Still passed out, at least for the moment.

Heather’s big, blue eyes seemed blank as she stared down the hospital vending machine. ARGH (boy, that’s a fun acronym for a hospital) was as quiet as it almost always was. In the side hallway where she was trying to figure out what to hold herself over ‘til morning with, her only company was the irritated buzz of poorly-maintained fluorescents. ‘This is so fucked-up,’ she thought to herself, leaning back against the wall. She glanced up at the ceiling, trying to figure things out. Animal attack? Car crash? Dan and Audrey’s car didn’t have a scratch on it in the photos. And when they’d had to confirm the bodies … Audrey maybe, she was beat to hell from the fall down the slope, but Dan’s body was nearly intact except the fatal wound on his chest. What animal kills like that?

“You’re being paranoid,” she hissed out loud, trying to get her mind to quiet down. “Just be there for Logan, don’t … do this. Don’t make this something it isn’t.” Despite the command, it wasn’t as if her speculations vanished. Everyone was acting so weird, too. The doctors, the cops, none of them seemed to register what she said about that. Just nodded, then repeated the same thing. But maybe expecting them to take her seriously was a mistake. “You know, because my tits mean I can’t understand basic concepts,” she remarked, reflecting cynically on the attention in particular Logan’s attending had paid to her chest. “God, I need to take a nap …”

Heather stood straight up again, her nemesis still presenting her with a pile of processed junk unsatisfactory to the gnawing hunger welling up inside her. With a defeated sigh, she punched the code for the bag of peanuts, figuring at least some protein might good. As she did, the lights quieted, the only noise that of the whirring machine accepting her money. On the ground, her shadow seemed to open its eyes, baleful, white, and furious flickers of light. While her payment was confirmed, it squirmed, shook, then shed its apparent shape, pouring upwards in a dark mass. Heather’s actual shadow now visible on the ground, something … almost humanoid twisted and snapped, taking its form behind her. The steady, mechanical sound of the spiral holding the peanuts issued over the manifestation of antler-like horn from the thing’s head, its arm spreading, fingers pointed, almost encircling Heather, silently poised to engulf her in one, terrible, final moment.

“Heather?” a voice called from down the hallway. Heather glanced up, seeing someone turning the corner at the far end of the hall. She waved to them as they started heading towards her, the lights resuming their unpleasant hum as she crouched down to grab the package. The hallway stood empty as she joined the man at the end of the hall, heading back towards the lobby. Shadows bristled in the vacant hall, something hateful and ravenous whispering a single, incoherent word as quiet as the shaking of the leaves outside.

“How’d you even find out about this?” Heather asked Gavin as she took a seat with him. They weren’t super-close, but she’d gotten to know him more over the course of the summer. As far as she could tell, he seemed a decent guy: smart, quiet, a little awkward, but genuine. She could do worse for company right now.

“Oh, An- Ms. Mercado told me,” he explained as Annalise walked up behind him. “County alert. She’s the head at Windhame.”

“Ah, the book repository …” Heather said with an affected, scholarly accent to address Annalise. “I’ve heard tell of this place.”

“I know, it’s not exactly popular with local kids,” Annalise accepted as she sidled up beside Gavin. “Gavin’s been volunteering. He’s been a huge help with keeping everything running. I’m so sorry to hear about your cousin, though. Is there anything I could do to help? I’m not a doctor, but if you two are going to be here all night, I could grab you some food or something?”

“I’m good,” Heather stated, popping a peanut in her mouth. Not precisely true, but bothering a total strange about this seemed rude, somehow. “Thanks for the concern, though. Logan’s fine … or he will be. Physically. He lost his parents, I don’t have a gauge for how that’s going to work out …”

“The other two,” Annalise realized. “God, that’s awful. Well, as terrible as the circumstance, it was still nice to actually meet one of Gavin’s friends. I’ll see you later?” She addressed the last question to Gavin.

“Absolutely. Thanks for driving me here, I can figure out a way back home.”

“I can come back after I feed Pumpkin, I don’t want to leave you stranded,” she argued briefly before it occurred to her that she probably shouldn’t act too couple-y around one of his friends. Especially one she recognized as a member of one of the town’s most important families.

“It’s fine, Ms. Mercado. Thanks for bringing me,” he answered with a relaxed smile. She allowed herself a subdued grin back, then nodded.

“… is that what we’re putting in libraries now?” Heather asked Gavin kind of, but really no one in particular as she watched Annalise walk back down the hall with some level of admiration. “I thought they were supposed to be older and meaner and less, y’know … sexy.”

“Part of the teen literacy program.” Gavin shrugged, putting genuine effort into not laughing before the pall of what they were there for settled in. “I’m really sorry to hear about your aunt and uncle. I only met them once, but they seemed like good people.”

“They were,” Heather said, her attention snapping back to the reality at hand again as well. “I’m just … glad Logan’s going to be alright. This is hard enough already.”

“It’s rough,” Gavin told her. “You get used to someone being there, then one day they just … aren’t. Older’s probably even harder. You don’t really ‘get,’ **** when you’re a little kid.”

“Oh, Jesus, I’m such an asshole!” Heather gasped. “I’m so sorry, I … I kind of forgot who I was talking to.”

“I was five, Heather, it’s fine,” Gavin waved her off from the cold rush of guilt flowing through her veins. “I just meant what I said. Logan lost both his parents. When he’s old enough to understand what that means. I’ve been nearby with my dad, but I haven’t been where he is.”

“Still, though.”

“It’s really fine; you didn’t offend me or anything. I just … I hope my trauma is compatible enough with his to be of use,” he explained with a small sigh and a wry smile. “It’s all trauma’s really good for at the end of the day.”

“I’m glad you’re here. Dad had to go talk to the police, so I’ve been alone since then. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good this place isn’t a constant tour of human misery and ****, but it’s creepy to be in a hospital after dark with nobody around.”

“Yeah, I used to hate that when my mom was doing her residency,” he remembered out loud. “You know why every hospital smells the same?”

“Sanitation?” Gavin snapped his fingers and pointed at Heather. “Eh, if smelling like bleach means we don’t get the plague, I’ll take it. Is there a reason they all LOOK the same, though?”

“You know, I don’t know …” Gavin considered for a moment. “Probably the same reasons schools do. I mean, if you were going to put your budget in your lobby or in your equipment …”

“That’s a lot more faith in medical administration in this country than I have,” Heather griped. “I know, I’m an enormous hypocrite, little rich girl who’s been getting on-call doctors since she was born doesn’t trust the plebian concerns of hospitals. But I meet people who make those decisions when I go to charity things with my dad. A lot of them suuuuuuuck.”

“I’d watch that around Zack. One of his aunts is a hospital admin,” Gavin cautioned lightly, but far from direly. “All the same … yeah. But you put financial incentives on keeping down overhead instead of saving lives, it tends to attract a certain brand of sociopath.”

“Do you know which sociopath that is here?” Heather asked, idly spinning a finger in her hair as she considered it. “I’m totally be willing to withhold my opinion if it puts some weight on my complaint about Logan’s attending. Between general incompetency and ogling teenagers’ titties, he’s really helping me sharpen my axe.”

“Um, I’m sorry for that …” Gavin responded. Making a very conscious effort not to look at Heather’s breasts, which could be challenging. She was wearing the same skintight t-shirt from school, which didn’t have a ton of cleavage, but showed off her generous bustline all the same. She snorted, then laughed out loud.

“I don’t care if YOU look at my tits, Gavin!” she managed to say after recovering. “I mean, I didn’t buy this bra to BLEND IN.” He looked a little more comfortable after the joke, laughing just a tiny bit himself. “No, I just take offense when you’re doing it instead of listening to me. It’s perfectly normal for a lady not to want everyone she walks past eyebanging her, but everyone’s going to think I’m either an airhead or a steel-clad bitch when I finally get into the company. Former just means they’re more off their guard.”

“That’s fair. Corporate America’s pretty hardcore sexist, even with a name like yours behind you. But you live and breathe that stuff. Even in a sea of dickheads, I’m pretty sure you’ll end up fine.”

“Thank you,” she said, tilting her shoulder in false modesty. “That, and I kind of DO want everyone eyebanging me when I walk past … what? I should just let all this natural edge go to waste?” That time, both of them laughed, Gavin substantially eased into what he realized was his first conversation with Heather without a buffer. “What about you, anyway? What’re you doing once we graduate?”

“Going to school for engineering. I mean, computer stuff, too, but design and fabrication is more where my heart’s at,” Gavin told her. “Just feels good to hold something you made in your head for real.”

Gavin continued to elaborate on the weird projects he’d sent in place of an essay, one of which had almost gotten him arrested after a … misunderstanding. Heather mostly thought of the practical applications of the ideas, but it gave her something to consider besides her beaten, **** cousin a few rooms over.

And more than that, it meant she wasn’t alone.