Darkest Just Before The Dawn

Chapter 9: Calamity

I look up and down the halls making sure nobody is around to see me enter the woman patient's room, where Beth should be meeting me. Once I decide the coast is clear, I slowly open the door and see Beth sitting on the floor against the wall, right by the entrance. I shut the door behind me and walk over to a table with an empty cup on it.

"It's okay to cry," I tell Beth as I pour alcohol from my flask into the cup.

"I don't cry anymore," She assures me.

"I do. I just don't let them see it," I admit.

I hold the cup out to Beth. She looks at it, but doesn't accept it, so I sit it down onto the sink next to her. Even after teaming with her to take O'Donnell down, she still gives me the cold shoulder.

"It's from my own stash. There's no strings," I explain to her as I sit at the foot of the patients bed, and take a sip from my flask.

"I know now why you covered for me. You weren't protecting me. You were protecting yourself," Beth says matter of factly.

I'm starting to grow tired of this. It seems there is nothing I can do at this point to gain Beth's trust.

"Is that so?" I reply docilely.

"Gorman, Jeffries, O'Donnell. They were problems for you, and now they're not, and you didn't have to do the dirty work. That's how things get done here. Everyone uses people to get what they want. You're not the ones who have to remember," She says with unwarranted confidence.

How could she possibly think I used her to get rid of those 3? She killed Gorman without me knowing. I had to figure it out on my own. Jeffries, who wasn't even a problem, went to my office to meet me and was bitten by Gorman's reanimated corpse, and we killed O'Donnell together. Then it clicked. It's too late to matter now, but I'm guessing that's what happened the night Trevitt died. Edwards must've used Beth to give Trevitt the wrong medication, killing him. He must've found out Trevitt was a doctor somehow and assumed he was going to be replaced.

"Is that what happened with Edwards and Trevitt? He used you?" I ask Beth.

She sits silently for a few seconds, ignoring my question.

"I'm gonna get out. Just like Noah," she says.

"He'll be back," I tell her.

"He's going home," she tries to assure me.

"They always come back. They don't ever get far because they can't. But really, they don't want to," I explain to Beth.

"He's going home," she says defiantly.

"I was like you when I was younger. Nobody could tell me anything. I'm not stupid. You know her," I motion with my head towards the woman in the bed.

"And somehow you both wound up here. Maybe that means something. Beth, you can be a part of this thing. Both of you. This is important. Maybe the most important thing you do in your life. And what you did back there," I stop for a minute and touch my neck thinking I may be dead if Beth didn't help me with O'Donnell.

"Gorman and O'Donnell hurt people. The world didn't lose anything when they died. And you're wrong about what happened. I didn't use you. And I will remember," I try to convince her.

Just then my radio comes on.

"Dawn, we have a situation," the voice says.

It's Officer Franco. He's usually on patrol with Officer McGinley. I excuse myself from the patients room and walk to my office before answering.

"What is it, Franco?" I inquire.

"There's a group of people here. The main one claims he used to be a Sheriff's Deputy in King County. Says he's got Licari and Shepherd, and that he's willing to trade them for Beth and that woman who got hit by the car," he responds.