Chương 2
“Don’t save me and leave her outside.”
The music of the city seemed to stop. No tires, no siren, no security radio. Even the wind appeared to pause long enough for the sentence to remain between them.
Lily looked back.
The paramedics arrived at a run. Their boots struck the wet pavement, their equipment knocking against their legs. One knelt near Ethan’s head while the other cut open the leg of his trousers. Questions came quickly.
“How long has he been down?”
“I don’t know,” Lily said.
“Was he conscious when you found him?”
“Mostly.”
“Did he fall?”
“He said yes.”
“From where?”
Lily pointed toward the stone slope above the drain. “Up there, maybe.”
The paramedic turned to Ethan’s father. “Sir, give us room.”
The father moved because the voice gave him something definite to obey. He stood beside Lily, breathing hard. Water ran from his hair onto his cheek.
“My name is Daniel Mercer,” he said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
One of the security officers removed his own heavy jacket and offered it to her.
Lily stared at it.
“No.”
“You’re shaking,” Daniel said.
“I always shake.”
“That isn’t better.”
“It’s not your business.”
The officer kept holding the jacket out. He was older than the others, with gray at his temples and a face that looked tired rather than suspicious.
“It’s mine,” he said. “Not his.”
Lily glanced at Daniel.
“Take it,” Daniel said. “No conditions.”
“People always say that before the conditions.”
The officer crouched and placed the jacket on the ground between them.
“Then leave it there until you decide.”
Lily did not pick it up.
The paramedics fitted a collar around Ethan’s neck and slid a board beneath him. His cry was small, almost embarrassed. Daniel turned instantly.
“I’m here.”
“Sir,” the paramedic warned.
Daniel stopped himself from reaching in.
The security officer beside Lily murmured, “That’s the hard part.”
“What?”
“Standing close when you can’t help.”
Lily looked at him. “You get paid for that?”
“Among other disappointments.”
She almost smiled, but the ambulance doors were opening, and Ethan had started calling for his father. Daniel climbed in after him. Before the doors closed, he turned.
“Bring her,” he told the officer.
Lily’s body tightened.
The officer raised both hands. “She decides.”
Daniel held Lily’s gaze. For a wealthy man, he did not seem accustomed to being corrected. Tonight, he accepted it.
“Please decide yes,” he said.
The ambulance doors shut.
The siren began again.
Lily watched the red lights disappear toward Fifth Avenue. Then she turned toward the trees.
The officer did not grab her. That was the first reason she did not run.
“My name’s Marcus Hale,” he said.
“That supposed to help?”
“No. It’s just my name.”
He picked up his jacket, shook wet leaves from it, and placed it around his own shoulders.
“You got somewhere warm to go?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Lily waited too.
Marcus looked toward the storm drain. The cracked phone still lay near the metal grate. He retrieved it carefully, holding it by the edges.
“This Ethan’s?”
She nodded.
“Then somebody at the hospital will need it.”
“Battery’s almost dead.”
“Probably like the rest of us.”
A park police vehicle approached without a siren. Lily stepped backward.
Marcus noticed.
“They’re going to ask what happened.”
“I already said what happened.”
“Adults enjoy hearing the same thing from a child until they find a version they like.”
She looked at him more closely.
“You a cop?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t stop them.”
“No.”
The honesty irritated her. It also kept her from leaving.
The park officers arrived with a woman from EMS who carried another blanket. She asked Lily’s age. Lily said eleven. She asked where Lily’s parents were.
“Not here.”
“Is there an adult we can call?”
“No.”
“Where do you live?”
“Around.”
The woman’s face softened in a way Lily distrusted more than anger.
“Sweetheart—”
“Don’t.”
The woman stopped.
Marcus stood several feet away, not interfering. When one officer tried to move behind Lily, perhaps to block the path, Marcus said quietly, “Don’t box her in.”
The officer frowned. “We have a minor alone in freezing temperatures.”
“I can see that.”
“She needs to come with us.”
“Tell her what happens next before you touch her.”
Lily looked at Marcus again.
The officer explained that she needed medical evaluation for exposure and that child welfare would be contacted. He spoke in patient, careful sentences, the kind adults used when they had already decided everything.
Lily’s hands closed inside the torn sleeves of her coat.
“No hospitals.”
“Your hands may be frostbitten.”
“They’re not.”
“Can you feel your fingers?”
She did not answer.
The officer shifted his weight.
Marcus said, “The boy will be at Mount Sinai.”
Lily’s eyes moved toward him.
“He’ll want to know what happened to you,” Marcus continued. “You can leave after they check you, but if you disappear now, the last thing he’ll remember is you walking into the dark.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
“You work for his dad.”
“Yes.”
“So you say unfair things for money.”
“Sometimes. That one I said for free.”
The EMS woman offered the blanket again.
Lily took it.
At the hospital, they separated her from Marcus almost immediately.
A nurse brought her to a small examination room where the walls were painted pale green and a television played a cooking show with the sound turned off. Lily sat on the paper-covered bed with the silver blanket around her shoulders and refused to remove her coat.
A resident checked her pupils, pulse, lungs, and fingers. He asked when she had last eaten.
“Recently.”
“What did you eat?”
“Food.”
He glanced at the nurse.
Lily hated the glance.
The nurse was a Black woman with red-framed glasses and a silver braid falling over one shoulder. Her badge said YVETTE RAMOS, RN.
May you like
Yvette opened a drawer and took out a packet of crackers.
“These are terrible,” she said. “The peanut butter tastes like drywall. The apple juice is acceptable if you’re not emotionally attached to apples.”
