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Quinn hated how well she knew her way around a hospital.
Once, it had been a point of pride for her, back when she was scrounging vending machine snacks and coloring at the nurse’s station, when the hospital was just the place her dad saved lives.
Now…well, now it was something else. Something Quinn wasn’t thinking about as she padded unnoticed down the sterile hallways, following the signs to the elevator that would get her to A wing.
That’s where Cole’s room was. The hospital staff wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but Glenn had gotten it out of the night nurse and delivered the intel to Quinn this morning like he was smuggling war plans through enemy lines. He’d offered to create a distraction to cover her, but she turned him down. The staff had enough to worry about, and the officers seemed to be satisfied for now with the statement she’d given. Quinn was sure she’d have to answer more questions later, but law enforcement had their own mess to clean up. She didn’t want to be back at the center of their attention any sooner than necessary.
In the elevator, Quinn traced the map. The burn care ICU was in another part of the hospital entirely. Her dad had assured her that once Rust was stable, they’d move him out of there and into D wing, where Quinn was. She tried not to fret about how long that seemed to be taking.
An officer was waiting in the hallway when the elevator doors opened. She had her phone out, but she looked up when she heard the bell.
“Name?”
“Uh.” Quinn cleared her throat. “Quinn Maybrook.”
The officer nodded at her to go on past “Sign in and out at the desk. No bag?”
“No.”
“Okay then.” She turned back to her phone.
Duly dismissed, Quinn found the clipboard at the desk and signed her name. It was the only one. Then she looked around. Airy hallways on either side of her led to separate suites. One was quiet. From the other, she heard the faint bells and chimes of video game music. She followed it.
The suite was big, furnished to give the illusion of a hotel room. There was a full couch, a mini-fridge, and a large, low dresser with a bunch of clothes tossed haphazardly on the floor in front of it. The hospital bed had all the drop railings and dials, but it was queen-sized. Cole sat on it now in black sweats, cross-legged, playing Mario Kart on a massive wall-mounted television.
He didn’t look over when she entered, not until she said, “hey.”
“There she is.” He smiled at her, letting the controller drop. Onscreen, Yoshi crashed into a cactus. “How are you feeling?”
Cole’s voice was rough, an obvious corollary to the livid bruise around his neck, and the circles under his eyes were darker than ever. Now that she was closer, she could see he was sitting at a slightly odd angle as well, propped up with pillows on one side. Not nearly as casual as he was trying to appear.
She knew that feeling though, the urge to ask others how they were doing to distract from your own sore spots, so she put on a cheerful expression and said, “bored. Please tell me you have a second controller.”
“Blue duffel.”
“Hope you’re ready.”
“Bring it on, Philly.”
She’d intended to pull a chair over, but he made room for her on the bed, and it wasn’t as awkward as she’d feared it might be. In fact, it was almost cozy, with Cole a warm scaffold shoring her up on that side. Quinn wasn’t very good at the game, but neither was he, so they had plenty of fodder for some good, old-fashioned smack talk as they careened into NPCs and skidded out over their own banana peels.
Eventually, however, Cole said, “I hope you’re not mad at me for leading you on.”
“Literally the last thing on my mind right now,” Quinn replied, hurling a green shell in Yoshi’s direction. It rebounded off the wall and blew her own kart into a tailspin.
“Yeah, I figured. But it needed saying.”
Quinn glanced over and saw something dark and hurt in his eyes. Because you’ll never get to say it to Janet, she thought, and suddenly she was right back in the barn at the party, looking at a beautiful, broken boy and hearing her mother’s warnings in her head.
Relax, Mom. I’m not the one in danger here.
Now Rust, on the other hand…Quinn thought back to the way he’d looked at Cole in the refinery, the way he’d balked at letting him go when the ambulances arrived, even as her dad kept saying things like “third degree burns” and “shock” and “septic infection.” Her neighbor definitely was not immune to the allure of a hot guy in need of rescuing. Then again, if you’re looking for someone to save you, you could do a lot worse than Rust Vance.
They hadn’t talked about Rust yet at all, but Quinn could still feel his presence in the room, a flannel specter. It reminded her of the six months last year that Tessa had nursed an exhausting crush on a guy who worked at the library. Her nonstop dissection of every interaction forced them to issue a limit on the number of times she was allowed to bring him up in conversation, but that only made it worse. Every time Tessa wasn’t talking about him, she was so obviously Not Talking About Him that Quinn and Jace had finally just given up.
Sitting here with Cole felt like the same sort of thing, like he was waiting for her to bring Rust up, or for her to give him a reason to bring Rust up himself. But unlike Tessa’s librarian fixation, Quinn wasn’t sick of it yet. It was kind of cute, actually: Kettle Springs’ teen heartthrob crushing on her dorky neighbor.
It was also a nice distraction from the horror that waited in the wings of her consciousness, crackling at the edges of her awareness.
“Have you heard anything about how Rust is doing?” she asked, and felt Cole curve into her. Knew it.
“No. The only people who talk to me are cops and doctors, and they all want to ask me questions, not answer mine.” He bumped her gently. “Have you?”
“Not really. My dad’s been trying to find out.”
“Has he talked to Jim and Sibyl?”
“Who?”
“Rust’s parents.”
“Oh, uh. I dunno.”
“They never liked me much,” Cole said. “They really aren’t gonna like me now.”
“At least they didn’t put on clown masks and try to kill you?” The words were out before Quinn could think better of it, and Cole wheezed a choking, snorting sort of laugh, burying his face in her shoulder. It was an endearingly un-hot sound, and the small part of Quinn still nursing disappointment over her own thwarted, fledgling crush eased. So Cole Hill wasn’t gonna be her boyfriend. She’d still gotten a new friend out of the ordeal, along with all the complex trauma. “So they don’t know that Rust is…gay? Bi?”
“Gay. And no. Not as far as I know.” He traced the long line of an old scar down his arm. “But it’s not like we’ve been on speaking terms since, like, middle school, so maybe they do.”
“Middle school? It’s been that long since you guys were friends?”
“Pretty much. I think—“
But Quinn didn’t get to find out what Cole thought, because a nurse came in to check his stats and chase her out, tutting over the fact that Quinn was also supposed to be resting up and not stressing out the attendings by sneaking off.
Cole made her promise to come back tomorrow, though, and started texting her Mario Kart memes almost as soon as she left, which made the walk back to D wing less lonely. Even better, a text arrived from her dad just as she was getting back to her room.
Rust is awake. Limited visiting tomorrow, followed by the celebration emoji. She forwarded the news to Cole, and he replied with a gif of a piranha plant eating Bowser.
Quinn and Cole made their way to the burn ward at ten the next morning, flanked by an officer. When they passed through a breezeway, Quinn caught sight of a small cluster of reporters outside being escorted away by hospital security. Then the pair of them were passed off to another officer when they reached the ICU. Glenn met them at the sterility station as they scrubbed in.
“They’ve got him on some heavy-duty meds,” Glenn said, “so he’ll probably be pretty out of it.”
Cole grinned like he was looking forward to seeing Rust high on pain meds. Quinn, however, knew what her dad was saying and why. You can keep it brief if you need to. You can stay out here.
Her stomach twisted, but she tamped it down and gave him a grateful hip-bump on the way past.
The room looked crowded—not just with equipment, tubes and IVs, but also with people. A nurse was checking readouts on a nearby screen, and a couple already sat on the squeaky plastic bench beside Rust’s bed.
Jim and Sibyl Vance were older than Glenn Maybrook, or maybe that was just the circumstances. Neither of them looked like they’d slept much in the last couple of days. Rust’s mom had thick glasses and a crochet project in her lap. She summoned a smile for Quinn, but it slid off her face again when she saw Cole behind her.
“Five minutes,” the nurse warned.
Rust looked…rough. They’d shaved his head to treat his burns, and more of him was covered in bandages than Quinn had expected. But the worst part, at least for Quinn, was his eyes: glassy and unfocused in a way she wished she didn’t recognize. Gone was the steady, capable Rust she remembered from the field, replaced by this muzzy, blurry stand-in. No. Not gone, she told her rising panic. This is just temporary. His parents will be careful. I won’t let it happen again.
She surprised herself with the ferocity of this last thought, but when she put a little weight on it, it held.
Rust was cogent enough to know they were there, at least. He tried to pull himself up to sit when he saw them.
“Nuh-uh,” Quinn’s dad said, putting a hand out. “You take it easy there, kiddo.”
“I keep tellin’ ‘em it didn’t hurt.” Rust’s voice was thick and sleepy. One clumsy hand plucked at an IV. “I don’t need all this stuff.”
“Don’t touch it,” the nurse said from the door, in a tone that meant it wasn’t the first time.
Rust made an annoyed face, but then his eyes landed over Quinn’s shoulder, and his expression softened. “Hi Cole.”
“Hey Rusty.” Cole leaned into Quinn’s space to get closer, but he made no move to push past her, keeping Quinn like a buffer between them. She wondered if that was because Rust looked so fragile and un-Rust-like, or because Rust’s parents were here. “You doing okay?”
“I think so. My head’s cold.”
“The buzz cut’s a throwback. Reminds me of sixth grade.” Cole nudged Quinn in the side. “Tommy Mathers got lice, and everybody had to get checked. Most of the guys shaved their heads to be safe. Couple of the girls, too.”
“Lice likes clean scalps,” Rust said, sounding serious.
“Sure they do.”
“Janet told everybody he got ‘em ‘cause he didn’t shower.” Then, without warning, Rust’s face crumpled. “I’m so sorry, Cole. I tried to save her.”
Quinn heard Cole’s breathing catch. “I know you did.”
“I gave her a gun. I shouldn’t have left her, but I didn’t know what else—“
“It’s okay, Rust.” Cole vibrated with tension behind Quinn—because he wanted to be closer, or because he wanted to run away?
“I think maybe that’s enough,” Sibyl Vance said, laying her crochet hook down and reaching for her son’s hand. “You should try to get some more sleep.”
“We’ll come back soon.” Quinn put her hand on Rust’s knee over the blanket. Rust blinked at her, befuddled, then narrowed his eyes like he was trying to think.
“Quinn,” he finally managed.
“Yeah?”
“You’re tough as hell.”
She smiled, and let the nurse chase them away.
They went back the next day, but Rust was out cold. They waited around for nearly an hour, and Cole would have stayed longer if a phalanx of hospital staff hadn’t evicted them. Before that happened, however, they managed to steal a couple of minutes in the room. Rust’s parents were out in the hall, talking to one of the doctors, which left Quinn and Cole with the sleeping patient. Cole spent every second of that brief, relative privacy alternating between brushing his hand over the short, shorn hairs at the nape of Rust’s neck and tracing the line of his cheek with his thumb.
The following day, Rust was awake and apparently lucid, but that meant the police could finally collect his official statement. Accordingly, visiting hours were cancelled for everyone, Rust’s parents included, and stayed that way for the next four days.
On the fifth day, Quinn was sitting in Cole’s suite. She’d been discharged much earlier than either of her friends, but school was still closed and Cole wasn’t allowed to go home yet while the cops combed it for clues. He probably should have been in a hotel, but the doctors had worked something out with the insurance company and law enforcement and…well, it was rich people bullshit. Cole wanted to stay here until he could go home, so here he got to stay.
Quinn had just queued up Netflix, ready to find something for them to watch—or at least to have on in the background while they chatted—when her phone pinged with a text from her dad.
Surprise!
She sent back a ?, then heard the chime from the hallway. Moments later, Glenn Maybrook appeared with Rust beside him.
“He followed me home,” her dad said. “Can I keep him?”
“Rust!” Quinn beat Cole to the door and gave Rust a ginger hug, conscious of his bandages and the careful way he stood. He smelled like antiseptic and hospital soap, like he’d just taken a shower. “Are you allowed to be wandering around?”
“I busted him out during the shift change.” Glenn gave Rust a conspiratorial wink.
Rust huffed a laugh. “They transferred me to D wing.” Even in uncharacteristic sweats and a t-shirt, Rust was looking better, more like himself. His eyes were tired, but clear.
“Oh come on, buddy. You’re supposed to help me look cool.”
“Not my department.” Rust shrugged, then smiled wider as Quinn felt herself tugged backwards and out of the way. Cole took her place, wrapping Rust up in a bigger hug than she’d dared. Rust returned it with equal gusto, however, tucking his face into Cole’s neck and muttering something too low for her to hear. The two of them stood there, locked together long enough for Quinn and her dad to exchange awkward shrugs.
Finally, Glenn cleared his throat and said, “you kids hungry? I’m gonna make a food run.”
“I’d commit a felony for a cheeseburger.” Cole’s voice was muffled against Rust’s shoulder.
“Too soon, Colton,” Rust said, and Quinn felt something painful inside her chest loosen and give way as she laughed.
Later, after they’d eaten, the three of them crowded onto Cole’s bed, watching a movie. Quinn and Cole sat up against the pillows, with Rust curled on his side between them, head pillowed on Cole’s lap. He’d been dozing in and out, and Quinn knew she should walk him back to D wing soon before heading home herself. It was a long drive back to Kettle Springs.
But Cole would stay on the phone with her the whole way if she asked him to, and her dad would be waiting with the lights on until she walked in the door, no matter what time it was. So even if things weren’t okay, she wasn’t alone, and for now that was enough.