Page 64 of Ruled By Fate

Denise stared at her for a moment. “Go get an orange juice. Then watch the HR video. You’ll be fine.”

She left without another word.

Brie stared after her for a second, still trying to process whatever had happened just a few minutes before. She slipped her journal into her backpack and made her way to a vending machine she’d seen in a nearby hallway. As she gave it her dollar and punched in her request, she kept running it over and over in her head.

In the end, she didn’t much care if Dr. Matthews was in some sort of trouble. He was a perfectly vile man who couldn’t be bothered to do his job correctly or with any amount of empathy, even in cases of life or death. It almost made sense that he’d pissed off some rich, scary, powerful woman who was now blackmailing him. If he was trapped in a situation that made it likely he was going to get his comeuppance, so be it. Karma had a way of sorting people like him out.

That wasn’t what was bothering her.

Who is the child? And what had he “chosen to become?”

“Excuse me, miss. Are you going to get that?”

She jumped and realized another nurse was waiting behind her. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

She grabbed her bottle of orange juice and looked at the young man apologetically. He shrugged it off with a friendly gesture. “No problem. Are you new here? I haven’t seen you around.”

“It’s my second day.”

“Oh, well, nice to meet you. I’m Aaron. Pediatrics.” He gestured over his shoulder at the station just beyond the hall, then offered her a hand.

“Brianna.”

As they shook, she was struck with a question. “Hey, did you happen to see Dr. Matthews pass by your way a few minutes ago? With a blonde woman in black? I was wondering if you know who she is.”

He frowned. “Matthews rushed past, yes. I only clocked it because he looked even more terrible than usual. But there wasn’t anyone with him.”

“Oh. Well, is there another way out of this wing?”

Aaron looked at her strangely, then pointed. “No, there isn’t. The only exit is past those doors at the end.”

? ? ?

Brie didn’t pay any attention to the next video. Instead, she let her mind wander and tried to think through what she saw logically.

Her instinct was to tell Cameron immediately. But he’d recently melted her phone, and it wasn’t as though he had some celestial phone number that she could dial anyway.

Besides which, he was…

She sighed heavily and rubbed her temples with her fingers.

In another world entirely, one that acts as a membrane between Heaven and Hell, through which all human souls must pass on their way to the Great Beyond.

She picked up her pendant and stared into its strange, opaline depths.

Again, the psych ward is just three floors up. One short elevator ride and a brief explanation of the past few days, and I’m sure they’d give me a nice, warm, white room to stay in for weeks on end.

Cameron was right. There wasn’t anything more she could do without a better understanding of what the hell was happening and why it all seemed to be suddenly intersecting with her. In the meantime, the best she could do was simply the best she could do. She’d do her job and try to do it well. She’d live her life and try to live it well.

What was that Teddy Roosevelt quote her mom always used to say? “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

So, figure out what the next right thing to do is. Then do it. Then do the next right thing after that. Over and over.

That’s how you move forward.

The video wrapped up with a panning shot of nurses and doctors of every color and creed holding hands and smiling in front of the hospital. Brie popped out the DVD, collected her things, and went to find Denise at the nursing station.

The rest of her afternoon passed by in a blur. She shadowed Denise and struck as many skills from her checklist as possible. She met her unit manager. She got the feeling that though he was technically in charge of her orientation, Denise was law in these parts, and he’d never dream of questioning her recommendation for a moment.

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