Page 1 of Stutter

Prologue

Damon.

Lorne Wood Falls Hospital

Two Weeks Prior

The gears in the pulley of the elevator whir quietly as it ascends, taking me up the second, third, fourth… I watch the large antique dial move until it lands on the tenth floor of the hospital, my memories reeling along with the dial.

“Maman said Paris at night is dangerous. You shouldn’t go, Maddie. It could be bad for your heart!” I worry for her. She’s been so crazy lately., sneaking out, partying, coming back late. I think she even smelled like cigarettes one time.

I don’t like it.

Silver eyes dart to mine in the mirror as she lays her green hairbrush atop her vanity. Our only genetic similarities are our black hair and silver eyes we got from our mother. She smiles sweetly at me in the reflection. “I have lived every day worriedabout my heart. I’m tired of being afraid of living… But you’re right, Arrow.” The nickname is a nod to our different last names. “How about we play and then go to bed?”

My heart jumps, excitement thrumming through my eight-year-old self at just the thought that my big sister wants to play with me. “You’ll really play with me?”

She nods happily. “It’s been a while since I’ve played, huh?”

“Okay! I’ll go grab my cars!” I yell excitedly and dash away.

And so we played. For over two hours my sister played with me, creating huge ramps and obstacles on the floor of her room, my Hot Wheels flying at top speeds, crashing into the barricades we built. And then, before bed, after she promises to play with me when we wake up, we build a fort in my room, where she tells me stories of Greek gods until I fall asleep.

When I wake, she’s gone.

I stand at the threshold of her room, looking in, but staying outside of the small bedroom, afraid to disturb the setting. My cars and our ramp and obstacle course are still set up in place.

I wait for her to come back to play with me, never touching nor disturbing them, even when dust begins to settle on them.

Because she’ll come back. No matter how angry Maddie is, shealwayscome back to me.

For six days I stand in the doorway outside of her room, my mother quietly sobbing in the living room downstairs. She thinks I can’t hear her but in the quiet little home we rented from her friend, it echoes. Not loudly. Just a low, shy sound, only floating when it gets to be too much for her. Her worry. Her grief mirroring my own. Her insecurity that she wasn’t enough of a good mother which makes me angry.

How could Maddie make maman think she’s a bad mother?

The bell in the elevator dings, and the steel doors of the elevator slide open as the memory of my mother opening thedoors and her wails ricocheting off the walls rings in my ears when they tell her, they found Maddie’s body behind a building buried under trash.

The sterile hallway leading to the ICU ward’s nurse’s station seems to pulsate, the soft thuds of my casual Italian dress shoes seem to reverberate with each step I take, adding to the tension around me.

The low comfortable chatter from the nurses a growing hum as I advance closer.

“Dr. Archer?”

I pause, letting my eyes focus on the stout woman before me in sky blue scrubs, with matching eyes, blonde and silver hair in a high tight bun on her head, searching for her name in the recesses of my mind, blinking. “Nurse Elliot, a pleasure to see you. Thought you’d have left this place behind years ago.”

A bright grin spreads across her tired face, laugh lines deceiving you into believing they aren’t from decades of hard work and worrying about possibly losing her hard-earned position caring for patients, that are often so close to death in this ward but the silver in her roots and the lilac bags under her eyes and deep laugh lines and crow’s feet tells a different story. “Oh gosh it’s beenagessince you’ve stepped foot in the ICU. It's so good to see you. What brings you by?”

She must not know I no longer work for Lorne Wood.

Good. The less she knows, the better.

“My colleague is here, unfortunately. My girlfriend asked me to bring by flowers during my visit before I go home to her.” I say, conveniently holding a vase and the important thing tucked between the leaves of the thornless dark red roses.

“Girlfriend?” She asks with a slight gasp, and I don’t dare say Raven because this nurse was there the night they brought her into Lorne Wood Hospital, when reporters were everywhere. There the night they transferred her to my ward to be under my care.

I give one singular nod.

When I don’t give more information she takes the hint. We aren’t friends. We’re former colleagues. Nothing more. Nothing less. “Who is the patient?”

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