Chapter 10: The Retraction

I pulled the monitor belt off my stomach.

The machine screamed.

The nurse with the cat badge came running back in.

"What are you doing? You can't get up!"

"They just arrested my mother."

"I know. I'm sorry. But you heard the doctor."

"I heard her." I swung my legs off the bed. "I'm going to sit in a car and then sit in a chair. I'll lie down the second it's over. I swear."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she unhooked the IV herself, because I was doing it wrong.

"You have to sign that you're leaving against advice."

"Give me the pen."

I called Nathan from the lobby in my hospital socks.

He was there in ten minutes, in a dusty pickup truck with the heater blasting.

He didn't ask questions. He put the seat all the way back for me and drove.

The station on Front Street looked the same as it had three days ago.

The same burnt coffee. The same wet coats.

The same female officer behind the desk, with her hair in a tight bun and reading glasses on her head.

She looked up and saw my belly and my hospital bracelet.

"Ms. McCallum. You shouldn't be here."

"Where's my mother?"

"Being processed. She's all right."

Mitchell and Blair were sitting on the bench along the wall.

Blair had her legs crossed at the ankle. She'd fixed her lipstick.

Mitchell stood up when he saw me.

"Val. Jesus. You're supposed to be in bed."

"Sit down, Mitchell."

He sat down.

Nathan came in behind me, and Mitchell's face went flat and hard.

"What's he doing here?"

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