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grandmother, probably a gentle and sweet woman. She had no idea that she’d just given a killer the room number of his prey.  
    Phoenix lowered his head and watched the ground as he walked, not wanting to make eye contact with anybody. Blend in, old boy, blend in . It was hard to do when you were his size, but he’d damn well try. Everything was riding on this. For Lily, he recited over and over, deep in the crevices of his mind.  
    As he approached ICU and signed in under a false name, he walked the hallway to the room. There were beeping and whooshing noises coming from the monitors and respirators. He found the room he was looking for, and peeked around the corner. The man was hooked to oxygen, and looked like his body had crumbled. His heart monitor beeped in regular intervals. Not for much longer.
    He went in looking for a monster; what he found was a broken man. It didn’t matter how broken he looked, he was a monster in disguise. He saw what he did to Lily. Now he’d have to pay. Phoenix figured it wouldn’t take long to smother him with a pillow. He’d be in and out as quickly as he could, though the beeping of the heart monitor would give him away. He’d kick the plug so it didn’t make any more noise. He knew they’d be monitoring, so he’d wait for the nurse watching them to get called to one of the rooms. It wouldn’t take long in the ICU wing.
    He watched the reflection of the nurse’s station in the hospital window. It was aligned so that he could see half of it. He’d have to peer out to catch a glimpse of the other half. It would be swift, but he realized the moment it was done, his own life would be over too. They’d have security on him so fast that his head would spin. He’d either end up in jail or dead. He took a deep breath. Either was acceptable if it kept Lily safe. He’d jump through the window if he had time, but he didn’t expect the ICU to be on the 4th floor. That would be too far to fall. He’d simply splat, with no chance of survival.
    Phoenix inched in closer, pulling a chair to the man’s bedside, making it look to the average person that he was there for a visit. He was taking in his surroundings, the tubes, the monitors, and studying the man’s face. He’d never felt pure hatred toward anyone before. Sure, he’d felt dislike. Sure, he’d been dismayed. People had rubbed him the wrong way, but what he was feeling now was a fire that wouldn’t go out. It burned as if someone was throwing gasoline on it, forcing it to grow.
    The moment snuck up way too soon, but not soon enough. He slipped the man’s pillow out from under his head, ready to smother him. The man’s eyes flitted opened and fear laced through them, realizing the man over him wasn’t there to help. He didn’t have the strength to react. Maybe he deserved this. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate.
    Phoenix froze. His mother’s face flashed in his mind. He dropped the pillow on the man’s bed and quickly retreated. No nurse was at the station. Nobody would have ever noticed. As he rushed through the hallways, he burst through the stairwell door instead of taking the elevator. He took two stairs at a time, his heart thundering in his chest. He slammed through the bottom level door and kept his head down while exiting the hospital.
    As soon as he was out, he ran hard, ran for the safety of the woods nearby. Phoenix staggered and tripped on a root sticking out of the ground, something he would have been more cautious of in the past. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, catching himself with his hands and buffering the blow of the ground rushing at him.
    He rolled to his side out of instinct, and then pulled his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms tight around them. He was alone in the safety of the foliage and woods. Phoenix’s body shook. Everything that had been trapped inside of him came out. He sobbed like a small child that was lost and alone. He was useless. He was broken. He