I made sure to gather all the stuff Noah had gotten me before I left with Marko, shoving everything into a paper-thin hospital bag. Extra socks. Gummy worms and The Outsiders. 

That was pretty much all I had.

No clothes of my own. No wallet anymore. No car keys. Most of my life had either burned with my car or gotten abandoned somewhere between Noah’s trailer and the hospital. Everything I still owned fit inside a bag flimsy enough to dissolve in the rain.

The only thing actually mine was the gold cross around my neck.

My fingers brushed against the cross automatically while I packed, thumb catching against the worn edges of the metal. The chain was warm from resting against my skin for so long that it barely felt separate from me anymore. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken it off.

Not on the drive from Idaho to Astoria.

Not while sleeping.

Not even the first time Noah had dragged me down onto his mattress, both hands twisted into my shirt while rain hammered the trailer roof hard enough to shake the windows. His mouth had been hot against mine, breathless and desperate, like he was trying to consume every sound I made before it could escape into the storm.

My fingers moved over the faint teeth marks pressed into the gold.

I remembered biting down on the cross then, metal sharp against my tongue as I tried to swallow the noises threatening to leave my throat. Noah’s hands digging bruises into my hips as I rammed him. The smell of rain and cigarette smoke and damp sheets wrapped around both of us.

Behind me, Marko clapped his hands once, and I jumped a little at the sound.

“Alright, muchacho!” he announced, cigarette hanging crooked from his mouth. “Give me a sec to grab your sweet ride, and then we’ll blow this popsicle stand.”

I looked up too slowly, still half-stuck in the memory.

“Marko—” I started.

But before I could even finish the sentence, Marko was already gone, vanishing out into the hallway in a blur of boots, cigarette smoke, and shitty decisions. 

Something heavy slammed into something heavier, metal shrieking against metal. Somewhere down the hall, an old woman screamed shrilly. Footsteps exploded into motion behind it. Voices layered over each other, security, nurses, someone yelling about “fucking punk-ass kid!"

A second later, a wheelchair skidded into view and slammed into the doorframe. And then Marko followed behind it, slightly out of breath, hair a mess. “Got us some wheels, Idaho!” He grabbed the doorframe to steady himself, grinning like a fucking maniac. 

Behind him, the hallway was erupting. Shouting. Running. The rising, ugly chorus of authority as they realized a maniac was loose in the hall.

“I’m not getting in the fucking wheelchair—”

“Just get in the damn wheelchair, Cornfield!” he snapped, already grabbing the handles like this was a discussion that had ended five seconds ago and I’d simply missed the memo.

That did it.

I hated it, but I dropped into the wheelchair hard enough to make it squeak.

Marko leaned in as soon as I sat down, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Alright,” he said, “Hold on.” And then he pushed off as hard as he could. 

We shot forward, out of the room, the hallway blurring, but Marko barely even slowed. “In the arms of an angel!” he howled, and then the whole chair dipped hard when, in one smooth motion, he vaulted up onto the back of the wheelchair. One knee hooked over the backrest, the other foot braced on the axle. He flung his arms out for dramatic flair, cigarette somehow intact between his teeth. “WHEEEE!” 

“You’re going to get us killed, you fucking maniac—!” I screamed, but the word ripped out of my mouth as we hit a seam in the tile and nearly launched sideways into the nurses' station.

The hallway warped around us in flashes of baby-puke green and smeared movement. Doors blurred past too fast to read, little square windows flashing glimpses of startled faces turning toward the noise just in time to witness a leather-clad gargoyle fly past like a demon launched straight out of hell. 

The wheelchair rattled beneath me as I held on for dear life, actively praying for death.

Somewhere behind us, voices erupted louder.

“STOP THEM—”

“ARE YOU INSANE?”

“THAT’S HOSPITAL PROPERTY!”

Marko cackled as we rounded the corner so fast the world tilted. “Sha-na-na-na-na, knees, knees!” He screamed hoarsely. “You know where you are?! You’re in the jungle, baby!” 

The hallway ahead split sharply to the left, but Marko leaned with the turn before we could become human pancakes. ”We’re not gonna make that corner!” I yelled. 

“We’re absolutely gonna make that corner!” he hollered back.

The chair slammed sideways into the turn, wheel lifting clean off the floor. Time seemed to stretch thin and brittle, and for one horrifying second, I genuinely thought this was it, not a dramatic death, not anything meaningful, just me and this unhinged bastard getting folded into a hospital wall while security closed in behind us.

Then Marko moved, like poetry in motion.

One boot hit the wall mid-flight, clean and precise, like he’d done it a hundred times. The impact redirected everything in a sharp, controlled snap. The wheelchair twisted, momentum bending instead of breaking, and suddenly we were moving forward again like the laws of physics had been negotiated at knifepoint.

I thought of how I’d seen him in the motel parking lot: no hesitation, no second-guessing. Just the scythe in his hand, its short blade flashing in the fog as he stepped in front of something far bigger than him. Bleached blonde, manic energy, and completely in his element. Wherever he’d come from…whoever had taught him, I wanted that.

We shot out of the turn intact.

Barely.

“Holy shit—!” I gasped, breath ripping out of me. “Where the hell did you learn to do that!?”

Marko laughed. “Leningradskaya!” he said brightly. “They played nothing but Jackie Chan tapes on an old VCR. That’s all they had out there. No subtitles, just vibes. I learned Cantonese and some Mandarin later on, too.”

“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, “you learned wall-kicking escape physics from illegal Russian Jackie Chan bootleg VHS tapes? That's insane!”

“Aw, Idaho,” Marko chuckled. “You’re gonna make me blush.”

Behind us, shouting echoed down the corridor but faded as we slammed through another set of double doors hard enough that they rebounded against the walls behind us with a metallic crack.

Cold air rushed over me.

The sudden speed whipped my mullet back from my face, my eyes watering from the force of it as Marko hauled absolute ass toward the elevator at the far end of the hallway.

“This is the best day of my life!” Marko shouted. “I can’t believe my escape plan worked. Those fat fucking pigs didn’t have shit on us!”

The elevator gave a cheerful little ding.

Marko immediately celebrated by pelvic-thrusting at the ceiling like he’d personally defeated modern medicine, capitalism, and possibly gravity itself all in one go.

I opened my mouth to say something...anything, but my words just didn’t survive the journey.

Then both of us looked up.

The doors slid open.

And revealed three security guards packed inside shoulder-to-shoulder like the world’s angriest surprise party. One had a radio halfway to his mouth. One had a doughnut in his hand. And the third just… stared, like he was trying to reboot his entire understanding of reality.

"Oh, hello there, boys," Marko waved his fingers at them. "Is this the part where you guys ravage me in the elevator? I saw a porno like that once. Love a man in uniform."

The silence lasted exactly one second too long. Then all three of them charged.