The Rising

TWENTY-NINE

WHEN I SURFACED TO feel someone sitting beside me, I cracked open my eyes enough to catch a glimpse of brown skin and dark hair and reached out to push Antone away.

“Hey,” said a voice. “That’s no way to treat your nurse.”

I pried open my eyes enough to see Rafe sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were . . .”

I looked past him to Antone, who was slouched in a chair across the room. He was awake, but his gaze was fixed on the wall, deep in thought.

“Mmm, yeah,” Rafe murmured under his breath. “Don’t blame you.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Daylight glowed through the frosted glass window. Kenjii walked over and nudged me. As I patted her, Antone noticed me and rose.

“How are you?” he asked.

It took a second to remember what had happened. When I did, I felt a burst of panic, until I wriggled my toes and saw them move under the sheets. I pulled my legs up and stretched my arms. Hurt like hell, but everything seemed to be functioning.

“Sore,” I said.

“Yeah, you took a little tumble,” Rafe said.

“Little? Ah, so I fell onto the roof, not over the wall.”

“Thankfully,” Antone said. “You’ll have bruises, but Dr. Inglis assures me nothing is broken. Rafe’s been trying to use his healing powers.”

Rafe looked abashed. “I don’t think I have any yet. Maybe you can try yours?”

Antone shook his head. “A skin-walker can only heal others.”

He was right—I’d tried it on a few of my cuts and bumps during our adventures, and my powers had no effect.

Antone handed me a glass of water. My mouth was cotton-dry from the tranquilizers. I took it and started drinking.

“You can rest some more,” Antone said. “When you’re ready, though, I need to call Mr. Nast and Dr. Inglis in to talk to you about what happened last night.”

“Take my statement.” I glanced up around the ceiling. “I guess that means they couldn’t watch the fun for themselves?”

“No, there aren’t cameras in the bedrooms,” he said, then mouthed, “just microphones.” I knew that, from Rafe, but it was nice to have someone admit it.

“Tell them I’m ready,” I said.

Antone shook his head. “Get some more rest.”

“No. Let’s get this over with.”

Nicole was all right. I was . . . I would say I was glad to hear it, except that I was really only relieved because I didn’t want to be responsible for her death, which isn’t nearly as altruistic. Did that bother me? Intellectually, it did. Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, and I agree with that. There was no part of me that wanted Nicole dead for killing Serena. Punished, yes. Locked up, yes. But her death wouldn’t bring Serena back.

She was fine, though. Bruised and battered, but fine.

Had she been drugged? When I raised that possibility, Dr. Wiley acted like I was being paranoid. Nicole was unstable. That was all. Still, when I described how she’d behaved—the wild eyes, the inhuman strength—Dr. Inglis agreed she should be tested and promised to do it herself.

I was relieved that no one tried to say Nicole’s escape was an accident. Nast had already ordered a full investigation and all security personnel on duty last night had been put on a plane to Los Angeles to face questioning there.

Near-death experience aside, I was still in trouble for trying to escape. I could have laughed at that. I think I might have. Nast did not appreciate it. Antone pointed out that, given that Nicole had almost killed me and I suspected someone in the house had engineered the attack, it made perfect sense for me to run. It was self-defense, really. And I had been about to turn myself in when I was shot. The other guard had confirmed that.

Nast wasn’t convinced. I would spend the rest of the day in isolation. No visitors other than authorized personnel. And Dr. Wiley needed to run another complete examination, because Nast was concerned that my attack on Nicole proved I was regressing.

That really pissed Antone off. I’d been fighting for my life and they were blaming me for hurting my attacker? I said nothing, because I remembered that blind rage. I was regressing; I was just afraid to admit it.

If their tests discovered anything abnormal, no one told me. Dr. Wiley and Dr. Inglis didn’t whisper any theories or suspicions for me to overhear. They didn’t even give me hints with their expressions. Just ran the tests. Took the data. Escorted me back to my room. At least, Dr. Inglis did.

I wanted to ask what she’d found. I wanted to ask a lot of things. If I was regressing, would Annie’s treatment work on me? If they caught it soon enough, would they be able to fix it faster, too?

If I asked, that would suggest I knew something was wrong, which would only earn me closer scrutiny. So I just walked in silence. Dr. Inglis didn’t seem to notice—she was too busy chattering at me. While she’d never been cold or standoffish, I swore she said more to me in five minutes than she would have in a year at Salmon Creek. It wasn’t anything important. Just talk—overly bright, overly optimistic, overly flattering talk. Under the misguided impression, I guess, that I might put in a good word with Antone. Still, I could use allies, so I nodded and feigned interest.

We seemed to take an overly complicated route back to my room. As we walked down a corridor, Dr. Inglis slowed and talked louder, and I wasn’t surprised to catch a glimpse of Antone and Moreno through an open doorway, Antone sitting at a desk, Moreno perched on it, talking.

Hearing us, Antone came to the door. “All done?”

“Yes, and I was just taking Maya to the kitchen for something to eat.” A conspiratorial smile my way. “And letting her avoid her room for as long as possible.”

“Good plan.” Antone walked out. “I’ll take Maya from here and grab us coffees on my way back. We need to go over a few memos.”

She hesitated, but it was clear he didn’t want her accompanying us, so she reminded him she took her coffee black. When he said “I know,” she glowed.

Before we left, Antone remembered something in his office and popped back in. I waited while he jotted a note on a piece of paper and dropped it into a file. As we walked, he asked how my exam went. He didn’t seem to be listening, though, and when we turned the corner into another hall, he opened his hand and I saw the piece of paper that I thought he’d put in the file. He unfurled it and held it out for me to read.

Dead zone coming up.

He counted down on his other hand. Five, four, three, two . . . another couple of steps and he whispered, almost too low for me to hear. “If you want to negotiate, we need leverage. You don’t have that while you’re in here.”

“I—”

He motioned for me to keep quiet. “I’ve arranged something. You’ll know when it happens. You need to take advantage of it. At that point, I can’t help. I need to stay clean.”

“I—”

A stern look cut me off again and he counted down from three this time, then said, “Any requests for dinner? Since you’re locked in your room, I’m sure we can make allowances. Takeout, maybe? Just tell me what you’d like, and . . .”

He continued talking as we headed for the kitchen.

I was going to get an opportunity to escape. To find Daniel and make sure he was all right, heal him if I could. Antone was setting it up, but once he did, he had to step back so he wasn’t implicated in my escape. Or I think that’s what he meant. I hoped it was. I also hoped I’d get some hints about what form this opportunity would take. An unlocked door? An ally who would break me out? And what about the others?

But that was all Antone said. In fact, it was the last time I saw him all day. So I sat in my room, waiting for . . . whatever. Nothing came. If he’d launched his “opportunity,” I’d missed it. Unless he meant tomorrow. Or the day after.

Damn it. I appreciated that he thought I was clever enough to need only those few cryptic sentences, but more detail would have been appreciated.