Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (19 page)

“
No, you gathered a bunch
of heku to gang up on me, and I don’t appreciate it,” she said,
irritated, and then stood up.

Kyle pushed her back into the chair, “Sit
down, we’re not done.”

Emily’s eyes turned fierce, “Am I being
detained here?”

“
No, not detained, but
we’re still talking,” Kyle said.

Emily grabbed Quinn’s phone from her pocket
and started to dial. Mark took it from her and handed it back to
Quinn.

“
Hey,” she said
angrily.

Quinn looked at the number, “What were you
going to call the Encala Council for this time?”

“
To tell them I’m being
held against my will,” Emily said, and pulled her own cell phone
out of her pocket, along with William’s number and started to dial.
This time it was Silas who took her phone and the paper with
William’s number.

“
Now who are you calling?”
Quinn asked.

“
William”

“
You have his direct
line?”

“
Maybe”

“
I see,” Quinn said,
sitting back in his chair.

“
We’re not restraining
you,” Chevalier said. “This is more like an…
intervention.”

“
I’m not going to tell you,
and after 11 years, you should know that. So let me go,” Emily
yelled.

“
We just want to
help.”

“
Then leave me
alone.”

Zohn sighed, “These heku don’t appreciate
being accused of something that upsets you, yet they don’t even
know what it is.”

“
You too,” Emily said,
watching him.

“
Wait… when did I get in on
this?” Zohn asked, surprised.

Emily crossed her arms, sat back in the
chair, and waited.

“
Can you at least give us a
hint?” Chevalier asked.

Silence fell across the room as they watched
her.

Emily didn’t speak. She could feel a strong
headache coming on, and the tiny lights began to flash in front of
her eyes.

She grinned slightly when she had an idea.
She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Never before had she
tried to control the memories of an entire room of heku. She
concentrated hard and felt the subtle tingle of control. She took
them back a few hours and then opened her eyes.

“
So… as far as nightly
assignments go…” Chevalier looked over at Emily. “Em? How did you
get in here?”

“
Sorry, I thought you
called for me. I’ll just go,” Emily said, and smiled before
leaving, then quickly ran to her room. She wasn’t sure how long
this one was going to last, and she wanted to be far away before
they remembered.

“
Come on Alex,” Emily said,
and picked sleeping Alexis up as she called for Allen. She grabbed
her purse and ran for the stairs, then remembered that Silas had
her cell phone, but she knew Allen would still have his.

“
Mom, where are you going?”
Allen asked her, frowning.

“
Hurry, let’s go,” she
whispered, and handed Alexis over to him before running down the
stairs.

“
Where are we going?” he
asked again as he slipped into the back of the Jeep. He started to
buckle Alexis into her car seat.

“
Just away for a bit,
before your Dad realizes I altered his memory,” Emily said, and
sped out of the garage.

“
What happened?” Allen
asked. He looked at his mom as she started to shake and break out
in a sweat.

“
They ganged up on me,” she
said, and swerved slightly as she pulled onto the
Interstate.

“
Mom, let me drive,” Allen
said, and crawled up front.

“
You can’t drive. You’re
only 8,” she reminded him.

“
I don’t care, you’re sick.
Let me drive,” he said, and she pulled over at the side of the road
when she felt her blood pressure spike again.

Emily barely heard Allen call for an
ambulance. She suddenly became aware that she was in the Emergency
Room, and Dr. Hayden was with her.

“
Emily? Can you hear me?”
he asked softly.

Emily nodded and pulled her oxygen mask
off.

“
Keep it on,” he said, and
slid the mask back over her face. “You passed out. Your blood
pressure got too high, and your son called an
ambulance.”

Emily nodded.

“
You’ll need to stay here
for a bit, until we get it under control.”

Again, she just nodded. Her head was
pounding and she could still see little swirls of lights.

Dr. Hayden sat down and took her hand, “What
happened?”

“
I… had a fight,” she said,
and looked away from him.

“
With your
husband?”

Emily nodded, unable to talk.

“
He’s here. Do you want me
to keep him away?”

“
He’s here?” Emily asked,
looking around the room.

“
Your husband, brother, and
dad are here,” Dr. Hayden told her.

Emily frowned, “I don’t have a brother and
my Dad is dead.”

Dr. Hayden smiled, “Ok, I’ll tell them they
can’t see you right now.”

Emily nodded and slipped back off to
sleep.

Dr. Hayden walked out into the waiting
room.

“
Can we see her?” Chevalier
asked. He was holding Alexis, who was nervously looking
around.

“
Not right now. She’s not
ready to see anyone and she’s confused, so it’s best if we just let
her sleep,” Dr. Hayden said.

Allen frowned, “Confused?”

“
Yes, she says she doesn’t
have a brother and that her father is dead. It’ll all come back to
her when she’s fully awake,” Dr. Hayden explained.

Allen looked at Chevalier nervously.

“
So what happened, exactly?
Allen just said she was driving and started to swerve, so he called
an ambulance,” Chevalier asked.

Dr. Hayden sighed, “Her blood pressure
spiked, it’s been high for a few weeks, but this morning it wasn’t
this bad.”

“
You saw her this
morning?”

Dr. Hayden nodded, “Yes, she’s been coming
to me regularly.”

Chevalier just nodded and sat back in his
chair.

“
We’ll watch her for a few
days, and send her home… course… she mentioned you and she had been
fighting,” Dr. Hayden said, looking at Kyle.

Kyle nodded, “Sort of.”

“
We can’t have any of that.
She needs to stay in a calm environment, or we could lose her. The
miscarriage was a nasty one and she’s still recovering because she
left the hospital too early for us to stabilize her.”

“
We can do that,” Kyle
assured him.

“
When can we see her?”
Quinn asked.

“
Let’s try again in the
morning, when she’s had a chance to sleep for the
night.”

“
She... has a fear of
hospitals… needles, oxygen, everything,” Chevalier told
him.

Dr. Hayden smiled, “Yes I know, drawing
blood this morning was interesting, but I got it. We’ll keep an eye
on her.”

The heku watched as the doctor walked out
and left them alone in the waiting room.

“
Did you know she’s been
seeing a doctor?” Kyle asked.

Chevalier shook his head, “No, I
didn’t.”

Allen sighed, “She didn’t want you to
know.”

“
Why?” Chevalier asked him,
wondering how his 8-year-old son knew.

“
Because the doctor put her
on bed rest after the miscarriage. She’s supposed to be taking
vitamins, and she’s not, she’s supposed to be eating more, and
she’s not,” Allen said. “It’s easier for her to control what she
does and doesn’t do, if you don’t know what the doctor
said.”

“
Damnit, Em,” Chevalier
said. “If she’s not going to listen to a doctor, why
go?”

Allen shrugged, “I better not say anymore. I
probably shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

“
How is it you know all of
this?”

Allen shrugged again and looked at the
floor.

“
Tell me,” Chevalier
growled.

Kyle put a hand on Allen’s shoulder. Allen
glanced at him, and then back to his Dad, “I read her diary.”

Chevalier raised his eyebrows, “Your Mom has
a diary?”

Allen nodded.

“
How far back does it
go?”

“
She started it the day she
left for two months,” Allen said. He knew he couldn’t fight the
heku. They were stronger than he was.

“
Keep talking, Boy, your
Dad asked you why Emily is seeing a doctor,” Kyle said, tightening
his grip.

Quinn frowned, “Does this not seem a tad
intrusive? Her diary would be private.”

“
If it helps me figure out
what’s going on, then I don’t really care… spill it, Allen,”
Chevalier said.

Allen’s shoulders dropped, “She was afraid
she was going to die while she was away. She liked the doctor
enough that she kept going to him when she got back.”

“
Wait… she was this close
to us for two months?” Kyle asked, shocked.

Allen nodded, “Yes.”

“
Why did she think she was
going to die?” Chevalier asked.

“
I guess she was in a lot
of pain for a while. She was up at night in agony, and she was
alone. The doctor not only helped her through the pain, but also
listened to her,” Allen explained.

“
Where’s this
diary?”

Allen shook his head, “I’m not telling
you.”

“
Allen,” Chevalier
hissed.

“
No, this has gone on far
enough,” Quinn said. “That diary is private, and you shouldn’t turn
Allen against his Mom.”

Chevalier sighed, “I guess you’re
right.”

Allen sat down against the wall and glared
at Chevalier.

“
Kyle… go find it,”
Chevalier said, and Kyle blurred away before Quinn could say
anything.

“
I’ll tell her,” Allen
scowled.

Chevalier appeared at Allen and pushed him
against the wall, “You better watch yourself.”

“
Alexis, no!” Quinn
shouted, and picked her up quickly when she began to focus on
Chevalier.

Chevalier turned back towards the toddler
and then moved a step away from Allen, “Sit down.”

Quinn flipped open his cell phone and
frowned, “The Encala Council didn’t call.”

“
What do you mean?”
Chevalier asked.

“
She said the Encala Elders
called my number… they didn’t, and I don’t show that she called
them either,” Quinn explained. “Why would she lie about
that?”

“
I don’t know,” Chevalier
said, and pulled her cell phone out of his pocket. “She didn’t use
her phone either.”

“
That doesn’t make any
sense.”

Quinn unfolded the paper Emily said was
William’s cell phone, and dialed the number while Chevalier
watched.

Quinn hung the phone up, “That number has
been disconnected.”

Chevalier sighed, “I don’t understand.”

Allen sat back down against the wall, and
Quinn settled down in a soft couch with Alexis, while Chevalier
paced. They waited through the night with no word from the doctors.
Just after dawn, Silas came to take Alexis back to the palace, but
Allen refused to go.

Dr. Hayden came in just after his rounds and
looked around the waiting room. He walked over to Quinn and
Chevalier, “Where did Kyle go?”

“
He had to step out, can I
see her?” Chevalier asked.

The doctor thought and then nodded, “Ok, but
if you upset her, I’m stopping all guests for the rest of the
day.”

“
Maybe I should go,” Quinn
said, too softly for the doctor to hear.

“
It’ll be ok,” Chevalier
told him, and followed the doctor into the room. He was surprised
to see an x-ray machine in the room, but couldn’t help but grin
when the doctor froze.

“
Emily, why did you take
your I.V. out?” he asked, and turned off the drip. “We talked about
this.”

Emily shrugged and watched Chevalier.

The doctor wrote something in her chart and
then left after a warning to Chevalier to keep it calm.

Chevalier pulled a chair up to her, and she
watched him as she sat cross-legged on the bed.

“
Can I get you anything?”
he asked her.

“
No,” Emily said, and
pulled a blanket up over her.

Chevalier sighed, “I’m sorry. I admit it
wasn’t right of us to…”

“
Gang up on me?”

“
Right… gang up on you.
Until you brought it up, I really thought it would help if we were
all there.”

Emily shrugged, “I guess I can see
that.”

“
I like Dr. Hayden,”
Chevalier said, and reached out to take her hand. When she didn’t
pull it back, he laced his fingers through hers.

“
I do too,” Emily said, and
watched their hands.

“
I promise to drop it, if
you promise not to let it cause a rift between us,” Chevalier
suggested.

“
I can’t get it out of my
head,” Emily said, frowning. “I’m trying hard… to understand… how
to make it not quite so disgusting or repulsive... but then Storm
comes and I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

“
So, is Storm
involved?”

“
Pretty sure, how can she
not be?”