Free Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga Page A

It’s a lock.”
    They had turned off his monitors once his vitals stabilized, so he didn’t have to worry about any sort of alarm going off. His IV stand—miracle of miracles!—was well greased and didn’t squeak as he pushed it along the floor. He made a quick pit stop in the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror. Yikes. It was pretty bad. He could see whyMom had been spazzing. There was a massive bandage strapped to his forehead, and his face was puffy and more black-and-blue than its usual pasty white. He looked as though he’d gone several rounds with a heavyweight champion, and he decided instantly that that would be the story he’d tell at school. Followed by “You should see the
other
guy!”
    I conveniently will not mention that the other guy is a middle-aged woman
.
    Thinking of Samantha brought him back to the present. He had to figure out what had happened to her. The best way to do that was to find Jazz’s grandmother. Sam would be with her, no doubt, and Howie decided that—as long as she didn’t actually turn out to be a serial killer—he would forgive her for hewing to her mother’s side and not his. G. William claimed she’d disappeared, but that could just mean she was off on a Starbucks run somewhere. If she brought Howie a latte, he’d forgive a lot.
    But if she’s a serial killer, all bets are off. Unless… conjugal visits? Hmm
…
    The only problem immediately before him was actually right behind him. His bony ass was hanging out of the hospital gown. He rummaged around in the room’s dresser and closet, finding nothing, then spied a plastic bag under his bed. It contained his clothing, minus his shirt, which he imagined had been soaked in blood.
    I lose more shirts that way
…
    He slipped into his jeans and left the gown on, then stealthily opened the door to his room, creeping along withinfinite patience. He couldn’t be caught. This was too important. Too big.
    Cracking the door just enough to slide through, he eased into the silent corridor.
    “Going for a little walk?” a nurse asked as she breezed by. “Great! Just watch your IV line on the door handles!”
    Howie watched her recede down the hallway.
I totally saw that coming. Totally
.
    He made his way to the nurses’ station, where a tired-looking woman in her fifties (or nineties—Howie couldn’t tell once people hit forty) barely glanced at him. He had to clear his throat several times before she finally looked up from her phone screen, where she was fiercely texting what looked to be roughly fifty percent emoji.
    “I need to find a patient,” Howie told her.
    The nurse’s eyes flicked from Howie’s battered face to his IV pole.
    “A patient
besides
me.”
Smart-ass
, he added mentally.
    “Patient confidentiality—”
    “You can tell me if someone is
here
, right? I’m not asking for a diagnosis and a copy of her X-rays.”
    Howie could tell that the nurse was about to say something like,
I don’t have time for this
or
I’m busy
, but she caught herself, realizing that her now-chirping phone put the lie to those notions.
    “Patient name?” she asked, resigned.
    Howie had an awful moment where he couldn’t remember Mrs. Dent’s first name. He almost blurted out “Gramma.”
    “Uh, she was admitted today. Old white lady.” The nurseherself was kind of an old white lady; Howie hoped she wouldn’t be offended. “Last name: Dent.” Helpfully, he spelled it out.
    She paused in her typing at the computer. “First name?”
    “Oh, come on. How many Dents are there in this town? For real.”
    “Too damn many,” the nurse muttered under her breath. “She was admitted earlier to—well, late yesterday, technically. Room two-zero-zero-seven. She’s in a step-down unit from ICU. But she’s on the no-visitors list.”
    “That’s fine. I just want to send flowers,” Howie said, backing away, giving her his best, most flirtatious smile. She grimaced at it. Must have been the bruising.
    Room 2007 was