Apocalypse Plus One: My Snarky Sidekick novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Girl in Room 409
Annabel wakes in a hospital bed with the memory of her own death, finds the Space and the voice in it, and empties her fiancé's joint account while he watches. The Space holds a wristband she never put there.
I woke up to my fiancé telling a nurse, very kindly, that I had grabbed the steering wheel.
"She doesn't remember, and I don't blame her," Dane said. "Please let her rest a few more days."
Pain tore through my head, and everything came back at once.
The grey rain hammering the dome roof. The gate, and Dane's face on the other side of the bars.
Lindsey's hand on the lock.
The bag of insulin in my arms.
I had walked two days to get it.
My little sister lay on a cot behind them, dying, and they had known it.
I opened my eyes.
Golden light came through the hospital window. The room smelled of disinfectant.
Dane sat beside the bed in his quarter-zip, holding my hand. Lindsey stood at the foot with a Tupperware and a canvas tote.
"Babe, you're up!" Dane said. "You scared us."
I looked at his thumb rubbing my knuckles.
The last time I had seen that hand, it was pulling the gate shut.
"Hi," I said.
My voice came out a croak, and both of them smiled at me. It was the exact smile from the gate.
"You gave us a fright," Lindsey said. "I brought soup. Dane's been here every night."
"Every night," Dane agreed.
Lindsey pulled a clipboard out of her tote.
"It's a medical power of attorney," she said. "It just lets Dane talk to your doctors while you rest."
She held it out.
"You only have to sign the bottom."
"Don't sign that," said a voice.
It was dry and a little bored, and it was inside my head.
I didn't move. I didn't breathe.
"Oh good, she hears me," the voice said. "I've been shouting for what feels like a week. Put your hand on the pen and think about a door."
Lindsey held out a pen.
I took it, and I thought about a door.
A door opened in my mind.
Behind it was a grey room the size of a two-car garage. Empty shelves lined the walls. On a hook beside the entrance hung a single white hospital wristband, blank.
I had not put it there.
The pen was already on a shelf. It had left my fingers without a sound.
"Huh," Lindsey said. She looked at my hand, then the blanket, then the floor.
"I dropped it," I said. "My hand hurts. I can't sign anything."
"I have another one," Lindsey said.
"Fine pen work," the voice said. "Call me Plus One. Everyone in here needs one."
I had so many questions. I had no time for any of them.
Dane leaned in and squeezed my hand again.
"Don't worry about a thing, babe. Not the bills, not the wedding. I check the savings every day."
The wedding fund held thirty-eight thousand, four hundred dollars. Most of it was my grandmother's house.
My phone was on the tray table. I pulled it close with my good hand.
"Plus One," I thought. "Can you help me with the bank?"
"I'm a sidekick, not a teller," he said. "But I'd love to see this."
I opened the app. The account was joint, so either of us could take out all of it.
I typed the amount slowly, one finger at a time, while Dane told Lindsey about the tow yard and the insurance form.
I sent it to my own account.
The screen said: Transfer complete.
Dane's phone chimed in his jacket pocket.
He took it out to silence it, and he read it. His thumb stopped moving.
"Babe," he said. "Did you just move the wedding money?"
"Yes," I said.
"Why would you do that?" He laughed, and it came out too high. "It's safe where it is. I told you I'd handle it."
"You'd handle it," I said. "I know."
So I took it all.
"Nurse," I said.
The nurse was still at the door, writing on her tablet.
"Please put these two on my do-not-admit list," I said. "Both names. Starting now."
"Annabel, you're tired," Lindsey said. Her voice was soft. "Your head is still healing."
"Then I'll heal without you."
Dane stood up. "You can't do this. We're getting married in six weeks."
"Not anymore," I said.
The nurse stepped between us and held the door open. Dane stared at me with his mouth open and his phone still in his hand.
Lindsey picked up her tote on the way out. A blue water filter straw poked from the top of it, and she tucked it back inside.
"Camping," she said, when she saw me look. "I'm trying a new thing. Call me when your head clears."
The door closed behind them.
I sat in the sudden quiet with my heart going hard.
"That was elegant," Plus One said. "Terrifying, but elegant. Also, your fiancé is a hundred percent a coward."
"Ex-fiancé," I said out loud.
The nurse looked up from her tablet. "You'll be glad you're awake," she said gently. "The man from the other car is still down in 412. No visitors at all."
In my mind, Plus One went completely silent.
On its hook inside the grey room, the blank wristband began to swing.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend