Under the Altswood Sky (The Altswood Saga #2)

Chapter 8 - Duplicate

By the language of the report, I figured the coroner wanted to believe Birdy's death had been completely natural. Nowhere was there an explanation on why her organs would suddenly fail. She had been shot in the head a few months ago and had recovered with successful tests. Of all times to go into cardiac arrest, why was it now, when she had reached full recovery?

I tilted my head up, taking a break from concentrating at the screen. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her parents screaming over her body bag, begging the paramedics to save an already dead girl.

Birdy was never supposed to die. Not so early, before she could live the rest of her life. She wasn't sick or addicted to drugs or skirting on the wrong side of the law, so why was no one at all suspicious about her sudden heart attack?

Birdy's death was reported in a tiny box at the back of the weekly newspaper, no demands, no questions, no nothing.

I drew up my browser. My fingers were trembling.

Potassium and chloride, I googled, uncertain about what I was trying to find. If my chemistry class knowledge checked out, I remembered that those two elements created a compound salt.

The first few links of my search dug up blogs from primary school science projects, fluttering little animations onto my screen.

Potassium chloride is a natural substance found within the body in its separate forms. They are vital in their role to aid the beating of the heart.

"So far, so good," I muttered, then like a weirdo, added murder to my search.

The very first link I arrived at sent my heart plummeting to my stomach.

Due to the properties of potassium chloride, it is the last ingredient in the "three drug cocktail" of most lethal injections.

I clicked onto the next page.

Experiments have found that simple biological tests are inadequate to differentiate endogenous from exogenous potassium. The compound breaks down into potassium and chloride, in which the chlorine binds with the human body's naturally occurring sodium to create sodium chloride, otherwise known as common table salt.

The resultant heart attack is found to have no known cause, as all that is found in the body is a slightly elevated level of salt. Too much potassium in the body causes tachycardia (fast heart-rate), which then leads to something known as ventricular fibrillation, which is one of many types of cardiac arrest.

I slammed my laptop shut, shoving it into my bag in a deft move with one hand as I unlocked my phone with the other.

"Hello?" Dad answered immediately. "How's prep going?"

"Simply biological tests are inadequate to differentiate endogenous from exogenous potassium!" I snapped, tugging my bag to my shoulder.

Dad cleared his throat. "Excuse me?"

"Endogenous," I continued, "noun: internal in origin." I was marching through town now, a crazy faux blonde girl tottering on ankle boots at a hundred miles per hour. "Exogenous. Noun: external in origin."

I halted underneath a wide oak tree, pausing to yank up my socks before setting off again.

"Potassium chloride is released in sudden cardiac arrest and is a method of inducing cardiac arrest. Do you see what I am getting at here?"

Silence. "Luca?" Dad said. "Are you feeling quite alright—"

"I'm fine!" I tore the phone from my ear and hung up, throwing it into my bag.