Chapter 4: The Ambulance Bay

Noel didn't sleep.

At six in the morning he called Fenella and told her about press six.

"So it's Clay," she said.

"So it's Clay's plant. That's not the same thing in front of the pack."

"It's the same thing in front of me."

"Three hundred and twelve people are taking chalk today, Fen. I can't wait for court to tell them."

She was quiet for a second.

Then she said, "My station has two bays. One of them's empty after midnight."

Maddie got out of Mercy the next afternoon, wobbly and furious.

"I'm helping," she said.

"You're recovering."

"I can recover sitting down. You need someone who can talk to omegas without sounding like a lab manual."

"I don't sound like a lab manual."

"You just said 'retained aliquot' to Fenella's cat."

So she made the flyer.

It said: FREE PILL TEST. NO NAMES. NO ROLL. BAY 2, BLOOMFIELD EMS, MIDNIGHT TO FIVE.

She sent it to the registered omegas' group chat.

Then she sent it to every friend of every friend who had ever whispered that they weren't on the roll.

Noel loaded a handheld spectrometer and his calibration standards into Fenella's back seat.

The first night, four people came.

Two were registered. Two were like him.

A woman Noel's age, in a Giant Eagle vest, with a collar under a turtleneck.

A boy of nineteen or twenty who stood in the doorway with his hood up and wouldn't come past the yellow line.

"You're him," the boy said. "From the video."

"I'm him."

"They said you poisoned us."

"Somebody did. Give me your bottle and I'll show you it wasn't me."

Then the boy put the bottle on the bumper and stepped back.

Eight percent.

He read it over Noel's shoulder.

"I thought I was going crazy," he said. "My heat came three weeks early. I thought there was something wrong with me."

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