The Enraged

CHAPTER 9

Nate woke in a sweat. It wasn’t the first time. In fact, since getting off Duran Island, he seemed to always wake up drenched.

It was his dream, the same one every night. He was back on the island, racing through the jungle, looking for a way out of the tangled mess. But the vines and bushes and trees seemed to go on forever, trapping him more times than not, and twisting around his arms and legs to keep him from moving onward.

He would yank and rip at the plants holding him in place. Sometimes he would get an arm free or even a leg, but invariably he would wake up with a start, not having been able to break away.

In the real world, the world of the hospital room where he slept, his sheets would be soiled from his imaginary flight, the top one often pushed to the foot of the bed, or wrapped around his waist or legs.

Usually, he’d find Liz sleeping in the chair a few feet away, unaware of his ordeal due to her own exhaustion, but even in the semi-darkness he could see tonight the chair was empty.

Careful not to pull too much at the welts across his back, he turned so he could check the clock on the nightstand.

Eleven seventeen p.m.

Liz should have been there. She was always in the room by ten at the latest.

He glanced at the bathroom, thinking maybe she was using the toilet, but the door was open and the room beyond was even darker than the one he was in.

Where was she?

His condition was not one that required being hooked up to an IV or a pulse monitor or an oxygen tube, which was good, given how active he’d become in his sleep. Surely he would have ripped any needle right out of his arm the very first night. He swung out of bed and hopped over to the closet. As he’d hoped, his prosthetic leg was inside. Once it was fitted in place, he went over to the door and pulled it open.

Light from the hallway rushed in. He blinked until his eyes adjusted to the brightness, and then looked both ways, wondering where Liz might have gone. The only person he saw was one of the night nurses, sitting at a station down the hall, her gaze focused on her desk.

He headed over. Though he wasn’t trying to be quiet, she didn’t hear him until he was only a few feet away. She jerked up, one hand clutching her chest, as the other accidentally brushed the book she’d been reading onto her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You shouldn’t be up,” she said. Like all the medical staff he’d come in contact with, she spoke to him in English.

“I’m looking for my friend. The woman?”

“Señorita Liz?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The nurse smiled. “She is sitting with your other friend.”

“Which other friend?”

“Woman.”

“Orlando.”

The nurse clearly hadn’t heard that name before.

“Which room?” he asked.

“ICU.”

“Can you take me there?”

She hesitated, but said, “Follow me.”

The intensive care unit was on the other side of the hospital, in a wing that had been divided into six private rooms off a central hallway. At the head of the hallway was a desk manned by another nurse. She looked surprised to see Nate and his escort.

The two women spoke in hushed Spanish for several seconds. When they were done, the one at the desk stood up.

“She will show you to your friend,” the first nurse said. “I have to return to my desk.”

“Gracias,” Nate said.

She smiled. “De nada.” Then her face turned serious as she pointed at him. “Don’t stay long. You need rest.”

The new nurse led him down the hallway to the last room on the left, nodded at the closed door, and, without a word, headed back the way they’d come. Nate quietly opened the door, not wanting to wake Orlando if she was sleeping.

Orlando’s room was much more elaborate than his. Diagnostic equipment and monitors all but surrounded her bed. The only thing in the room that was the same as in his was the chair Liz was sitting in. She was asleep, a magazine lying against her chest, her head lolled to the side.

Nate eased the door closed and stepped over to the chair. If Liz stayed in her current position, she would have a hell of a sore neck in the morning. Gingerly, he lifted the magazine out of her hands and set it on the nightstand. He then repositioned himself in front of her, and attempted to move her into a more comfortable position.

He was only seconds from success when her eyes eased open. For a brief moment, she looked at him as if she couldn’t comprehend who he was or what he was doing, then she sat up with a jolt.

“Nate?” She blinked to push away the sleep and looked around her. “Wait. This isn’t your room.”

“No. It’s Orlando’s.”

“Right, right.” She started to relax, but then her brow furrowed again. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Looking for you. I woke up and you weren’t there.”

She put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you, but you slept through most of the day.”

“Tell me what?”

“I promised Jake I would watch Orlando while he was gone.”

Jake, Quinn’s birth name, and one Liz still used.

“Gone? Where?”

“He and Daeng went to DC to see Misty.”

“Misty?” He could understand if Misty wanted to talk to Quinn about Peter’s death, but they could have done that on the phone. “Why?”

“You should get some sleep,” Liz said. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“I’ve had more than enough sleep, so we can talk about it now.” When she didn’t respond right away, he said, “Liz, I’m going to find out one way or the other.”

She rubbed her eyes and let out a deep breath. “He’s trying to figure out who’s responsible.”

“Responsible for what?”

She looked at him like he should already know. “Killing Peter. What happened to Orlando. To you. And the others. What do you think?”

“We know who’s responsible. They’re all dead.”

“No. Jake wants to find who started it all. Who gave Romero the list of names he was working from,” she said.

Nate leaned back.

The list. Of course. The list that mistakenly contained Quinn’s name. A mistake that was magnified, at least for Nate, when Romero’s snatchers thought Nate was Quinn.

“Has he learned anything?” he asked.

“I have no idea. Haven’t heard from him since he checked in earlier today, but it’s not like he’d share anything like that with me. You know that.”

“What about Orlando? Did he talk to her about any of this?”

“Nate, she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“What?” He looked over at Orlando. “You told me she was doing okay.”

“In the grand scheme, she is,” Liz said. “But she has a long way to go. I didn’t want to worry you too much. You have to concentrate on your own recovery.”

Liz’s assurances about Orlando had allowed him to relax. Still…

“I know you were only trying to help,” he said, “but you can’t sugarcoat things like that for me, or hide anything just because you don’t want me to worry. It doesn’t matter what condition I’m in. I can never afford not to know what’s going on. Lives could depend on it. You understand that, don’t you?”

She turned her head, not meeting his gaze.

“Liz, please tell me you understand.”

“Sure,” she said, pushing herself out of her chair. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

She headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Out.”

“Liz, I’m not trying to—”

“Please. Not now.”

She yanked open the door and left.

Nate stared after her, not knowing what he should do. While one voice in his head yelled at him to go after her, to help her understand, another argued to let her be, that she just needed a little time.

And then there was the third voice, the softest of the three that he feared was the closest to being right. “It doesn’t matter what you do. She’s not of your world. She never will be. What you have together has been nice, but how could there possibly be a future?”

Paralyzed, he stood where he was, watching the ghost of her at the door, and wishing that he were still back in his dream, fighting the jungle and not the woman he loved.