The Indestructibles (Book 2): Breakout by Matthew Phillion Page B

about this all wrong.
          Nobody cared what happened at the mall, he thought. Nobody really noticed if everyone got sick at a diner. These were places of consumption, places of leisure. Nobody had much sympathy for them there, not really.
          If he wanted to raise a red flag, he had to go somewhere people cared about.
          Even if that meant going to the one place that terrified him.
          Caleb looked unwell enough that even among the broken arms and stomach bugs, the wounds needing stitches and accident victims, people took notice when he walked into the hospital's emergency room. He could see the panic in the eyes of the other patients — don't touch me, don't come near me, don't make me sick, I don't want what you have.
          Caleb smiled at a heavyset man with a graying mustache who sat holding an ice pack to his forehead. The man squinted back at Caleb, who decided to wink before walking up to the intake window.
          The man behind the counter, round-faced with a crew cut, immediately called for help. A middle-aged nurse appeared immediately, and Caleb could see it in their eyes — he's catchy, he's going to make everyone sick, we have to isolate him.
          They opened the security doors to bring him in, a doctor appeared with a mask on his face and rubber gloves on his hands. Caleb let them pull him inside, their attention so rapt on how ill he looked no one noticed the growing troubles in the lobby, the glassy eyes, the coughing, the faces turning to ash.
          The security door closed and both doctor and nurse helping him slowly fell to the floor. The doctor barely moved; the nurse called out for help, her voice raising the alarm, but Caleb's power, his gift, was already at work in the entire emergency department.
          A security guard, gray-haired and thin, reached out to stop him as he let himself into the main body of the hospital. As he wandered from ward to ward, from room to room, touching hands of patients, blowing a kiss to a pretty surgeon fresh out of the operating room.
          He took a security guard's passkey and made his way into the intensive care unit, his arms outstretched like an avenging angel, and passed through the oncology ward, smiling as he strolled. He danced in the elder services department, and caused havoc in the behavioral health ward. Of course he stopped for dinner in the cafeteria, eating soft serve iced cream directly from the spout, and poured himself a huge soda from the fountain, no one well enough to demand he pay for what he took.
          The pharmacy thought they were about to be robbed, but Caleb took nothing, knowing, through his own trials and experiments that no amount of pills would ever make him feel better.
          There was no one to stop him in the employee lounge, as his walkabout through the hospital halls had put all staff on high alert. He spent some time in the administrative offices, far away from the patients, just to make sure he found everyone. The hospital president was on the floor of his office, smart phone in hand, halfway toward completing a call he would never finish.
          Caleb meandered through the cardiology unit, marveling at all the broken hearts.
          And once he had seen everything else, walked up and down every hallway, Caleb headed for the nursery, singing as he walked slowly up the stairs.
         

 
     
     
    Chapter 16:
    My fault
         
         
          Jane and Billy arrived at the Tower to find Emily attempting to teach the dog fetch in the landing bay. Unfortunately for Emily, Watson appeared to figure out that Emily could fetch things with her mind and decided that watching her retrieve her own tennis ball was more entertaining.
          "So that's going well," Billy said, when Emily bubble of floated the tennis ball back into her hand.
          The dog just watched, sitting daintily in front of her.
          "He came ready