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My head spun at the overload of information. I coughed to clear my throat but it wasn’t helping making it feel better. “I feel like…”
“Shit?” Brandon asked. “Yeah. Me, too.”
Things got quiet for a moment. I had my eyes closed. I think I might have passed out for a couple of minutes. When I opened my eyes again, Brandon had moved to sit on my bed. He had his hand on my stomach.
It was uncomfortable, considering I was nauseated, whether from the poison or the cure, I didn’t know. I reached up, intending to grab his hand and move it off of me.
Once I touched him, he gripped my hand and held it. He looked down at me. “Kayli,” he said in a gruff voice.
Awkward. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I sucked in a breath, wanting to tell him he should go to sleep. If needed, I’d go back to sleep and put off talking to him. The job was done. We’d be here for days. He’d want to talk relationships. I wasn’t in the mood.
I pressed a palm to my head, finding it was bandaged. Must have cut it when I hit the floor after tackling Alice. “So everyone’s alive, at least,” I said.
“On our team, yeah,” Brandon said. “Eddie’s group is in jail.”
“Are we going to get questioned?” I asked. I figured if the police had gotten called in, and I was taken to the hospital, there would be a lot of questions. I squirmed. Cops.
“Nope.” Brandon released me and rubbed his face. “No cops. Not for us.”
“How did that happen?”
Brandon shrugged. “They’re not going to ask about us. We weren’t there. Corey stayed behind, as did Axel to testify.”
My eyes widened. “What?” Where are they?”
“Axel’s getting treatment, too. Marc is with him. Raven and Corey are taking care of things at the apartment. Kevin’s running errands for us now.” Brandon stood up, stretching and twisting.
I caught an eyeful of muscled butt cheek, and then forced myself to look up.
“Anyway,” he said. “Corey isn’t in trouble. Ethan turned off his machine once everyone cleared out. We’ve got some people stationed there to watch out for him until Alice and Mr. Murdock have been captured.” He thought some more. “Oh yeah, and Avery. Smart guy, but he seemed to disappear after. We’ll have to thank him somehow for helping out.
That was good. Avery did deserve a big reward or something. Maybe they could fix up his car nice for his job. He deserved more. I sighed, falling back on the bed. I turned on my side, trying to make the nausea subside.
Brandon got in beside me, his stomach to my back. He wrapped his arm around my waist.
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t going to complain; he was warm. “Brandon,” I said. “You were in the bed with me the first night we got captured.”
“Yeah,” he said behind me. His breath fell on my neck.
“But I was in Corey’s bed.”
Brandon fell quiet.
“I thought…you were Corey.”
“Do you snuggle up to Corey?” he asked.
“Were you pretending to be him?”
He made a noise. “I thought you knew it was me.”
I turned onto my other side. I had to be careful with stretching out the IV line.
Brandon’s cerulean eyes were shining as he peered down at my face. His cheeks were tinged with red.
I kept my hand under my cheek, fighting off going to sleep again to get to the bottom of this. I wasn’t sure if I was mad. Maybe because I was tired. I just wanted to know. “You thought I’d know it was you if you crawled into bed next to me?”
“I thought you could tell the difference,” he said. “I figured you’d know it was me if I…If I snuggled into you.”
I was quiet for a long time, considering. “I didn’t know,” I said. “That late at night, Corey sometimes just kind of snuggles up close to be comfortable. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Brandon’s side of his mouth lifted. “I’m not jealous,” he said. “I told you he’s gay.”
“I know,” I said. “So it wasn’t going to go anywhere.”
He nodded.
We fell into silence. I was looking at his chest, and then my eyes closed. I was drifting. I thought about Ethan, wondering if he could get an annulment. I wondered when Alice…Anja, would be caught. I wondered where Marc was so I could get him to make some food. I thought my stomach might settle down if I at least had some bread or crackers. Or a milkshake and fries.
Brandon leaned in closer. His lips brushed my cheek. “You know now I can’t leave you,” he whispered.
I mumbled something, trying to tell him to shut up and let me sleep, but I found it hard to focus long enough to utter a syllable. Whatever was in the IV, it was making me really sleepy.
“I need you near me,” Brandon said. “I’ll never sleep unless you’re there. My luck, I’ll lose you again.”
There was a long pause. I felt his breath on my face, warm.
I couldn’t argue with him, really. I was thinking the same thing. I needed to hold onto him, or he might get zapped and we both end up in a trunk again.
I wanted Marc nearby, too. And Axel. Corey and Raven should be here. It didn’t feel right without them.
My heart dropped at that thought. Like a heavy weight, sinking me down further.
I was in too deep. Blake was right. I needed to leave sometime before it was too late and I destroyed the group.
~ A ~
There was a knock at the door. Brandon turned, sitting back on the bed and scooting over to Kayli’s feet. He smoothed out his hospital gown, covering his privates with the blanket over his waist. Laying next to Kayli had gotten him a little excited. He couldn’t help it. “Come in.”
Dr. Roberts opened the door. Brandon hadn’t seen him in a while. His white hair was combed to one side. His aged face lit up at once. “Good. You’re up. Has she woken yet?”
Brandon nodded. “I talked with her for a bit. She’s still pretty out of it. She was mumbling for a while.”
“That’s a good sign if she’s waking up.” He closed the door behind himself and walked in. “If she wasn’t vomiting or convulsing when she woke up, it means the worst of this poison is out of her system. How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Brandon said. He swallowed, feeling uncomfortable in his stomach. The only way he got around the nausea was when he was asleep, and he didn’t feel like sleeping right now. He pointed to his own IV fluid bag hanging from a pole. “Does this stuff make you feel sick still, though? My stomach hurts.”
“It’ll be normal to experience some nausea and light-headedness for a few days,” Dr. Roberts said. He adjusted his doctor’s coat, unbuttoning it down the center and then pulled a seat up close to the bed. “Funny enough, the cure for thallium is a component that contains cyanide. Of course, not enough to be lethal, but still might make you feel funny.”
Brandon checked on Kayli. She was pretty passed out. Her face was relaxed, a look that didn’t often appear on her unless she was sleeping. She had scars, cuts and scrapes all over her. She was thinner, too. Running around without eating much for a few days made her look like death was hanging overhead.
Brandon kept a hand on her ankle, but she was dead to the world. That was good; she didn’t need to hear this conversation, one he had been expecting. “So when can we leave?” Brandon asked. “Just a few days, right?”
“Sure,” Dr. Roberts said. He’d carried in a file. He put it in his lap and then propped his chin up in his hand. “But while we’re here, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
Brandon said nothing, simply waiting out Dr. Roberts. He knew what it would be about. Dr. Roberts wanted a few details of the last few days. He’d given a report, but Brandon had been ill, and sometimes when you’re sick, you miss giving important clues that could help an investigation. Luckily it was Dr. Roberts and not a police officer.
Dr. Roberts motioned to Kayli but spoke to Brandon. “She’s been hanging around a lot. Are we making friends?”
His
eyes widened in surprise and instinctively he turned and looked at Kayli again, to see if she was awake. He wasn’t sure if he should talk about her while she was right there. He shrugged. “I know she got involved, but she was with me when I was kidnapped and—”
“The moment she got out,” Dr. Roberts said, “she should have been here at the hospital.”
“Don’t look at me,” Brandon said. “I was kidnapped and in the back of a car. I agree she should have come straight here.”
“And the moment you were un-kidnapped,” Dr. Roberts said, “you were with her.” Dr. Roberts lifted his head and then grabbed the file. He held it up to show Brandon the thickness. “Now I’ve got a lot of people asking me who this girl is and why was she involved.”
“Shouldn’t we talk about this somewhere else?” Brandon asked. He stood, motioning to the door.
Dr. Roberts held up a hand. “Sit,” he said. “I just want to hear from someone who will give me an honest answer.”
“Who hasn’t given you an honest answer?” Brandon asked. He moved, sitting on the other bed, hoping not to disturb Kayli by sitting next to her again.
“All your friends say she’s their girlfriend,” Dr. Roberts said. “I think they feel if they tell me she’s just a friend that I’m going to insist she find another place to live. I’ve sworn that isn’t the case, but they seem insistent.”
This wasn’t the conversation Brandon wanted to have right now. What did it matter to him who she was with? But then, the Academy wanted to be aware of the activities of anyone they associated with. Brandon suspected they didn’t really care who she was with, only that they got a straight answer.
The others claimed her as their girlfriend? He wasn’t sure how to respond. Technically… no. It’s not like he’d asked her for a commitment. He was fond of her, but he couldn’t call her a girlfriend at this point.
Before Brandon could figure out a response, Dr. Roberts continued, “And then I’ve got another young man in my lobby right now, claiming he wants to see Miss Winchester. I told him I couldn’t allow for him to come in until she was awake.”
Brandon nearly jumped to his feet again. Young man? “Who?” he asked, panic taking over. “Is it Wil?” If it was, he was ready to race downstairs and drag that brother of hers up here. She’d be thrilled. They could finally put the whole mess behind them and start new.
Dr. Roberts opened his mouth and then stopped, frowning and looking sympathetic. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. It’s Blake Coaltar.” He paused, giving Brandon a stern look. “The same man we had targeted months ago, and seems to keep popping up on our radar.”
Disappointment flooded through Brandon. “I didn’t call him,” he said. “Sometime while I was kidnapped, she got in touch with him.”
“And he’s claiming she now works for him,” Dr. Roberts said. “Newly hired.”
Brandon’s head reeled back. “Can’t be,” he said. “When?”
