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“He’sfine,” Alistair interjects. “He’s here at the hospital, too.”
Gabriel smiles and takes my hand as he peers into my eyes. “Yeah, he’s fine. How much do you remember?”
I try to force my brain to replay everything that happened on Dante’s patio. All I can really remember is falling, and then blacking out.
Shit, I had a seizure.
I close my eyes, exhaling slowly before I open them again.
“I need to tell you both something.”
“Tempest, it can wait. We need to talk to you about?—”
“Shut up, Alistair,” I mutter. “Look, I have something, and it’s bad, okay? It’s called severe late-onset methylmalonic acidemia?—”
“No, you don’t,” Gabriel smiles quietly at me.
I scowl. “Just shutupand let me get this off my chest, okay? I didn’t tell either of you, and I feel like shit about it, but I?—”
“Tempest, you don’t have methyl-acide-whatever.”
I glare at Alistair. “Methylmalonic acidemia.”
“Okay. Sure. You don’t have it.”
I blink. “Sorry,what?”
“Do you remember the patio?”
I shake my head. “Only bits and pieces,” I say quietly as my brain tries to process what they just said. “I’m sorry, did you just say Idon’thave methylmalonic acidemia?”
“Correct. But youareworking through some serious long-term arsenic poisoning.”
Holy shit.
Then, suddenly, I remember.
“Pam…”
“Also known as Jacqueline Sinclair,” Gabriel growls viciously. “Tempest, I’m so fucking sorry. That crazy bitch slipped right under my radar. I mean, she was in my fuckinghousewith you…”
He looks away, his face pained. Slowly, I inch my hand to his and squeeze it.
“You did think she was dead. AndPamlooks nothing like the Jacqueline we always saw in the tabloids.”
He nods, still looking away. Alistair clears his throat.
“She was slowly poisoning your food. And when you started to lose your appetite, she started feeding you those smoothies. The hospital ran a lab test on them, by the way.” He scowls. “That cunt was putting anti-nausea meds in them, too, to make you think they were the only thing you could stomach.”
I nod slowly. Anti-nausea meds.That’sprobably why the smoothies tasted different when I tried to replicate them. Then my eyes drop to the hospital gown I’m wearing, and I yank it up over my abdomen. My face pales when I see the bandages on my side.
“What thefuck?—!”
“Breathe, sis,” Alistair growls, glancing at Gabriel. “You’ve had surgery. Think you missed that when we told you earlier.”
“For what?!”
“The effects of long-term arsenic poisoning are reversible, mostly. You’re going to be on a bunch of meds and vitamins for a month or so to get you back to normal and to kickstart your immune system after the havoc that’s been wreaked on it.” Alistair frowns. “Whatisn’treversible, and what was adding to the acidosis of your blood and giving you those confusion spells, was that your kidneys were toxifying.”
