Chapter 72

Forty hours.That's about how long it's been since I've last slept.

I would pay any amount of money just to get an hour of solid sleep. Not that I have any money, but I'd find a way. Hell, I'd take twenty minutes of sleep. But every time I close my eyes, my thoughts race. Dr. Conlon. My exam. Frank…

I wish I could turn it off somehow.

I check my watch—it's close to midnight. Abe is lying in his bed, his breaths whistling between his lips. Even though he's asleep, he's not sleeping soundly—he tosses and turns and occasionally cries out. Once, he punched the wall in his sleep, hard enough to crack the plaster. It makes me nervous to be in the room with him.

Abe. What is his deal?

I thought Conlon might have been drugging me via the cafeteria food, but I recognize that's a wild idea. But Abe and I have shared a lot of meals together. He has had numerous opportunities to slip me something to cloud my brain.

I notice that I've been absently scratching at my arms. I pull up my left sleeve, and there's a rash running up the length of my forearm, covered in deep scratch marks from where I've been rubbing at it. The scratch marks are so bad that a few of them are oozing blood.

I lift my other sleeve—there's a similar rash on my right forearm. What the hell? Why am I breaking out in weird rashes?

I pull up my pants legs and lift my shirt, but I don't see anything similar there. It's just on my arms. And it almost looks like a rash from being allergic to something. What have I been touching that would make me break out in a rash like this?

Shit. It must be Frank.

A shiver goes through my body. What has Frank's corpse been contaminated with? What are we being exposed to?

Finally, I struggle to my feet, grab my car keys, and head out the door. I've got to get a look at Frank, away from prying eyes. I stumble down the stairs and manage to make it to my car.

I'm driving like shit, which is no big surprise, considering how tired I am. I keep weaving in and out of my lane—I probably seem drunk. My only saving grace is that there are no other cars on the road and no cops lying in wait. If there were, I'd probably land myself in jail.

I reach the hospital lot and park crookedly across two spaces. I hurry into the building, the sound of my sneakers slamming into the pavement, echoing in the silent hallways. I continue running until I find myself outside the anatomy lab. I stare down at the combination lock on the lab door. I punch in the code shakily—I have to do it three times before I get it right.

The frigid air of the anatomy lab hits me like a slap in the face. My eyelids had been sagging before, but now they're wide open. I look around the room, at the rows of dead bodies under thick plastic. The only sound is the whir of the air conditioner—it's almost comforting.

I'm breathing hard as I walk over to Table 13. Frank. Like every other cadaver in the room, Frank is covered in plastic. I pull the plastic off the body, not bothering to cover my hands in gloves.

Frank's dead, and I suspect foul play. It's obvious he hasn't been shot and isn't the victim of trauma. So that leads me to believe he's been poisoned. Poisoned with something toxic enough to make me break out in a rash all over my arms. I just need to prove it.

Most of Frank's blood is congealed, but it's still there. If I can get a sample of his blood, I can send it off to a lab to be analyzed. I'm hoping there's some way they can check for poisons or other things that might be responsible for his death. And after I can prove Frank was murdered, I can go to the police and implicate Conlon.

I stare down at the cadaver. We dissected Frank's face weeks ago. It's barely even recognizable as a face anymore, pulled apart by scalpels and forceps. I wish I'd gotten a good look at him before we did this. It makes it almost impossible to recognize him from photos in the obituaries.

I look down at Frank's arm, where the tattoo had been only a few days earlier. To Serve and Protect. I remember I came to the end of the last lab to see Rachel dissecting the other arm, but the arm with the tattoo was still intact. But somehow, the tattoo is now ripped apart.

I examine the arm further, and my skin begins to crawl. This arm hasn't just been dissected—it's been destroyed. The muscles are ripped apart, the skin is sliced into pieces… and when I look down at Frank's legs, they're in the same condition.

Frank's arms and legs are all ripped to shreds.

Whoever did this dissection wasn't interested in learning. They were trying to destroy evidence—the very evidence I'd been looking for. And they were extremely thorough.

I'm not imagining this—it's real. This is concrete evidence that something is going on. Someone has mutilated Frank's body in order to protect himself.

"You're close, Mason," a gruff voice speaks up. "Don't give up."

I jump, startled. It's the same voice I've been hearing all along but louder and clearer. I look around the room, trying to figure out where the voice came from. But there's no one else in the room. It's just me. Just me and Frank. Frank.

The dead body is talking to me.

Oh Christ. Oh shit.

Without bothering to cover Frank up again, I run out of the anatomy lab. Even the sound of the door to the lab slamming closed behind me offers no comfort. I need to talk to someone, someone who I know for sure is real. But who the hell can I talk to when it's close to midnight? What other soul would still be awake at this hour?

Sasha. She always studies at the library until it closes at midnight.

I head in the direction of the library. I notice that the student working at the desk gives me a funny look when I first come in, but I flash my student ID, and she nods at me. I hurry to the far corner of the library, where Sasha always studies. When I get there, she is packing up her books, ready to head home for the night.

"Sasha," I say breathlessly as I reach her side.

She looks up at me, and the horror on her face is a reflection of my appearance.

"Oh my God, Mason," she murmurs. "What happened?"

"Sasha, please," I whisper. I fall to my knees in front of her, holding both her hands in mine. "I think… I think I might be losing it…"

"It's the stress," Sasha acknowledges. "I feel the same way sometimes."

"No, it's more than that…" I lower my head. Tears rise in my eyes. I haven't cried since I was six years old when my cat died. And even then, I tried to hide it because I didn't want my father to think I was weak. "There's something wrong with me. I know it."

"Every medical student turns into a hypochondriac," Sasha says in a soothing voice. "You've just gotta take it easy. Anyway, people who are going crazy usually have no idea they're going crazy. So I think you're safe."

"Is that a rule?"

Sasha smiles and touches my cheek. "You just need to get some sleep, Mason."

I close my eyes and shake my head to clear it. Maybe she's right. Anyone would be hearing things if they had so little sleep. I look up at her dark-brown hair and remember how I'd been surprised, the first time I touched it, by how soft it was. I haven't touched Sasha's hair in a long time. I wonder how I let myself screw things up with her. If only I hadn't brought her home with me that night… maybe we'd be something more than friends right now.

"Sasha, do you… do you want to go to the locker rooms with me?" I ask half-heartedly.

She shakes her head. "You know we have our final exam coming up. I need to head home and get some rest."

"What if I promise to shower first?" I say, flashing my most charming smile.

Sasha laughs and kisses the top of my head. "Go get some sleep, Mason."

And just like that, I feel better. I feel like maybe I could go home and get some sleep that night. I leave Sasha and walk back out to my car, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. For the first time in days, my heart is beating at a normal pace. Sasha is right. I'm just putting too much stress on myself.

Or maybe…

I unlock the door to my car, trying to push away the thoughts intruding on my brain. I have to get home. I have to get to sleep. I have to study.

Or maybeshe's in on it too.