Page 88 of Bad Mother

Danny had called numbers to her. What had they been?Twenty-three,he’d said.Seventy-four.

Violet Whitney Hastings.

Mother.

It all came back distantly, flitting in and out of her mind.

Ten.

Gavin ran through one door into another, entering the room that had once been the kitchen, lifting his leg and kicking the cabinet they’d put in front of the door.

“The periodic table,” she murmured. He’d used his mother’s name... the code to it all.The final answer.The world was closing in around the edges. She was so cold, so incredibly cold. Her jaw didn’t want to move. Violet...V... atomic number twenty-three. That was right, wasn’t it? She’d thought it was a moment ago. She tried desperately to bring forth the picture of that table she’d studied so hard, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate.So cold. It hurts. God, it hurts.Whitney...W... She couldn’t remember what that stood for or even if its atomic number was seventy-four.

Nine.

Gavin’s breath came out in sharp exhales as they ran through the kitchen, the pounding of his feet causing her leg to bounce and throb with horrible pain. But he had to.Hurry. Hurry.

“The initials relate to the numbers from the periodic chart,” she slurred. “Violet. Twenty-three. Whitney. Seventy-four.” He ran into the tall open area he’d entered through, the one where Danny had made them play a sick version of hide-and-go-seek as he’d shot at them fromwhere Sienna could now blearily see was an open second story, and Gavin sprinted for the door.

Eight.

Violet Whitney Hastings.H... Hastings...hydrogen.“I think it’s the first one at the very top,” she managed as he skidded to a stop at the door, the panel blinking. His breath came out in sharp pants. “Twenty-three, seventy-four,” he repeated. “What are the last two digits, Si?” He sounded desperate, panicked, and she knew she should be, too, but instead, she was floating... drifting.How much blood have I lost?Hydrogen was at the top of the chart. The very first one. She squinted, reaching for what her mind had retained.Please.

Seven.

Or was hydrogen on the other side? “Si,” he practically shouted. “Si!” He needed her. Gavin needed her.No, no, the other side isHe. Helium. Hydrogen is number one.“One,” she managed.It has to be.

He huffed out a breath. She could smell his sweat. His fear. She saw it sparkling on his forehead. “One,” he repeated. “Two, three, seven, four... zero, one, because it’s six digits, Si.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t lift her tongue.

Six.

He raised his hand. It was shaking. Gavin was afraid, so afraid, and though her heart was beating so slowly, so very slowly, if these were her last, they’d each be for him.I love you.

With a strangled sound and a whoosh of breath, he typed in the six digits.One chance. One chance.It was all they had.

The alarm made a long beeping sound and the red light went off as the door clicked open. Gavin let out a short cry, shouldering the door as he shot out into the night, Sienna held tightly in his arms.

Five.

He sprinted, his feet pounding the concrete, the sweet night air hitting Sienna in the face as she felt him throw his body forward, clenching her so tightly it hurt, and she gasped out a tiny cry as the world blinked out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Violet stepped off the escalator and moved toward Danny. Her son. His eyes, the left one already beginning to swell, came open. He blinked at her, and even though his face was bloody, his features distorted from his injuries, she saw disbelief... then wonder...relief. It was naked and raw, the look he might have given her had it been her who’d opened the cabinet that day instead of the devil who had. She rushed the final steps and went down on the floor next to him. “I’m here,” she said.

“Four,” came the voice over the megaphone outside.

Run, Gavin, run!

Danny slumped toward her, and she brought her arms around him, lowering his head to her lap, stroking his hair.Soft.It was as soft as she remembered.

Gavin and Sienna would make it out. She knew they would.

She wouldn’t leave Danny, not this time.

“Three.”

---