from, Kelly noted. A gamble it was. And so, without another word, she quietly opened Jill's door and the two detectives climbed out of the car and hurried to the protective shadow that lined the side of the building.