Authors: Nia Shay
Holy shit...I
was
blinking. And blobs of color had begun to evolve on the background of white. I focused on them, seeing a pattern in them. I strained to focus and make sense of the images--and found myself staring into the soft brown eyes of Jordan Radcliff.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, though it sounded more like nails on a chalkboard than actual human speech.
A grin broke over Jordan's face. Apparently he'd understood me despite my sandpaper throat. "Jade? Are you really back with us this time?" He reached out and grabbed a plastic cup from a wheeled cart beside me. After a moment I recognized the portable table--the kind used in hospitals. I was, in fact, lying in a hospital bed.
That meant I was alive.
"I guess so," I rasped in response, both to his question and my own insight. I tried to take the cup from him, but a nest of tubes and wires held my arm pretty well shackled in place. I finally submitted to the indignity of having him angle the straw into my mouth as if I were a toddler with a sippy cup.
Speech came a little easier after a few swallows. "What's going on?"
"Just a sec." He practically skipped across the room and scooped up a cell phone from the window seat. He pressed a button on its side that made it squawk, then spoke into it. "Hey you guys, she's awake! I think for real this time!" He glanced back at me and explained, "You've woken up a few times before this, but you weren't really lucid."
"Compared to whom?" I muttered.
Somehow his grin managed to grow even wider. "Oh, yeah. You're back." He jabbed the button again and shouted, "Hello! Is anyone listening?"
An answering squawk sounded. "We heard you the first time, J.J." Despite the tinny speaker, Cara's sardonic edge carried through clearly. "You sure she's not just speaking in tongues again?"
"Positive! Get your butts down here and see."
"All right. Sara's almost done here. We'll be down in a few minutes." The channel closed briefly, crackling to life again a second later. "Hey, boss? Can you hear me?"
"Yeah," I replied automatically. Jordan pressed the call button and gestured for me to repeat myself. "Yeah, I hear you, kiddo."
"Good." Her sigh grated in my ears. "We thought we'd lost you, damn it. No more scaring us like that, okay?"
"I'll try to be more considerate the next time I'm kidnapped by psychopaths," I muttered. Jordan rolled his eyes and pushed the call button again. I waved him off--I had no intention of repeating myself.
He shrugged. "She says to get your butts down here."
"Shut up, we're coming."
I chewed my lower lip in the silence that followed. A bubble of fear had formed in my stomach during the course of the conversation. Jordan was here with me, I'd heard Cara's voice, and she'd implied Sara was alive and well, too. But none of them had said a word about Zeph. They had to know I'd be worried about him. Shouldn't someone have told me right away if he was all right? Since they hadn't, did that mean...?
As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Jordan turned to face me again. "Do you feel like talking?" His exuberance had mellowed, leaving a quiet compassion in its place.
Oh God, he was about to break the news to me gently. I didn't want to know...but I had to. But when I opened my mouth to ask, the words stuck in my throat. I could only let out a raw croak.
"Do you need more to drink? Here." He was at my side in a flash, brandishing the cup again.
I would have batted it away if I'd had the strength, would have screamed at him, maybe. Instead, I obediently took another sip of water. I
was
still pretty thirsty. As I swallowed, my eyes were drawn to a flash of color in the bend of his elbow, mostly concealed by the sleeve of his baggy concert tee--a bright blue strip of self-adhesive elastic.
I spat out the straw, saying, "Yeah, I can talk. What happened to...?"
He didn't give me a chance to finish. Just as well, since I wasn't sure if I'd intended to ask about his arm, or about Zeph. "Why didn't you ever tell me you were a Society member, too?" he asked.
I gawked up at him. "You know about the Society? How?"
"Card-carrying member since the age of fourteen," he replied, looking affronted. Then he grinned and shrugged. "Well, if we had cards, I'd carry one."
"What?
But...you're not nephilim."
He coughed out a startled laugh. "Of course not."
He couldn't be a Warden, either, since he was male. And he was way too young to be a military man or even a pencil pusher. Besides, most of the functionaries were based in Europe. "So you're...what?"
"I'm training to become a field agent."
"Field agent?" I repeated blankly.
He snorted. "Damn, you guys in the dark angel division really are behind the times, aren't you?"
"Seems your secret society isn't just for the sons of God anymore."
I snapped my head around at the sound of Cara's voice, which came now from the doorway. Her short hair lay flat against her scalp, making her look smaller somehow. She wore bright bandages too, one on each arm. Electric purple and lime green, they glowed against her pale skin.
She came to perch on the edge of the bed, half beside and half behind me. "Apparently, ever since they made it to the New World, this Fairlight Society's been expanding the ranks to include psychics, telekinetics, ghost whisperers--the whole nine yards," she continued. "Turns out our little J.J. here is a psycho meter."
"Psychometrist," he corrected primly.
I couldn't have been more lost if they'd been speaking Greek. "What the hell is one of those?"
"I can sense psychic residue through touch," Jordan explained. "Traces left behind by the people that have touched an object before me. Images, emotions, sometimes even their actual thoughts."
"That's how he figured out where you were being held," Cara added.
"What?" I turned uncomprehending eyes on him. "
You
saved us?"
He squirmed under my gaze, looking abashed. "The Society saved you. I just helped point them in the right direction. It was sheer dumb luck, too. The bastard who kidnapped Sara tied her up with the phone cord, after he'd made a call to his boss on your phone. It's a good thing he hates his boss so much, because his anger left such a strong impression that I picked up on it just by touching Sara's wrists."
"Right before you planted a big sloppy one on her."
Now Jordan actually blushed, though he managed a glare for Cara. "I was happy you guys were all right. Both of you."
"You didn't kiss
me."
"Um...guys?" I interrupted. Jordan immediately held up the water cup again. This time I did slap it away--it was mostly empty, anyway. "Listen, I need to know...."
"Right, where were we? Yeah. Anyway, after I figured out the kidnapper had made that call, I got in touch with my facilitator. He ran your phone records, got the number for one Hermann Briggs, triangulated his cell phone signal, and sent in an extraction team. And voila! Here you are, safe and sound."
Cara snorted. "That was quite possibly a world record for the most words ever spoken in a single breath."
I had to agree. It took me a minute to process all of it. Jordan hadn't mentioned getting Zeph out. Only me. And they'd found us by...I couldn't hold back a hysterical giggle.
He frowned. "What's so funny?"
"The cell signal," I choked, tears streaming down my face with my laughter. "Zeph made me ditch my phone because they could trace us with the GPS. He was right. I was pissed, but he was right. And Airrr-mahn was too stupid to know any better."
Cara's hand landed on my shoulder. "Listen. About Zeph...."
"No." The word tore at my raw throat.
She frowned. "No what?"
"No no no no no." They were going to tell me now that he hadn't survived, and I couldn't bear to hear it after all. If I didn't listen, I could pretend it wasn't true.
"Jade?" Jordan peered at me critically. "You okay?"
"No!"
I threw my head back, smacking hard into Cara's collarbone. She grunted at the pain, but otherwise didn't complain. She just slipped an arm around me and supported me while I sobbed.
"Shit. What do we do, Care?"
"I think you'd better call them again." Her tone was grim.
Sara's voice preceded her through the door. "Call who?"
Cara's head swiveled toward her twin. "What took you so long? You said you'd be right behind me."
"Sorry. This thing isn't exactly user friendly." A metallic clatter followed her words, along with a string of muttered curses.
I turned streaming eyes in the direction of the noise, finding Sara's face at a level with my own. She was angling awkwardly up to my bedside in a wheelchair. "What happened to you?" I choked.
"Nothing, nothing happened. I'm fine." She laid a reassuring hand on the small patch of my forearm that wasn't riddled with IV needles. "Hospital policy, that's all. They didn't want me walking around right after giving blood, but I wanted to see you. Why are you crying?"
"Zeph...." I could only gasp his name before my throat closed up tight.
"Zeph?" she repeated in a questioning tone. At my watery nod, she said, "He'll be along soon. The doctor got hold of him before we could make our escape, so he sent me on ahead."
"Y--you mean he's alive?"
"Of course he is." Sara turned an incredulous scowl on the others. "What the hell have you two been telling her?"
"Nothing," Cara retorted. "I thought she knew."
"So did I." Jordan crouched beside Sara, one arm encircling her shoulders as he met my gaze. "I'm sorry, Jade. I thought you'd know he was okay. You're the one who saved him."
"He died," I said hollowly. "He was dead."
"Nope. Not quite."
I shook my head. "He put his soul inside me and his body was cold. You can't get much deader than that."
Jordan shrugged, looking bemused. "Well, according to the extraction team's report, they found Zeph sitting up holding you, and you were in full arrest. He told them you'd given your life to save his." He took a deep breath before continuing, his voice half an octave higher. "The medics tried shocking you to get your heart going again. Your blood pressure kept dropping, but no one knew why. You only had a minor wound."
I knew why. Zeph had probably told them, too, but they hadn't understood.
"Anyway, they were getting ready to inject you with epinephrine when Zeph started singing, and everyone stopped dead in their tracks. Except the guy who wrote the report, obviously--he's a psychic. He said the whole team's brain waves changed in a heartbeat, like they'd all just fallen into a deep sleep on the spot. At the same time, your brain activity started to increase. You stabilized just a few minutes after that."
I only half listened to him, lost in my memories of that time--drifting in the darkness, the fading whispers, the thunderstorm that had torn through the silence. Through it all, Zeph's song had led me back to my body, back to life. Maybe these doctors and so-called psychics didn't understand what had happened, but I did. I wondered if I should bother trying to explain it.
"So...he's all right?" I asked tentatively.
"I wouldn't say 'all right,'" Cara replied sourly. "He was only slightly less dead than you at first. He's just recovering faster thanks to his monstrous appetite."
Understanding dawned on me suddenly. "That's why you're all wearing bandages? You've been donating blood for him?"
"'Round the goddamn clock. He eats like a tapeworm."
"Ignore her." Sara rolled her eyes. "Yes, we've all given blood a few times, and so have a couple of the staff members. He's regained a lot of his strength."
I frowned. "The doctors...they're feeding him the blood?"
Sara nodded calmly, as if this was common medical procedure. "They tried a transfusion first. It didn't help nearly as much."
"But why are they...how did they even know...?"
"This is a private hospital," Jordan replied. "Society owned and operated. They're used to unusual patients here. Though I think you and Zeph will be the subjects of case studies for years to come."
"Oh," I said vaguely. "But where is he? Why isn't he here with me?"
"You're still in ICU, sweetie." Sara gave my arm a light squeeze. "They moved Zeph to a regular room three days ago."
"Three days?" I stared at her. "How long have we been here?"
"It'll be two weeks, tomorrow."
"Two
weeks?"
She nodded. "That's why the doctors are so weirded out. You weren't in a textbook coma, you've just been in a normal sleep pattern all this time."
"Zeph told them you needed the rest," Jordan added, "so they've pretty much left you alone, except for the monitors."
"See, Jade?" Cara said brightly. "You're now officially a freak even by scientific standards."
"Hush," Sara scolded. "I think I hear someone out in the hall."
"Oh, good. That'll be your man." Cara patted my shoulder. "You gonna be all right, fearless leader? I assume you two will want to be alone."
"You don't even know if it's him." Though with my heart suddenly pounding double time in my chest, I could certainly suspect.
"Of course it's him. Who else would it be?" She gave me a final hug and stood. "Make the most of the down time, okay? We'll try to hold off the doctors as long as we can, but once they figure out you're awake, they'll be beating down the door to probe you."
"Oh, that sounds delightful." I sighed, just as a tall figure appeared in the half-open doorway.
"Jandra."
For a long moment I could only stare at him, framed there like a replay of his appearance outside my office at Dissonance. Even gaunt and hollow-eyed, he was still achingly beautiful. The hesitant smile on his lips sent my tears spilling over again. "Zeph...."
"It's all right now, love." He came to me and took my hand in his. "Don't cry."
I squeezed his fingers tight. "Oh, Zeph," I wept.
"I think that's our cue to leave, y'all," Cara stage-whispered from somewhere off to my right. "Stop gawking, you sickos."