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My eyelids flicker.
“You’d think the guy would at least remember to turn on cruise control or, you know, wait until he had her in a bed.”
A male snort is the only response.
I sense movement drift toward me, bringing with it a hotdog and onions scent strong enough for the person to have eaten minutes before. “Guess he just couldn’t wait.” A gaze sweeps my face. It’s so intensely penetrating that I want to lean away. “Not that I can blame him. If I had a girl who looked like that, I’d fuck her six ways from Sunday.”
“That’s hardly the professionalism I’d expect from a cop,” an amused voice says.
“She’s out cold, and as if I didn’t catch you staring at her tits. Just what the hell did they teach you at the Academy?”
“Fuck off, Bradley.”
Whoever tucked me in this bed did it so tightly I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. And I want to.
Bitter antiseptic, harsh soap, and that unidentifiable scent that tells me I’m in a hospital aren’t nearly enough to calm the sickness churning in my belly.
From further away, unhurried and deliberate footsteps approach my room. A door creaks open, letting in a cool wind. “Officers? Is there anything I can help you with? I’m Dr. Simon Trevor, the attending physician today.”
When the cooked meat and onion scent move away from me, I relax for the first time. “Just stopped by to question her.”
“Well,” the new voice says, “there’s been no change since the last time. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
This doctor doesn’t like these men. Maybe he heard what they said, or maybe he just doesn’t like cops in general. After what I just overheard, and from how little the cops I’ve known before have given a shit about people, I don’t like them either.
“Any idea when that might happen?” the one who smells of onions asks. Or is it the one who was staring at my tits?
“It could be tomorrow, it could be a week,” the doctor responds in that same cool tone.
“We need a name. A man is dead, and we need to know how that came to be.”
Felix.
My heart spikes and a sharp beeping machine silences all voices. Footsteps approach my right side and stop. Someone leans over me. It isn’t either of the cops because food smells or male sweat aren’t threatening to choke me. Just a woodsy cologne too faint to identify. Not overpowering. Nice.
“Is she waking up?” one cop asks, sounding like he’s moving closer.
“There’s no sign that she is,” the doctor murmurs, as if distracted.
What is he doing? Reading the machine? What?
“But the machine. It—”
“Can often be triggered by unexplained brain activity. We see the same thing in our long-term coma patients. The machine sounds an alarm, but the patient sleeps on.”
A cool finger peels back the lid of my right eye and I stare up at a man in a white coat, a black stethoscope draped around his neck. Dark red hair, small brown eyes, and a pale face. Younger than I was expecting. He must be in his late twenties or early thirties. That’s all I see before the same finger drags my eyelid closed again.
“As I thought, she’s not ready to wake.”
He’s lying.
I feel lucid—aware enough—that one glimpse in my eye should have made that clear. And he didn’t shine the light that doctors like to blind you with. He didn’t check my pulse or do anything that I would expect a doctor to do.
He doesn’t want the cops to know I’m awake.
But why?
“Now, I have my rounds to make. Did you need me to show you the way out?” The doctor's voice is pleasant, friendly even, but I know he doesn’t mean it.
