Death Touch novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: File

They carried Forrest to the infirmary on a stretcher while four hundred cadets stood in the cold and watched.

I walked beside it with my hands in the air.

Nobody let me through the door.

The infirmary doctor met me in the hall, and her face was careful.

"He's stable. Exhaustion, low blood pressure, an electrolyte imbalance. He needs rest."

"What are the lines on his neck?"

"A skin reaction."

"To what?"

"To stress." She did not meet my eyes. "I'll keep him overnight. Go to bed, Miss Hargett."

I knew a lie when I heard one.

I had grown up in a building built out of them.

I did not go to bed.

At midnight I walked back across the dark parade field.

I let myself into the infirmary through the loading door that the orderlies propped open for cigarettes.

The corridor was empty.

At the end of it, a light burned in the doctor's small office.

The doctor was gone.

On the desk, beside a mug of cold tea, lay a leather briefcase with a gold nameplate.

M. FENN.

I stood there with my pulse in my ears.

I knew what I should do, which was walk away.

Fenn would know.

She always knew.

I opened the briefcase.

Inside were two blue folders and a laptop.

The first folder held my name on the tab and a grid of numbers, my readings from every week of my life.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Death Touch from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.