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  Chapter Thirteen

  Be-deep…Be-deep…Be-deep…

  The first thing I realized when I woke up was that…peanut butter jambaya, everything hurt! I felt like a baked potato that had been put through a car crusher.

  “What happened?” I groaned.

  Nobody answered. I opened my eyes to find myself lying in a bed with stiff, scratchy sheets. The walls around me were painted a blinding white. The beeping, which was already starting to give me a headache, turned out to be a heart monitor.

  And I was alone.

  Weird. I’d been iy of hospital rooms over the past three years, but this was the first time I’d ever woken up in one all by myself. Usually my family was there, us, or Aesop and Jade. At the very least there should have been a doctor here, right? I looked around for the button to call the nurse, and frowned when I couldn’t find it.

  “Hello? I’m awake in here!” No response. “A little help? Anybody?”

  I id my head back down with a tired sigh. It’s not like I was in a hurry, I guess. What was the harm in lying here for a little while and WHERE WAS ETHAN?

  Bedeepbedeepbedeepbedeep! went the heart monitor as my pulse skyrocketed.

  I sat up straight, ign the pain, and ripped the wires off of me.

  Be-dee…Booooooop.

  I swung my legs out over the side of the bed and hoisted myself onto my feet. Ouch, ouch, freaking ouch! I ched my teeth together to keep from whimpering, but when I stood up I felt more or less like I could stay that way. I still had the clothes I’d worn to Feverdream Field on, which was weird. I even had Sptsy hanging from my belt. Why had the doctors not even bothered to dress me in one of those buttless gowns before abandoning me in here? Not that it mattered, I decided, si just saved me the trouble of having to get dressed. I made my way into the hall, groaning with every step.

  I reized where I was immediately. Saint Bobo’s Hospital, on the western side of Mauldibamm. Not that that was any surprise. The cil would never let their Hunter be treated ahey couldn’t stick their noses whehey wanted.

  Farther down the hallway, I saw light shining from another room. It was the only ohe others all as dark as if the hospital had been abandoned. It was creepy enough to send a painful shiver down my spine. Even so, I headed that way, leaning on the wall to keep from falling.

  Was Ethan in there? Would they eve a human at a kon hospital? I tried to tell myself that he was too valuable for the cil to just let die, but I couldn’t help but remember how Ichabod had asked if they could cut the ughter out of him. His wellbeing had never been their first priority.

  I reached the door, but stopped just outside. Could I bring myself to face Ethan after what I’d doo him? This whole thing was my fault. What would McGus say?

  “He would say,” I whispered, “to get your butt in there and face the sequences of your as.”

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to go in.

  “So, you’re awake,” my dad said.

  I froze, blinking. Everyone I knew — Dad, Mom, McGus, Aesop, Jade, and Grandpa Teddy — were sitting around the hospital bed. Cousin Gumdrop lurked in the er, leaning against the wall, giving me a smug grin as if she’d been waiting years for this. She was a Red, her hair cut in a way that made her entire head look like a giant gumdrop. Her paintmarks made an X over her face, crossing on her forehead and sshing down over her eyes and cheeks like fresh wounds.

  Someone was lying in the bed, but I couldn’t tell who it was because the sheets had been pulled up over their head. That tore a gasp from my mouth, but then I realized another heart monitor had been hooked up, and it was still beating.

  Be…deep…be…deep…

  Slowly. Terrifyingly slowly. But a slow beat was better than at all.

  I raised a trembling hand and poi the bed. “Is- Is that…”

  Mom nodded. “It’s Ethan.”

  Wing against the pain, I hobbled over to the bed. My right leg gave out just as I reached it, and I had to catch myself on the footboard. Nobody moved to help me.

  “Is he all right?” I asked in a quiet voice.

  “Does he look all right, Blueberry?” Cousin Gumdrop shot back.

  “Alicia!” McGus snapped.

  She bowed her head, but I didn’t miss the cruel smile she gave me. “Sorry, Master.”

  Master?

  “You’ve been out for almost a whole day,” Aesop said, sounding uncharacteristically solemn. “We’ve been here with Ethan the whole time.”

  With Ethan, I thought, but not…me?

  “He’s alive, though,” I said, pointing at the heart monitor. “Right?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Why are the sheets pulled up if he’s still alive?” My voice was rising. “Let me see him!”

  I reached out to pull the sheets down, but my mom grabbed my wrist and shook her head.

  “The sheets are like that,” Dad said softly, “because it’s only a matter of time.”

  My mouth fell open, and I stared at Ethan’s motionless form. I couldn’t even hear him breathing. If it weren’t for the heart monitor, I would have thought he was already…

  “No,” I whispered. Tears started to run down my face. “No, no, you’re lying!”

  My legs grew weak beh me, and I sagged agaihan’s bed frame. All the chairs in the room were taken, and nobody offered to give me — the injured oheirs.

  “Quit your blubbering!” McGus snapped without even a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. “What did you think was going to happeing him run around in Feverdream Field by himself?”

  I shook my head. “No, I- I didn’t mean—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Mom said. “You should have known this would happen.”

  “We’re all very disappointed in you, Henry,” Grandpa Teddy said. He was sitting at the far end of the bed, e clutched between white knuckled fists. “You’re lucky your cousin arrived when she did. If it hadn’t been for her, those maiams would have killed you both.”

  With a jolt, I remembered the ohat had sucked out Ethan’s ughter.

  “What about—”

  “Killed it,” Cousin Gumdrop said.

  I spun to face her. “That’s impossible! How?”

  To my plete and utter surprise, McGus actually smiled. “She’s an incredible maiam hunter. Letting that supercharged monster run free would have been a disaster, but she took it down ihan five minutes.”

  “While you were taking a nap,” she added, grinning.

  I looked at the others for support, but they were all nodding their agreement. I could already see where this was going. Slowly, my hao cover Sptsy.

  “I fix this,” I said quickly. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Anything, I swear! Don’t—”

  “The decision,” Grandpa Teddy said, “has already been made.”

  I turo look at him. “The cil met about this before I even woke up?”

  “Not the cil,” McGus said. “Me.”

  “What?”

  “I was right,” McGus said, folding his arms. “Clearly, giving you the responsibility of the Hunter was a mistake. You’re immature, irresponsible, and on top of all that you’re just pin dumb!”

  “I fix this!” I whispered again.

  “The fact that I chose you as my successor is a blight on my honor,” he said, closing his eyes in disgust. “I hought I’d say this, but the cil actually knew better than me.”

  “No, please!”

  “Your position as Hunter, along with all reted duties, have been taken over by your cousin, Alicia Wolfe,” said Teddy. “Effective immediately.”

  I gasped, those words stabbiraight through the heart.

  “Y…You ’t be serious,” I stammered in disbelief. “Cousin Gumdrop? But she—”

  Gumdrop spped me viciously across the face. Lights fshed in front of my eyes, and I slid pitifully to the ground with my head agaihan’s footboard.

  Nobody helped me.

  “How many times do I have to tell you,” she snarled, “o call me that?”

  “Henry,” Mom said as I struggled to pick myself up, “show your cousin some respect.”

  I stared at her. “I…but she…she just hit me!”

  “You deserved it,” said Dad. My mouth fell open, horrified. Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged awkwardly. “We’re all thinking it, aren’t we? I…love…my daughter…”

  It sounded like he had to force those words out of his mouth.

  “…but she was never a good Hunter. Alicia fight, she track maiams better than anyone except maybe Master McGus, and she’s a Red.”

  She’s a Red. Those words were more painful than Cousin Gumdrop’s sp. More painful than all the injuries I’d suffered from the maiams. After all I’d done, everything I’d sacrificed, my own father couldn’t see past my freaking hair color.

  “You’ll o turn your hammer over to Master McGus,” Grandpa Teddy said. “Right now, if you don’t mind.”

  McGus stepped forward, and I backed up against the wall, eyes wide.

  “No, please!” I begged him. “I do better, I promise! I- I’ll never mess up again!”

  He ignored me, reag for Sptsy.

  “Master, please!”

  “I’m not your master anymore.” he growled.

  I held out my hand to stop him, but he just brushed it aside, grabbed Sptsy, and tore her off my belt with a quick tug.

  I fell to my knees, sobbing. “No! Don’t do this! If I’m not the Hunter, I’m…I’m nothing!”

  “Oh, will you shut up?” Aesop yelled. “Somebody just died because of you, and all you care about is your stupid hammer? What’s wrong with you?”

  I stared at him. “But…But taking him there was your idea!”

  He threw up his hands. “I ’t listen to this anymore. e on, Jade.”

  Without another word, without even a backwards gnce, my only two friends in the world walked out of the room. I watched them go, uo believe what I was seeing. It was like all my worst fears were ing true, right here and now in this room.

  I blinked. Wait a sed. Why did that sound familiar? All of my worst—

  Be…deep…be…deep, wehan’s heart monitor. Be…boooooooop!

  I gasped as the monitor ftlined. Everyone bowed their heads, except for Cousin Gumdrop who leered at me in satisfa. I fell to my knees in front of Ethan’s bed again. This wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be happening!

  “We should go,” Dad said after a few minutes.

  Numbly, I got to my feet. Maybe this would all make more seer I’d spent the night in my own—

  “Actually, Henry,” Dad said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “why don’t you stay here for a few more days?”

  I looked up at him. “Wh- What? Why? I’m fine! Why would I o…”

  Horrible, gut wreng realization hit me when I saw the look in his eyes.

  “Mom?” I whispered desperately.

  She shook her head. “You were hurt pretty bad. You should probably let the doctors take care of you for a while.”

  “For as long as they’ll let you stay,” Dad added. Mom nodded in agreement.

  I put my hand over my mouth, but I couldn’t stifle the heartbroken whihat came out. I looked at Grandpa Teddy, the only other Blue in the room. Surely he, if nobody else, wouldn’t just abandon me like this.

  “Grandpa Teddy?” I whispered.

  His face grew hard. “Child, calling a politi by suames is horribly inappropriate. From now on, I will need you to refer to me as Representative Mulch.”

  I stopped moviirely, my sanity falling to pieces. I couldn’t do anything but watch as my family filed out of the hospital room, leaving me aloh Ethan’s corpse.

  Slowly, I turo look at him. To think that that bedsheet mummy was him, when it felt like I’d seen him alive and well just a few minutes ago. I could barely bring myself to believe it. But it was true. It had to be.

  With that, I colpsed onto his bed, g my heart out. This was all my fault. I was a terrible Hunter, a terrible friend, and a terrible person. My family had disowned me, my friends hated me, and the only thing that gave my life meaning had been snatched away forever. I should finish what the maiams at Feverdream Field had started and do a swan dive off the roof.

  Eventually, I stood up. I don’t know how long I’d been g, but it hadn’t made me feel better. All I wanted was to lie down on the floor and never move again. And maybe I would. But first, for my own peaind — or as close to it as I would ever get — I o see Ethan’s body for myself.

  Slowly, I walked to the side of Ethan’s bed and held out a shaking hand, but stopped. Toug him after what I’d do wrong. But I had to do this. I clutched his bedsheets in my hand, ted to three, and whipped them off…

  To reveal the man in the ask.

  I screamed as he sat up, looking at me with his dark, empty eyes. I backed away, but my legs gave out beh me and I fell to the floor.

  “That’s impossible,” I whispered, scooting backwards as fast as I could. “How did you get here?”

  Silently, he climbed out of the bed, looking down at me like an i he wao squash. Then thick gray smoke began to billow out from behind his mask. It fell to the floor, making ominous ripples toward me. I pressed myself up against the wall.

  Wait, no, a small voi my head screamed. Something’s nht!

  His poisonous ughter was rising, filling the room at an arming rate. I covered my hands with my mouth, whimpering.

  How did he get in here? that little voisisted. Why didn’t the others see him? Either they let him e in and y down ihan’s bed, or he was already here when they showed up.

  I paused. The voice was right, that didn’t make any sense. But before I could think about it, the door was thrown open and a parade of maiams came in. One slithered across the floor like a man-shaped slug, and the sed had arms so big that it walked on its knuckles while its legs dangled over the floor. The third one had a short, squarish body, and lohat made it look like…

  A frog?

  “I killed you,” I whispered as it turo grin at me. “I remember that! You were dead!”

  The gray smoke was rising even higher. I had seds before it reached my mouth.

  “None of this makes sense,” I said. Slowly, I got to my feet, pointing at them. “You’re dead, he ’t be here, and…and how did maiams get into the hospital anyway?”

  A maiam attack — not ohan, but on me, personally. Maiams ’t feed on kons, ahan was dead, so why would they e here? The hospital was right in the middle of Mauldibamm. They would have caused a panic. It wasn’t that this didn’t make se was ft out impossible. Like one of my worst fears brought to life.

  I stopped. Not just one of my worst fears. All of them. I’d let Ethan die. I’d had to be rescued by the person I hated most in the world. I’d had my job and Sptsy taken away, lost my family and friends, and now the monsters I’d spent the st three years killing were here for revenge.

  There was only one expnation.

  Ign the maiams, I turoward the man in the mask. The smoke reached my nose and, hesitantly, I took a deep breath of it.

  Nothing happened.

  “This,” I said, stepping up to him, “isn’t real.”