Yes?
Just making sure you’re still there, Sethios said, his voice oddly relieved.
Where would I go? she asked him. I’m stuck in a glass pod.
This is the longest we’ve spoken since Astasiya rescued me.
Caro paused. Our daughter rescued you? From Osiris? That’d been the expectation all along, but to hear that it’d actually happened sent a spark of life through Caro’s veins. They battled? Did he perish? She frowned then. Did I miss everything?
You haven’t missed anything, he promised. But yes, they fought. Vera helped. She saved me, and we’ve been trying to figure out how to find you since. We thought you were drowning in the ocean.
What? Why? I haven’t been in the water for... well, I’m not sure how long, she admitted. I’ll think about it more after I free myself.
Her mind seemed unable to multitask, perhaps a result of being in stasis for so long. She didn’t feel all that well, her body still mending itself and her mind a swarm of chaotic thoughts and memories that didn’t appear to want to stay put in any sort of logical order.
Rather than piece it all together, she concentrated on moving her foot. Sharp pricks shot up her lower limbs, rivaling the ones in her arms as she twitched her fingers and hands. Almost there, she thought, her muscles beginning to flex and shift as she rebuilt the ligaments and strengthened her joints.
Seconds turned into minutes, Sethios’s presence in her mind and heart an anchor that helped her remain conscious.
Every few beats, he’d say her name, and she’d reply with his own, both of them reminding the other that this was real, that she hadn’t fallen back into that dreadful coma.
Her throat worked on a hard swallow, her heartbeat a regular cadence in her ears, and that beeping had reached a crescendo.
No one came, making her wonder how closely the Seraphim monitored her vitals. Perhaps she needed to unplug a few of these cords.
She considered them as her arms moved inside the tiny box. There was a tube connected to one side that pumped oxygen into the container. She didn’t want to mess with that. She rather liked breathing. A memory told her why, but she shoved it away, not wanting to think about drowning right now.
Instead, she focused on the electrical wires that seemed to be hooked into her chest and head. Those needed to go regardless, so she might as well undo them.
She tugged the first one out of her temple and cried out in pain at the metal dislodging from her mind. Sethios’s voice reverberated through her thoughts, his words unintelligible over the agony shooting up and down her spine.
“Fuzz!” she shouted, her voice a rasp of sound that didn’t match the anguish behind it. Oh, ow, ow, ow.
Sethios replied, but she couldn’t understand him.
And oh, she had another one in her other temple.
Might as well yank it out now and just recover from both.
She screamed as the needle released her on a violent tug, electricity humming through her skull. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her mouth worked soundlessly over words.
Agony shredded her in half, but then her new gift kicked in, and a warm sensation stole through her mind, soothing the pain with a kiss of healing heat.
She wept with gratitude, her body shaking from the onslaught of the unexpected torment. Caro should have anticipated it, but in her haste to escape, she hadn’t considered the repercussions.
No, not exactly that.
She had just chosen not to acknowledge them because there was no practical reason to dread them. The needles had to be removed to free herself, consequences be damned.
After a few soft words to Sethios, promising him she was fine, she started on the other needles lodged in her chest. They all came with their own variety of excruciating results, but nothing compared to the metal probes in her mind. Those were taking the longest to heal, the Seraphim having used advanced technology to quite literally control her brain.
That explained so much about her lost time.
Fortunately, they had no harness for her soul. Which was why her spirit had been able to force her into a wakeful state despite the rehabilitating machines attached to her physical form.
Almost there, she whispered, more to herself than to Sethios.
Then a burst of light blinded her, the door to her room being thrown open by a Seraphim with a shock of white-blonde hair and startling blue wings.
