The Mercy of Birds

CHAPTER 42: DARK TUNNELS

CHAPTER 42
DARK TUNNELS

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"Martina," Cameron accosted her as they met halfway on the stairs. The morning rays infiltrated through the windowpanes and ventilations, illuminating the hallway in soft tendrils, the first of the bright ones after only sullen days.

She perked up at him as she watched the grave expression on his face. He was all dressed up in a white jacket and dark jeans. His blond hair was damp and combed behind his head, some strands refused to be tamed, falling to the side of his face and eyes. "Is everything okay?"

"I just got a call that Nico's in the hospital. I need to get to him," he informed, there was a sense of guilt in his tone that couldn't be accounted only on the fact that he hadn't received the news in time, but it was also because he thought that he was implicit in causing Nicholas more distress.

Dr. Singh and him had been trying to follow up with gradually questioning Clementine about what really happened to her, but even though it mostly granted them nothing of consequential revelations, as Clementine would often shut herself every time she was faced with the inquisition, Nicholas still demanded to be kept up to date with the development and knowing his mind, he must have taken every detail to an extreme, and it was too much for him.

So, Cameron resolved that this time he had to be there for him and he knew if Clementine knew of the real situation, she would strongly press him to go anyway.

"Will you be okay with her alone?"

Her eyes widened as she nodded. "Of course, but you're not gonna tell her...?"

He immediately shook his head and sighed. "I don't think it's a good idea. I don't want her to worry. I'm just gonna leave for two days. Tell her that I have some work to attend to."

"Alright," she said as he began to climb up the ladder to the third floor. "Is your brother okay?"

"He is. It's his migraine again. Victor said they just ran some tests. I need to say goodbye." He began making his way up the stairs again until he remembered something. "Martina."

He pulled out the string of house keys from his pocket and unhooked one of them from the chain, handing it to her. "This is for my closet where I keep the sharp stuff and also Clementine's sedatives. I trust that you won't lose this. If anything happens, call me or Dr. Singh right away, but I truly believe she will be alright."

She nodded and took the piece of the wrought metal from him, clutching it on her palm as she nodded.

He slipped into the hallway of the third floor, entering her room. There was a sense of separate isolation here that even though it wasn't physically exiled by being located next to his, it was still distinct. It was in the stagnant, but cold air. The way external sound seemed to be vacuumed out once one stepped inside the confine, time hung heavy, arousing vigilance and forced mindfulness, a thorough awareness of the current state of existence.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up somehow and he halted in the middle of the room as though some acute realizations just struck his consciousness, but no, nothing occurred to him but the feeling that he was supposed to know something, like he was forgetting a word that was only so far as on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he tried to grapple on putting a name and placing a recognition into it, he couldn't.

"Cameron?" a soft voice addressed him, causing him to jerk out of his reverie. The ajar door that he left behind allowed the light from the hallway to penetrate into the gloomy room; her sleepy face enclosed with a foggy opaqueness that regarded him with wonderment and confusion.