Before Dawn

  The two of them gawked at her, and they seemed completely stunned.

  “Can you excuse us for a moment?”

  They walked off together, in a daze.

  The woman turned to Kate.

  “Kate, can you hear me?” she said.

  Kate nodded.

  “And you’re Kate Roswell, is that right?”

  Kate nodded again.

  “I’m Brenda Masters, I’m a social worker here at the hospital. Has anyone told you what happened?”

  Kate shook her head. But she didn’t need to be told. She remembered everything. The RV as it slammed into her body, crushing her bones to pieces. The blackness creeping into her vision as she felt death closing in on her. And Elijah. Elijah with his fangs bared, sinking them into her neck.

  “Typical doctors,” the woman said. “They never think to actually speak to the patients.” Brenda sat herself down in the seat next to Kate. “You were hit by an RV. You’re in Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. I’ll be working with you and your parents while you recuperate. Don’t worry, they’re going to be here really soon.”

  Brenda patted her arm.

  But the last thing Kate wanted right now was her family. They’d find some way to blame her, surely. They’d say she was reckless for letting the brakes on her bike become faulty, or for riding down that hill too fast. She could imagine her mom now, laying into her. Worse, she might claim that Kate was attention seeking because of Madison getting to go to college and her not having a cake on her birthday. A million thoughts crossed her mind and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  A small frown appeared between Brenda’s eyebrows. “You don’t want your parents here?” she asked.

  Kate shook her head again and one of her tears fell down her cheek.

  The woman seemed concerned by the revelation. She probably didn’t understand why a seventeen-year-old girl who’d been in a near fatal accident didn’t want her family around her. She’d probably never met anyone like the Roswells.

  “Did you do something you weren’t supposed to?” Brenda said gently. “Because if you’re worried they’ll be angry at you then I’m sure that won’t be the case. They’ll just want to know you’re okay.”

  Kate shook her head again. They would be angry, yes, but it wasn’t because of what she’d done specifically. It was because of her very existence.

  Her tears began to fall in torrents.

  “We have to inform your parents,” the woman said. “You’re legally a child.” Then her voice softened. “Kate, I’m going to ask you something important and I want you to really think about how you answer. Nod yes if you agree with what I say and shake your head no if you don’t. Kate, do your parents hurt you?”

  Kate swallowed, her throat sore against the tube. How she desperately wanted to nod yes. But her life didn’t constitute abuse, not in the way that woman meant. At least, she didn’t think so anyway. But did abuse always have to mean punches and kicks, or could it mean being deprived of food, being ostracized for no reason, being ignored on your birthday? Kate didn’t fully know. And though she was aware that a simple nod of the head now could set a whole chain of events in motion, could perhaps even see her taken from her home and placed with people who didn’t despise her and wanted her to go to college, there was always Max to think about. She couldn’t put him through that kind of trauma, he was just a kid.

  She shook her head.

  The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. She probably thought Kate was some silly teenage runaway. That she’d gone out thrill seeking and got herself nearly killed and was trying to avoid being disciplined.

  “I’ll make the call,” the woman said, standing and smoothing down her skirt.

  She left and Kate realized she was alone for the first time. The tube in her throat was absolutely maddening. It itched like crazy. And she desperately wanted to be able to speak. She needed to ask someone where Elijah was. She remembered being cradled in his arms. Why didn’t he come with her in the ambulance? It must have been him who’d called it.

  Kate managed to sit up in her hospital bed, finally getting herself a decent view of the ward. It was filled with other people asleep. She realized they were all in comas, just like how she was supposed to be. They’d wheeled her here expecting her to be out until whatever swelling that her brain may have had had gone down. But her body had completely rejected the drugs.

  Her bones had healed too. That’s what the doctor had said. Every bone in her arm –ulna, radius, humerus—had been shattered and yet she felt no pain at all. In fact, her arms were working perfectly well. She could rotate her hands in front of her and wiggle all her fingers. In fact… she reached to her mouth and found the strange plastic mouthpiece. She wedged her fingers under it and began to pull.

  The tube started sliding up out of her throat. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but she kept pulling until the whole thing was out. At last she could take a proper breath for herself. She threw the tube to the floor, glad to be rid of it.

  The next thing irritating her was the IV in her arm. She ripped off the plaster securing it in place and tugged the needle out. Blood appeared from her skin and she licked it up instinctively.

  Without the tubes and wires, she felt much more comfortable, and much more able to assess the situation. Her body felt different but not in a bad way. There was no pain anywhere at all. The only discomfort she was aware of now that the tube was out was a gnawing sensation in her stomach. She was starving. Was that a usual thing to feel after a near death experience?

  She touched her body through the thin paper dress. Everything was where it was supposed to be. She felt a little annoyed that they’d probably cut all her clothes off in order to check for wounds that weren’t really there. But… how hadn’t she sustained any injuries? No cracked ribs or punctured lungs. No ruptured organs at all. It was all so confusing.

  She noticed then that her backpack had been wheeled in with her. She reached down and found her book from Amy covered in the squished chocolate from Dinah. Then right at the bottom she found her cell phone. She’d never been allowed a smartphone like Madison, so she had one of those cheap yet indestructible ones. Luckily, it had survived the accident.

  She grabbed it and texted Amy first, partly because her name was quicker to get to and partly because she was her closest friend of the three.

  Hit by car. Totally fine. Plz find Elijah.

  She hit send and waited. A few seconds passed before she got her reply.

  WHAT!?!?!??!

  Kate sighed. Clearly Amy wasn’t going to listen to her when she said she was totally fine. She texted back.

  Honestly, no big deal. Nothing broken. Plz plz plz find Elijah.

  Amy’s reply arrived moments later.

  Ur clearly sick!! Where r u?

  Frustrated, Kate put her phone down on the bed beside her. She desperately needed to find Elijah and ask him what was going on. She was certain he would know.

  Just then, she noticed the doctors approaching the bed. They’d found another one, an older man with white hair, and they were striding purposefully toward her. When they saw her sitting up, with the tube on the ground and the IV drip lying on the bed, they stopped where they were.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” the new, white-haired doctor said.

  The others shook their heads emphatically. “I was with her the second she got out of the ambulance. The paramedics said she’d flatlined but when she came out of the ambulance she was breathing.”

  “She’d had two doses of propofol,” the other added.

  “How is she sitting up like that?” the white-haired doctor said.

  Kate started to get very frustrated with the way they were talking about her rather than to her. She was the one who’d just been through a traumatic experience and they were treating her like a circus freak show act.

  “Hi,” she said, relieved to find the tube had done nothing bad to her throat. “I think I’m feeling better now. Can I go home? I d
on’t see the point in worrying my family.”

  She started to get up but the doctors ushered her down.

  “No, wait. I’m sorry but you can’t go until we’ve tested you. You might have brain damage.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t,” Kate said. “Want me to say the alphabet backwards or something?”

  The doctor with the white hair looked at the others, astounded. Finally, he asked the question that was on everyone’s lips:

  “What are you?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kate’s parents didn’t arrive at the hospital until several hours later. Her dad hadn’t been able to (or hadn’t wanted to) leave work early. Her mom, despite being the one to receive the initial call from the hospital, had been “too busy.” It was around seven p.m. by the time anyone from her family came to see her. The hospital had even tried appealing to Madison, who at eighteen was the closest thing they could find to an “adult” next of kin. But she was too busy with an “important” cheerleading competition after school—clearly far more important than her sister’s life—and she hadn’t come.

  During that time, various doctors and nurses had been in and out to see Kate, each as baffled as the last. In the end they decided that she was playing some kind of sick joke, that she’d faked the accident to get attention, a sentiment her parents shared when they finally arrived.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your daughter at all,” the doctors told her mom and dad. “Not physically anyway. But attention seeking to this extent is suggestive of some type of psychological disturbance.”

  “Psychological disturbance, you’re telling me?” her mom said.

  “We can refer her to a therapist, if you’d like?”

  Mom looked at Dad. “I’m not sure if the insurance will cover it.”

  Kate watched it all from her bed, feeling increasingly bitter and frustrated. How could they say she’d made it all up? There were reports from the paramedics showing she’d broken every bone in her body! That wasn’t the sort of thing that could be faked!

  On the other hand, she did understand how it was easier for everyone to think she’d gone crazy rather than consider the alternative. Because what alternative was there, really? Kate herself didn’t fully understand what had happened. She’d spent the last few hours reading Romeo and Juliet while thinking about Elijah’s fangs as they closed in on her neck. But had she just imagined that? Was it some kind of delusion caused by the trauma of the accident, the overdose of propofol, Elijah being the last person she’d seen that day, and the fact she knew the book was in her bag? People in comas often had trippy experiences. Maybe the same had happened to her.

  She wished Amy would have tracked Elijah down for her like she’d asked instead of sending a stream of freaking out texts. If she could just speak to Elijah then her questions about what had really happened during the accident might be answered. He was the only witness, after all.

  Instead, she was being bundled into the back of her dad’s car, being berated for wasting the hospital’s time and making his health care insurance premium go up, not to mention detracting attention from Madison’s cheerleading competition.

  “Are you really that childish?” her mom complained from the front seat. “That you’d throw yourself in front of a truck like that? You’re lucky it didn’t hit you and break every bone in your body.”

  Kate wanted to argue that it had hit her and it had broken every bone in her body and that there were medical reports to prove it. But what would be the point? She hunkered down in the back seat, trying to let their words wash over her.

  “Did you do it because I told you that you’d have to put your college plans on hold?” her mom added. “Honestly, you’re so selfish. All I’m asking is for a couple of years to help pay for Madison’s tuition. You young children have no patience. You know your grandmother quit school at fifteen to look after her younger siblings? She never threw herself in front of a truck because of it!”

  She went on and on, laying into Kate the whole journey home. Kate just sat there taking it, too frustrated to even fight back.

  “I mean, what are the neighbors going to think! It sounds an awful lot like you were trying to commit suicide. I can’t have them think we’ve brought a mentally unwell child to the street. Why can’t you think of anyone else besides yourself for a change?”

  Dad didn’t say much, but he did add, “And don’t think we’re getting you another bike.”

  Finally, Kate got up the nerve to challenge them.

  “How am I supposed to get to school?”

  “Ride with Madison,” her mom snapped, “since she’s kind enough to offer you one.”

  The car finally pulled into the driveway. Kate leapt out as fast as she could, bolting for the door.

  “Look at her,” her mom tutted as she went. “She’s as fit as anything. Not a scratch on her. Who did she think she’d fool?”

  Kate burst in through the front door. Madison and Max came out from the kitchen and into the hall. Max smiled and was about to say something when Madison interrupted him.

  “You’re back,” she said flatly. “The hospital made it sound like you’d been in some terrible accident or something. I thought I was finally going to get to use your room to store my clothes in.”

  Kate couldn’t tell if she was joking but a part of her thought she probably wasn’t.

  “Did you really get hit by a car?” Max asked, his eyes wide.

  “Something like that,” Kate said, heading for the stairs. “I fell off my bike into the road.”

  Madison rolled her eyes. “God, Kate, you’re so clumsy.”

  “I know, right?” Kate said sarcastically, running up the stairs.

  She slammed the door to her room and sat with her back against it, panting.

  The first thing she did was undress; she couldn’t stand to have these clothes on her. Her mom had been asked to bring a change of clothes to the hospital for Kate and had picked out a pink skirt and matching blouse—the sort of clothes Madison wore, the type she wished Kate would wear instead of her scruffy jeans.

  Kate began examining her naked body, touching her flesh, prodding her ribs. There was no sign of the accident at all. No bruises, no cuts, no scars. It was like it hadn’t really happened. Maybe she really had made the whole thing up?

  But as she went over to her dresser to get some black jeans and a hoodie, she passed the full-length mirror in her room. The sight startled her. Instead of her own reflection, she saw a murky gray blob. The mirror was completely fogged up. She tried rubbing it but the fog wouldn’t clear.

  As she moved, she realized that the murky, misty shape was human-sized. It moved as she moved. It was her reflection.

  Her heart started beating hard. She grabbed some clothes and threw them on, her palms sweaty with perspiration. She had to find Elijah. But how? Without her bike there was no way she’d be able to get far in the city. She couldn’t get a cab because she had no money. And besides, she didn’t have the faintest idea how to find him.

  She picked up her phone, praying that Amy had finally found a way to contact Elijah. She’d texted her about a million more times but none of her texts were about that. The last one read:

  Spoke to Dinah. She’s gonna come to ur house later.

  Oh no, Kate thought. The last thing she needed right now was to see her worried friends and get distracted from finding Elijah.

  As though right on cue, she heard someone knock at the front door.

  “Kate!” her mom called up the stairs. “It’s one of your…friends.” Her tone dripped with disapproval upon that last word.

  Kate tore out of her room and onto the landing. Her mom took one look at her in her less pink outfit, then turned and paced away, revealing Dinah at the door.

  Dinah stood there with her huge bearded collie dog, Emerald. Kate had known Emerald since she was a puppy and loved to see her.

  “Girl,” Dinah cried when she saw her friend. “What’s going on? Amy’s freakin
g out. Said you were in hospital.”

  “It was nothing,” Kate said, bounding down the stairs. She couldn’t help it but she really wanted Dinah to leave. She had things to do. Her mind was frantic and only Elijah could calm it down. “I just fell off my bike.”

  Kate reached the bottom step. All at once, Emerald began to growl. She bared her teeth and emitted a low, angry noise.

  “Hey,” Dinah said to Emerald, tugging on her lead. “That’s not nice.” She looked up at Kate. “She’s probably freaked because you smell of antiseptic. Reminds her of the vet. Isn’t that right, girl?”

  But Emerald kept on growling.

  Kate wished she could agree with Dinah but she didn’t. Emerald was scared of her because she was supposed to be dead, because something had happened after the accident that had changed her.

  Emerald started barking loudly. In the trees out in the street, birds started to caw, startled by the noise.

  “Someone shut that dog up!” her dad roared from the living room.

  “I’d better go,” Dinah shouted over the noise, looking guilty for having made Kate’s dad mad. “I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re okay though, girl. But call Amy, she’s going crazy with worry.”

  She started dragging Emerald away.

  “I will,” Kate promised her, so desperate to shut the door she almost completely cut of Dinah’s call of, “See you tomorrow!”

  Finally, Dinah was gone. Kate ran back upstairs to her room and looked out the window. Dinah was dragging a still growling Emerald away from the house, trying to calm her down. The birds were still flapping all over the place and cawing loudly.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” she heard her dad boom from downstairs.

  Suddenly something slammed into the window. Kate screamed and jumped back. Another loud thud hit the glass.

  “Bats,” Kate said aloud.

  She pulled the curtains shut, blocking out the street light and the sight of the bats as they continued to fling themselves at her window. Terrified, confused, she backed up until she reached the bed and sat back against the mattress. Her gaze was transfixed on the silhouettes of the bats as they thudded against her window pane. She flinched with every thunk.