Zero Days

Jake wakes, and the pain in her side is less than it was. She’s in a hospital bed with Hel in a chair next to her. There are no police, and Jack does not seem to be under arrest. Hel doesn’t know what happened to Cole. Jack slept for more than a day and had surgery to remove a ruptured spleen. Hel says that Jack is all she has, but Jack knows it isn’t true for Hel, though it is for her.

Malik enters and tells them Cole has been arrested thanks to Jack’s livestream of his confession. Jack is no longer a suspect in Gabe’s murder. Cole is likely to go to prison. Jack’s tears finally come.

A nurse enters offering food, but Jack still feels nauseated. He implores her, asking if she could handle a little, “for the sake of the baby” (340). When she tells him she’s not pregnant, he checks her chart and confirms that she is. The hospital workers learned of her pregnancy during an examination prior to surgery and assumed she knew. Jack realizes she must be six or seven weeks along. She recalls the nausea and exhaustion that she attributed to her wound, realizing it was morning sickness.