Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(9)

“You’re…,” began Dana, but anything else she might have said died in her throat as a second drop of blood fell down that pale forehead. A third. A fourth. More, the fat drops racing down the girl’s face. “Oh no … what happened? Are you okay…?”

Her words trailed off as she saw the girl’s wrists. At first they were unmarked, smooth … and then the skin seemed to pucker inward as if poked by something.

Something sharp.

The skin dimpled, then broke, and blood welled from each wrist.

Dana felt panic flaring in her chest as shock, fear, and the desperate need to do something, anything, warred with each other.

“Help me…,” whispered the girl, and now her voice was so soft, almost distant, but filled with raw pain.

“We need to get you to the nurse,” said Dana as she broke free from the paralysis of shock and hurried over to the injured girl.

“No!” shrieked the girl. “Don’t touch me!”

Then she shuddered as the fabric of her dress ripped along the left side of her torso, and more red welled from a deep and savage puncture.

Dana skidded to a stop, sickened and shocked. “We need to get to the nurse’s office. Can you walk?”

That was when she saw the blood on the floor. It ran from horrible wounds on the tops of the girl’s feet and into her shoes, and overflowed to pool on the floor. Dana’s stomach lurched, her breakfast surging up and bile burning in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard and recoiled from the spreading pool of red.

“Please,” she begged, “how can I help?”

The girl was sagging again, her head falling on a limp neck, but her arms remained outstretched as if something held her hands to the lockers. No, not her hands … her wrists. The hands twitched, the fingers curling like dying spiders, but the wrists were pressed firmly and immovably against the metal. As if welded there, as if pinned. Dana made a grab for her arm, thinking that she was stuck on something, a piece of broken metal, something …

“NO!” howled the girl. “Please … stop … Don’t do this … please…”

The words jolted Dana again, her hands raised to touch, to help. “I can help,” she said.

But the girl shook her head. “Why are you doing this? I didn’t tell anyone about the Red Age, I swear. Please, God, don’t…”

“I’ll get help!” cried Dana, not knowing what else to do. “Hold on … please, just hold on.”

And it was in that terrible moment that Dana realized that the girl was not merely hurt. The wounds on her head, side, wrists, and feet were not random injuries.

They were stigmata.

They were the wounds of Jesus Christ. The crown of thorns, the spear thrust to the side, and the nails that held Jesus to the cross. All of it was right there. All of it was real, and it was beyond horrible.

She whirled and ran, screaming for help, for teachers, for the nurse, for anyone. Behind her, the girl babbled, still telling Dana not to touch her, not to hurt her. Begging her.

Dana burst through into the gym, where sixty other girls were in teams playing dodgeball under the benign, bored eye of Mrs. Frazer, the gym teacher.

“Help!” screamed Dana.

Everything stopped, everyone turned, a thrown ball hit a girl on the shoulder and bounced away, making a series of diminishing thumps that were the only sounds in the gym other than the echo of her scream.

Then everyone was in motion, running, yelling, with the short, squat Mrs. Frazer outrunning them all. Dana spun again, and they followed her like an incoming tide into the hall between the big room and the locker room.

“In here,” yelled Dana, pointing. “She’s bleeding. She’s been hurt.”

“Show me,” barked Mrs. Frazer. “Everyone else stay back.”

The order was fierce and was entirely ignored as the girls crammed into the hall and then burst out into the locker room.

“Next row,” puffed Dana, out of breath and so scared that she had done the wrong thing. Should she have stayed and given first aid? She knew how. Both she and Melissa had been certified by one of their father’s sailors back in San Diego. What if leaving the girl meant that she’d bled to death?

Those questions banged around in her head as they wheeled around the end of the first row of lockers to where she’d left the injured girl.

Mrs. Frazer pushed past her but then stopped dead in her tracks. Dana careened into her and rebounded as severely as if she’d walked into a fireplug. The other girls collided and bumped and stopped in a bunch. Everyone stared.

At nothing.

At a completely empty row of lockers.

At a clean floor.

Not one single drop of blood on the fronts of the lockers. No pool of red on the linoleum. There was absolutely nothing there.

“But—but—” stammered Dana. She bolted and checked the next row, even though she was positive this was where she’d seen the girl. Even though her own locker stood open, the sleeve of her sweater hanging out. The next row was empty, and the next. The teacher strode through the room behind her, looking down each row, checking the bathroom, in each stall. In the laundry room. In the foyer that led back to the main hallway of the school’s basement.

Nothing.

The girls crowded around, scared and confused, looking with puzzled expressions at the empty rows of lockers.