13 Bullets

"Christ, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and look at this," Caxton exclaimed, gesturing up at the air above their heads. It was winter outside the car. Big white flakes of snow were coming down, swirling in the wake of the car, gathering on the sills of the windows. The sky had turned a watery gray shot through with vaporous reefs of cloud. The road surface darkened and glistened with frost and Clara had to slow down to keep her little car on the road. In the back seat Caxton couldn't seem to get warm. Clara turned the heat up for her but it wasn't enough. She clutched herself, her arms close so they wouldn't touch the cold glass of the window, and shivered. She was one of them. She was some kind of vampire in training. She thought of the cold feeling she'd gotten from the vampires-especially from Malvern, when she'd stood next to the dried up monster in her wheelchair. She needed to get away from death and horror for a while. She needed to go home and be with the dogs and not think about anything for a long time. She had a couple of stops to make before that, however.



They dropped Arkeley off at the police station, where he'd left his car. Caxton had to climb out of the back to take his seat, so she could sit up front with Clara nearer to the heater. Her arms folded across her chest she tried to make eye contact with the Fed but he didn't look back, just swaggered over to his car and clambered inside.



Caxton threw herself back into the Volkswagen and yanked her door closed. The cold was sending her into convulsions, her body trembling violently, her teeth snapping at each other, chattering so loudly she could hardly hear Clara ask if she was okay.



"I know it's a stupid question," Clara said when Caxton hadn't answered. The smaller woman looked straight forward through the windshield. The wiper blades swung back and forth, a pendulum marking the time they just sat there. Caxton wondered if maybe the heater only worked when they were in motion.



"Listen," Clara finally said. "Why don't you come home with me tonight?"



Caxton shook her head. Her whole body shook so she reiterated in words, "You know I can't do that."



"No, not like that, we wouldn't sleep together. I mean, you could sleep in my bed. With me, because I don't have a guest room or even a real couch. But we would keep our clothes on. I just don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone tonight."



"You have no idea how alone I am right now," Caxton said. It sounded bitter and she instantly wanted to apologize. She opened her mouth to do just that but the look on Clara's face stopped her in her tracks. The hurt there was too guarded-if Caxton acknowledged what had just happened, it would only hurt Clara more. Clara started up the car and got them on the highway headed west, toward Harrisburg. Caxton needed to see Deanna before she did anything else. She needed to hold Dee's hand and figure out what her next step was.



They turned the radio on and drove in silence. Caxton watched the snow get thicker the farther they went and wished they could just magically be there. She was sure it would be warmer in the hospital. When they arrived, however, outside of Seidle Hospital, there was no parking available and they had to circle for blocks before they found a spot.



"You don't have to come in," Caxton said, which she had meant as a kindness but it made Clara squint as if she'd been struck. Caxton searched deep inside herself to find the humanity to know what to say. "I mean, it would really help me if you did, but you don't have to."



"I've come this far," Clara said, almost aggressively, but there was a little smile on her face.



Caxton would have done anything for things to be comfortable between the two of them. But she guessed her life was just going to be complicated for a while. Together they made their way back to the hospital, a big modern monolith of a building that looked across the river at the ruins of the Walnut Street Bridge. Caxton had never gone in through the main entrance-they had brought Deanna in through the emergency room-so it took her a while to get her bearings. Eventually she took Clara up an elevator and down a long hallway full of equipment carts and bad, but colorful, paintings. "Listen. It's a semi-private room and her roommate doesn't approve of women like us," she told Clara. "Just so you know."



"I'll try not to stick my tongue down your throat while we're standing over the hospital bed of your horribly injured domestic partner," Clara told her, deadpan. A laugh bubbled up inside Caxton's chest and she snorted out all her frustration and leaned hard against the wall and closed her eyes for a second. God, she had needed that release. "Thanks," she said, and Clara just shrugged. Caxton knocked and pushed open the door, which sighed a little. The two of them passed silently by the bathroom and into the main room, which was lit only by the flickering glow of the television set. The obese woman in the left-hand bed was asleep, her face turned to the wall, and Caxton tried to be quiet so as not to wake her. Clara waited by the door.



Caxton stepped over to Deanna's bed and nearly screamed. It was empty. She clapped a hand over her mouth and ran back out into the hall. Clara grabbed her arm and stroked her bicep. "They just moved her. Really," she said. "It's okay. They just moved her."



Caxton headed down to the nurse's station and scowled at the woman there who was filling out a form on her computer. "Deanna Purfleet," she shouted, when the nurse wouldn't look up. "Deanna Purfleet."



The nurse turned slowly and nodded. "I'll call the doctor. It'll just be a second."



"Just tell me where they moved her to and I'll go there. I'm Laura Caxton. I'm her partner."



The nurse nodded again. "I know who you are." She put on a pair of reading glasses and looked down at a phone directory. "Please sit down and wait for the doctor. You want to talk to him. That's all I can tell you right now."



Caxton didn't sit down. She paced back and forth around the nurse's station, studied the awards and plaques on the walls, took a cup of water when Clara brought it to her but she couldn't sit down, not if she ever wanted to get up again. The doctor came out of an elevator down the hall and she ran to him. It wasn't the doctor she'd seen before. "Deanna Purfleet," she said.



"You're Ms. Caxton, I think?" he asked. He was a small Indian man with perfectly combed hair and very soulful eyes. He looked like he'd never smiled in his entire life. "I'm Dr. Prabinder, if you'd like to sit down-"



"Jesus, just tell me where she is! Won't anyone tell me where she is?"



"There was a complication," the doctor said, and everything turned rubbery and soft. The floor started to rise toward her face. Caxton looked around-she had plenty of time-and found a chair to slump into.