Page 43 of Toxic Salvation
“Answer me.”
“I-I think so! I don’t know! Yes, probably!”
“Have you met them?”
“No.”
“Of course you haven’t. When did you murder him?”
Jeremy looks ready to cry. “His surgery was?—”
“Speak up!” I bark. “I can’t hear you.”
He clears his throat and tries again, though his voice is a watery, wavering mess. “His surgery was scheduled for 9:00 P.M. last night. I called t-time of d-death at 10:21.”
“Motherfucker.” Venom fills my lungs. “You motherfucker.” I snatch him by the throat. “What did you tell his wife? That you ‘did everything you could’? That you tried to save her husband while you actively murdered him?”
Jeremy grips the edge of his desk, knuckles white. “Where do you get off judging me?” he explodes suddenly, spit flying from his mouth. “Y-you’re no fucking saint!”
“I’m not,” I agree, tightening my grip. “Nor do I claim to be. But I’m no monster, either. I don’t kill people for sport. I don’t barter away the lives of people I’ve sworn to protect. You, Jeremy Fleming, are a monster. And for your sake, I hope there is a hell.”
To my surprise, his face twists into a demented grimace. “There is. Hell exists right here on earth. Heaven is the thing we made up to feel better about it.”
“How fucking poetic.” I release his throat and step back. “But just in case you’re wrong… just in case there is such a thing as heaven—don’t you want to try for a little redemption?”
Rubbing at his throat where I gripped him, he coughs out, “R-redemption?”
“I want to know every single move Ihor makes from now on. Those lists he gives you? I expect them to be handed to me the moment you receive them.”
Jeremy looks toward his door like the cavalry might be coming to save him. “And if I say no?”
“Then you die.”
He swallows and nods. “I… I will keep you informed.”
“Good. And as for surgery—you’re taking a break. Starting right now. No more organ theft.”
Panic consumes him. “I… N-no…! I can’t… H-he’ll kill me?—”
“Then he kills you.” I shrug. “Trust me, you want him to kill you. Because if he doesn’t,Iwill. And if that happens, you’re going to die the way all your patients have. I’m going to take you apart, piece by piece. The only difference is that there will be no anesthesia. No relief. You may have the medical degree, but I know about the human body, too, Jeremy. I know how to keep a man alive through unimaginable things.”
I grab the list and crush it into a ball before flinging it at his face. He flinches as it bounces off his forehead.
“You were right about one thing, Jeremy: Hell does exist in this world.” I turn towards the door. “Welcome to it.”
16
VESPER
“Ryan, honey, I need you to take this injection. It’s going to make you feel better.”
Twelve-year-old Ryan crosses his arms and shakes his head so hard his sandy hair flops into his eyes. “I don’t want to be stabbed with that thing.”
“This isn’t optional, sweetheart. The medicine has to go into your system tonight.”
His bottom lip trembles, but he juts out his chin with the stubborn, single-minded determination that reminds me why I chose pediatrics in the first place. Kids fight harder than adults. They don’t give up as easily.
I admire that.
