Chapter 7 The Floating Whispers

• Saige's [POV]
• "It's me." A whisper floats around me, and a cool hand presses against my mouth. "Dr. Trevor."
• With my heart pounding hard enough to drown out a performance at the opera, it takes me a minute and another three whispers for the words to penetrate.
• The moment I stop struggling, he leans so close his lips brush the shell of my ear. "I'm going to let go, but don't scream. I had the nurse send the guy to one of the other Jane Does, but he will hear you if you scream."
• He waits for a second, and when I nod my agreement he peels his hand from my mouth and takes a step back.
• I turn. Gazing down at me with sober brown eyes that I've never been happier to see is Dr. Trevor, who I'm almost positive is one of the good ones. I want to thank him or... something, but there's a thing in my throat that won't let me speak.
• "If we get to the next floor down, we can ride the elevator the rest of the way. Can you manage stairs?" he whispers.
• I can manage a goddamn mountain if that's what it takes to get away. I nod.
• When he holds his hand for mine, it doesn't even cross my mind not to take it.
• He grips my hand with his larger, warmer one and leads the way out of my room, down the hallway, and directly to the fire exit.
• Not once does he slow or even look around. He just gets the job done. Maybe they teach doctors how to be like this in medical school because I never doubt for a second that he hasn't done the same thing a thousand times before.
• If my ribs hurt on the way down the stairs, I don't feel it. The adrenaline flooding my body is doing such a good job of masking any pain I might be in that I don't even care that the back of my hospital gown is flapping open as I jog down the stairs behind Dr. Trevor.
• As we approach the double doors for the seventh floor, they fly open. Dr. Trevor yanks his hand from mine.
• A nurse in a pair of hot pink scrubs, her black hair in a tight braid, glances up at us in surprise.
• "Rachel, on break now?" How Dr. Trevor can sound as if we weren't just sprinting down the stairs is beyond me. I'm in a battle to hide my gasping breaths from the nurse.
• Her eyes drift over me and narrow. "Yeah, I was just—"
• "You didn't pass an old lady in a wheelchair, did you?" he interrupts. "Pink floral dress, gray hair, dabbing at her face with a lace napkin."
• What?
• The nurse pauses. "Uh, no. Why?"
• "She's Claire's grandmother, came to the wrong floor, and I said I'd bring Claire down. Elevators aren't good for her heart, she says."
• He's good.
• When the suspicion clears from the nurse's face, I realize just how good Dr. Trevor is. If he ever gets tired of medicine, he wouldn't starve as an actor. "Oh, no. Don't let me keep you. I'll see you later."
• "Sure."
• Dr. Trevor turns to me. "Claire? You ready?"
• I nod. "I'm ready."
• The nurse—Rachel—holds the door open for us and I emerge onto a hospital floor almost identical to the one we just left above.
• On our way to the elevator, my eyes widened in surprise when Dr. Trevor stepped into a room beside the fire exit. After a moment, I follow.
• I've barely had a second to take in the white room with an empty bed and not much else in it, then Dr. Trevor grips my arms and turns to press my back against the wall.
• "Wait here, I'll be right back," he murmurs, and then he's gone.
• Less than a minute later, he's back pushing a wheelchair. He doesn't have to tell me to get in because he's been five steps ahead of me all along.
• My first reaction when I saw Nathan was to fling myself out of a window. His was to distract Nathan, stop me from killing myself, get me away, and all in a way that attracts the least attention from anyone.
• No one even glances our way on the way to the elevator because what hospital isn't full of doctors wheeling patients around?
• Even though we're alone in the elevator as it crawls down, neither of us speaks. As long as I'm in this hospital, I'm not safe. Somehow Dr. Trevor seems to recognize that as well because along with the silence that fills the space, there is a tension that dances over my skin and tightens my lips.
• A million years later, the elevator hits the ground floor and the doors slide open. Two orderlies in white scrubs wait alongside a hospital bed where a woman with bright red hair has a machine breathing for her.
• An orderly nods at Dr. Trevor and I'm guessing Dr. Trevor nods back before he wheels me out into the long white hallway. On my right, glass double doors with a large sign point the way to the hospital entrance. A baby's shrill scream, a woman crying, and a myriad of other snorts, coughs, groans, and gasps echo down the hallway.ER, the waiting room must be down there.
• Dr. Trevor wheels me to the left.
• Frowning, I half-turn in a seat as uncomfortable as my bed was.
• "Trust me," he murmurs in a voice so low that I nearly miss it.
• Since I can hardly tell him that I don't trust him when he's saved me from a fate I don't even want to imagine, I keep my mouth shut and see what other clever ideas this doctor has.
• With the ER waiting room behind us, we silently pass a series of empty consulting rooms, closed doors, and hallways leading to different hospital wings.
• Minutes later, Dr. Trevor wheels me into an empty office. "Wait here, I won't be long."
• My lips part. Before I can speak, he leans closer and stares me right in the eye. "A minute, that's it. I just need to grab something. I'll be back. I promise."
• His sober brown eyes do their work in silencing my doubt, so I nod. "Okay."
• I count down the seconds. Or maybe it's the rapid thumping of my heart that I count. In an empty room full of the same hospital stink that's probably burrowed deep into my pores, there's little else to do.
• At sixty-five seconds, I rise from the wheelchair.
• He's probably gone to get security or the cops. You know that, Saige. Trust only leads to more pain.
• Two steps from the closed door, it swings open. Dr. Trevor slips inside and nudges the door closed behind him, a black bundle cradled in his arms.
• "You came back." It's all I can think to say as I try to work out what he has in his hands.
• "I told you I would." He unravels the balled-up fabric to reveal a long black wool jacket. His coat. That's what he went to get? Hiscoat.
• When I say nothing else, he moves toward me, already holding the coat open. "Here, put this on. We'll get further than we would if people aren't stopping to demand why a doctor is sprinting down the hallway with a patient in a hospital gown."
• How is he able to think at a time like this?
• I keep my eyes on his face as he helps me into his jacket, a soft, warm thing with a wide collar and two deep pockets that hit me just below my knees. It smells faintly of the same cologne from before.
• Although my sides twinge when I lift my arms, the pain isn't bad. Manageable.
• As Dr. Trevor turns to the door, I know I can't go any further until I ask him a question that's haunted me since I first woke up after the car crash.
• "Why are you helping me?" My question halts him, and he turns back to me, studying me for several seconds in silence.
• He lifts a hand toward me.
• I recoil, certain now is when he shows me the bad side he's been so careful to hide from me all along. I was wrong to believe he's one of the good ones at all because there are no good ones anywhere. Just like happily ever afters, they don't exist.
• Although he stretches a hand toward my face, his fingers stop short of touching my cheek. It hovers for a few seconds before he lowers it.
• "Because you're the reason I chose medicine." His voice is soft, but his gaze is intense.
• "Me?"
• He shakes his head. "Not just you. People who need help. That's who I mean."
• "But you could help without getting into trouble with the police, or... or other people you don't want to cross," I tell him, in case the thought hasn't occurred to him. It should have since he's a doctor and there's less chance of them being stupid or ignorant than the average person you'd bump into on the street. Especially after what he just did for me.
• No, he's not stupid. He can't be.
• A smile ghosts across his lips. "I could. But cops have never been my favorite people in the world. Bullies either."
• "Why?"
• "Bullies, for obvious reasons, and cops? They see what they want to see, and once they've made their minds up about something, changing it is impossible."
• I blink at him in surprise.