Chapter Seventeen

Emily

After getting the call from Connor, I finish up my meeting with Richards and unobtrusively, make my way down to the basement floor of the Sheriff's department. The morgue. Even though I've been here a couple of times now, it's still hard to not to be creeped out. It never seems to get warm down here and all around me, it's like I can feel the ghosts of the dead people who've passed through the doors crowding the corridors.

I pull my scarf a little tighter around my neck and step out of the elevator, my mind filled with a million different thoughts and feelings. Connor had been intentionally vague when he called me, leaving me to wonder what he found in my blood and all of the tests he ran. A shudder runs through me and I can't tell if it's from the cold or nerves.

Probably a bit of both.

As I pass a darkened doorway, Connor steps out of it at the same time, nearly running into me in the process. His glasses falling down slightly, and his face goes absolutely pale.

“Jesus, Emily!” he says with a nervous chuckle. “You don't just walk around unannounced in a place like this. It's creepy enough as it is. I thought I was alone down here, and suddenly – WHAM! -- there you are. You haven't seen many horror movies, have you?”

I know he's trying to keep things light and ordinarily, I probably would have found his banter fun and entertaining. But at the moment, I'm so wound up and tense that I'm not finding much of anything all that funny. With so many fears and worries running through my head, about all I can do is smile politely and offer a chuckle that sounds fake even to my own ears.

“I'm sorry, Connor,” I say. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“No worries, Emily,” he says, pushing his glasses back in place. “I'm sure you have questions. Follow me back to my office and I'll give you what answers I can.”

Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and follow him down the hallway. My heels are clacking against the tiles, while his tennis shoes squeak, the two sounds combining to make one annoying noise. I'd expected him to take me into the actual morgue and had been steeling myself for the sight of the bodies that I may or may not have killed.

But rather than step through the swinging doors of the morgue, Connor takes a right and goes through a door across the hall from the autopsy suite instead. For some reason, I always forget that there was more to the morgue than just slabs and dead bodies. And the fact that we're sitting in an actual, tastefully furnished office rather than a cold, sterile room filled with medical equipment and dead bodies helps put my mind at ease a bit. Emphasis on the little bit.

Connor drops down behind his desk, the top of it cluttered with file folders, empty soda cans, and more Scrabble dictionaries than any one person should ever really need. I'm sitting in a chair across from him, adrenaline running through me as hard and fast as the fear. Fear of what Connor is going to tell me.

“Well, let me start off with a bit of good news,” he says.

“I could use some.”

“The blood on the shirt you gave me to test is definitely not human blood,” he says. “It's animal blood. Most likely from a deer, but I'm still running some tests to determine that. But, the important thing is that the blood on that shirt did not come from one of the victims in the other room. You're not the killer, Emily.”

The wave of relief that hits me is powerful and I realize when my body starts to tremble slightly, that I'd been a lot more tense than I even knew. It's like I've been clenching up so hard, and now that my worst fear – or at least, one of my fears – hasn't been realized, I'm already feeling spent.

“That's good news, right?” Floyd asks, his face beaming.

“The best news,” I reply. “You have no idea.”

I sit back in my seat and absorb the news for a moment. Having Connor tell me I hadn't actually killed anybody – it's the most powerful sense of relief I've ever had about anything in my entire life. It doesn't last long though, as thoughts about everything else start to creep in at the edges of my mind, poking holes in the temporary sense of peace I found in Connor's news.

I let out a long breath. “Okay, one hurdle down,” I say. “What about the rest of it?”

Connor looks down and taps the folders on his desk, clearly not looking forward to the news he's about to deliver. Which, of course, makes my anxiety skyrocket once more.

“Well, since we don't know exactly what it is we're looking for, or what to test for, I'm having to run your blood through the whole gamut,” he says, pulling out a file from under his stack, opening it on his desk. “We don't have all the results back yet, and some are going take longer than others.”

“I understand,” I say. “I know it's like shooting at a target blind, hoping you hit something.”

“It's a lot like that,” he says, giving me a lopsided grin.

“And I really appreciate you jumping through these hoops for me, Connor,” I say.

He waves me off. “It's not a problem at all,” he says. “I'm more than happy to help.”

He drums his fingers on the papers in the file on his desk, avoiding my gaze. He's stalling, and his reluctance is only making me crazy with worry. I strain my eyes, trying to read the papers in the file across from me. But, truth be told, even if Connor handed me the file himself, I probably wouldn't understand a single word of it anyway.

“But, you said this morning that you found something?” I ask, trying to prompt him. “W - was there more than the blood test? Something else you found?”

A feeling of dread settles down over me as I ask the questions. I have a harder time getting them out than I thought I would and almost choked on the words as they came out of my mouth. There was a part of me that didn't want the answers to those questions, preferring to remain in ignorant bliss.

I know it's because having answers meant I was one step closer to proving something wasn't right with me. Even though I may not have killed those people, I am convinced that something inside of me was – different. And I lived in absolute terror at the mere thought of Dr. Floyd confirming it.

Floyd's face softened and he gives me a small smile. “I did find something else. But, I have a feeling that it's not what you're thinking,” he says. “But, then again, it does explain why you might be feeling weird.”

“H – how so, Connor?”

My hands are trembling in my lap and I clasp them together to keep them still. But, that only makes me start to fidget and pick at my nails.

“Have you been feeling nauseous lately?” he asks.

His question seems to come from out of left field and catches me off guard. How could he have known that I've been getting sick a lot lately?

“Actually, I have,” I say. “Some days, I can't seem to keep anything down.”

Floyd nods. “I thought that might be the case.”

My jaw clenches tight, and I ball my hands into fists to keep them from moving. My nails dig painfully into the palms of my hand and I'm convinced that when I open them, I'll have bloody half-moon shapes in my skin.

I take a deep breath and release it. “Okay, I'm ready,” I say, doing my best to steel myself for his news. “What did you find?”

“Well, your blood has elevated HcG hormones, Emily,” he said. “And that can mean any number of things – cancer, ovarian cysts, et cetera – but in this case –”

“I could have cancer?” I ask.

My blood pressure shoots through the roof at the same time my heart plunges into my stomach. Of all the things I'd expected to hear, that is the very last one. Had all of the tests those bastards run on me given me cancer? Had they killed me with all of their goddamn experiments?

Floyd instantly holds up his hands to stop the worry train that's rolling through my head. Yeah, too late though. The worry train has already left the station and is barreling down the tracks, completely out of control.

“It would be irresponsible of me to rule it out, Emily,” he says softly. “Sure, you could have cancer. And more tests will determine it conclusively. But, I'm betting against that.”

“Why would you bet against it?” I ask, unable to control the tremor in my voice.

“Because the most common reason HcG shows up in your blood at the elevated levels you have is because you're pregnant.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Pregnant?” I ask, my voice little more than a whisper. “I – I'm pregnant?”

“More than likely, yes,” Floyd replies. “I'm having another test run to determine it conclusively, but I'm already pretty sure.”

I cover my mouth with my hands, feeling my eyes grow wide. There is a chasm opening in the pit of my stomach and the swirl of emotions inside of it is intense. I suddenly have no idea what I'm thinking, let alone what I'm feeling.

“H – how can you be so certain, Connor?”

“Well, like I said, the presence of HcG in your blood, especially at your levels, is a pretty good indicator. Honestly, I wouldn't expect it to be cancer or anything else. The levels aren't high enough for what we typically see in cancer victims.”

“My God,” I whisper, still unable to wrap my head around it. “Pregnant.”

“I'd say you're pretty early in the pregnancy,” Connor says cheerily. “Probably only eight weeks or so.”

I can't find any words in that moment. Hell, I can't find a coherent thought in that moment. I stare at Floyd blankly, my thoughts and my heart running amok. This is not the news I'd been bracing myself to hear. I'd expected to find out that they'd turned me into a bear. Or a wolf. Or something else entirely. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that they'd infected me with cancer.

But this? This is something else entirely. And I don't know how to handle it. I feel off balance. Like the whole world was suddenly tipped off-kilter. Down is up, up is down, black is white, and white is black. Nothing even makes sense in my head anymore.

“Pregnant?” I ask again, wondering if maybe even after his previous confirmations, that I'd somehow still heard him wrong. “I mean, are you sure? After all, you said it could be cancer or cysts or –”

“Sure, like I said, it could potentially be something else,” he says, referring to the papers in front of him. “But, honestly, the HcG levels in your blood aren't high enough for that. Pending the final tests, of course, I'd say with near certainty that you're pregnant.”

“Pregnant,” I whisper to myself, as if saying the word will somehow make it more palatable. “My God.”