The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 34

Vivian looked through the glass at Tesla in his bed. He’d been tested, admitted, and brought to this private room hours before. His mother sat in the room’s only chair. Hollingberry had pulled it up next to the bed and fussed over her for a while, but had recently left to get everyone coffee. Mrs. Tesla held Joe’s hand, her eyes never leaving his face.

He looked terrible. He was always pale, but now his skin looked as translucent as a vampire’s. Even his lips were pale. A bandage on the back of his head covered where they’d stitched up his scalp. After running him through a CT scan, they’d announced that he had no skull fracture, but he did have traumatic brain injury. He would recover, but it would take time and rest.

He’d woken up a few times, asking about Edison and talking about Nikola Tesla. Vivian had looked the name up on her phone and found out that the guy had been dead since before the end of World War II. That couldn’t be a good sign.

She wondered how he’d react to being out of his familiar surroundings when he woke up all the way. She’d seen him have a panic attack before, in the middle of the day in a familiar situation. In a place he’d never been and with a head injury, well, she didn’t like to think about what might happen.

Tesla’s eyes opened again, and his mother spoke to him. He answered, and she pressed the button behind his head to summon a nurse.

“I’m going in,” Vivian told Dirk. She handed him the piece of paper that listed the doctors and nurses who were authorized to go into Tesla’s room. “He’s awake again. Maybe this time he’ll be conscious enough to tell us who hit him.”

“It’s not so bad,” Dirk said. “You can stop kicking your own ass, Viv.”

She hadn’t said a single word to indicate how guilty she felt, but Dirk knew her well. Tesla had been injured on her watch.

“I might just kick his ass,” she said. “For getting himself into trouble.”

Dirk gave her a smile, flashing his trademark dimple, and she had to smile back before going into the hospital room.

Mrs. Tesla looked at Vivian. “He wants to know about Edison again.”

“Edison is with Andres Peterson, and he’s completely fine, Mr. Tesla. Not a mark on him.” She’d told him that three times already.

Tesla looked toward the curtained window. Vivian had drawn the curtains as soon as the doctors had left, not wanting him to see the sky outside when he woke up and panic. He had enough to worry about without that.

His gaze drifted around as he took in the room. “Where am I?”

“Hospital.” His mother patted his arm. “You’re safe.”

Tesla’s eyes met Vivian’s. “How can I get home?”

Before she could say anything, a quick rap on the door announced a visitor. She tensed.

“I cleared him,” called Dirk from the door.

That meant that his name was on the list, and he’d been patted down for weapons, but she didn’t relax.

“Dr. Nigel Winterbottom.” A pudgy white guy in a lab coat stepped into the room. “I’ve been assigned Mr. Tesla’s case.”

“What’s your specialty?” Vivian had memorized the names and specialties of all of Tesla’s doctors and nurses.

Winterbottom glared at her in the condescending way of every doctor she’d met. “Neurologist. I’m here to examine my patient.”

She stepped away from him. She knew Winterbottom was the neurologist’s name, and he was definitely behaving like a doctor.

The doctor strode across the room toward the bed, but at the last second he pivoted and pulled open the curtains.

Tesla leaped out of the bed as if the light scalded him. He listed to the side and fell to his knees behind the bed. He yanked out his IV. Blood spattered across the back of his hand.

He lunged toward the door. His blue eyes were huge and panicked — nobody home. The smartest man she’d ever met, and there was no trace of intelligence in those eyes. Just terror.