Page 4 of Cardinal House

That’s an impossible promise to make, and I feel the pressure start to weigh on my shoulders, instantly curling them inwards, an attempt at making myself smaller.

I don’t really understand grief. I don’t remember ever losing someone and feeling sad about it. It’s always just been me and my uncle Nolan.

Names the others call me out on the ward rattle violently around inside of my head. Mocking and jeering. How I always only seem to bring death. Every patient I’m in the room with dies. Because of me.

But I nod a lie to the man with the weak smirk before backing out of the door.

I hurry down the hallway, the white walls seemingly endless. This weird feeling of suddenly wanting this man to live feels as though someone is pressing down on my shoulders, pulling at my insides.

The doors swing open as I reach them, the room emptying fast, and the man on the trolley is being pushed out of the room. Oxygen mask over his face, wires and tubing over his arms, padding over his chest. I see glossy black hair, sallow skin, dark brows over closed eyes, but before I can get a proper look at him, he’s rushed on by. Another team of doctors waiting for him at the opposite end of the hall.

This is good.

A good sign if they’re not leaving him there. They’re still rushing. Moving quickly. That means there’s hope.

That means death has not yet come.

Nurse Barker steps out of the doors, the last one in the room, she looks at me, pulling the blue mask from her face revealing wrinkled lips and a dimpled chin. “They’re going into surgery, tell the family, and then get this cleaned up.”

Chapter 3

Luna

Blackwell.

That’s the name scrawled in dark green pen across the whiteboard pinned to the door as I stand before room twelve.

The three men from before are already inside, standing over their unconscious brother, even though I’m pretty certain they shouldn’t be. But I saw the doctor speak with them only a short while ago, looking around before she ushered them inside, and there they’ve remained since.

Eight hours of surgery and one retrieved bullet later, the man lives.

For now.

I’m not sure why death follows me so closely, but it does, and everyone seems to know it.

As though they can sense the dark cloud haloing my head, the black cloak covering my shoulders, billowing out behind me as I traipse through the sterile white halls. Marking patients’ ends as I pass with nothing more than my presence.

I’m not sure any of that is really true, but it feels that way.

It’s why I hover outside this room now.

I’m supposed to be checking the patient’s stats hourly now that the senior nurse has declared him stable, but I can’t bring myself to cross the threshold, not after he was saved.

What if I ruin that?

I shouldn’t even be here now, my shift ended an hour ago, but Swiftson told me I had to work an extra half shift, so I won’t leave here now ’til at least midday.

Indecision makes my head hurt the longer I stare at the closed door. I take a step back, immediately knocking into someone, the breath punching out of me as I spin around, my pen clattering to the ground.

“Honestly!” Felicity shrieks. “What are you doing standing in the middle of the walkway?!” she spits at me, lips pulled into a sneer. “You’re supposed to be checking on the criminal!” Criminal? “Do you ever do what you’re told, you little freak?” She tucks a wisp of bleached-blonde hair behind her ear, smoothing her hands down on either side of her head as though bumping into me has ruffled her into a complete flustered mess. “Like, how is it we get paid the fucking same but only one of us is actually any good at the job?” she huffs through her nose, pinching her lips together tightly. “It’s not fucking logical.”

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, dropping my gaze, fingers blanching white the harder I grip the edges of my blue clipboard. “I didn’t see you. It was an accident.”

“Yeah, well, clearly you being born was a fucking accident.” I glance up at that, the way she says it, so dismissive, so viscous.

Cutting.

Something heavy develops in my chest.

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