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Aaro stared at the door through which the nurse had gone. “I’m sorry I let him get so close to you,” he said. “This was my fault.”
She rounded on him, appalled. “Your fault? Have you gone nuts?”
“He cut you.” Aaro’s voice was bleak. “He could have killed you. If he’d meant to. With me, standing there, three feet away!”
“Yeah, but he didn’t! For God’s sake, you guys are all alike! These insanely high standards!”
“Failure is unacceptable,” Aaro said, very quietly.
“Oh, shut up,” Lily snapped. “Failure is also human, which you still are, more or less, last I checked. So get over it.”
“Excuse me? Miss? You’re up! Come on back!”
Lily looked up. The nurse beckoned her from the medical suite.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Lily assured her. “It’s a scratch.”
The nurse marched over with the air of a woman on a mission. “It’s the least we can do.” She grabbed Lily’s arm, peeling up the wad of Kleenex. “Hmm,” she murmured. She prodded it with a latex gloved finger, making Lily flinch. “No, you come along with me. We’ll fix this.”
“Not alone,” Aaro said. “Rachel, Zia, come on. We’re all going.”
The nurse pulled Lily to her feet, and gave Aaro a quelling look. “No, you are not. Not while she’s being treated. Hospital rules.”
She took off, hustling Lily alongside her.
Aaro followed, grabbing Zia Rosa and Rachel by the hands and dragging them with him. “Too bad,” he growled. “We’re coming in, too.”
“Are you her husband?” the nurse demanded.
“No, I’m her goddamn bodyguard!”
“Well, guard the door then,” she snapped. “You’re not bringing a loud, unruly crowd of people into an examining room while I’m stitching a wound, and with a small child, too! I wouldn’t allow it even if it weren’t against the rules, but it is, so wait outside if you’re so anxious!”
“He’s just nervous. We’ve had some strange adventures lately,” Lily explained. She patted Aaro’s shoulder. The guy thrummed with tension. “I’m sure this’ll be quick. Tell Bruno I’ll call him right back.”
The nurse pulled Lily through the door, slammed it in Aaro’s face and turned the door lock.Click.Lily could hear Aaro, holding forth viciously in that language again. He was not going to be fun to deal with after this. There was a screen up, shielding the bed from the casual view of whoever was passing by the door. Lily took a step—
Whump, a wad of white gauze slammed down over the face. An arm jerked her back, pinning her arms.
Oh,shit.She struggled, squirmed against a tall male body but the bare arm clamped over her torso was horribly strong, and there was some drug soaking the cloth. She tried not to inhale, but she was desperate for air. Taut, wiry muscles, clammy skin. His grip bruised her. Strength was draining out of her, a dark wave of chill and nausea surging up. The guy wore surgical scrubs. She twisted. Oh, God. It was Jamison. He’d taken off his ski cap, his long hair was a crisp brown haircut, and his goatee and mustache were gone, but he still stank of whiskey. He had a pleasant, unremarkable face.
He smiled at her, looking immensely pleased with himself.
Oh, God. She needed to breathe. She was going to yark, or faint. Or die. Probably in that order. She had to warn the nurse. She had to—
Sylvia Jerrolds stepped from behind the screen, clad in a tank top and underwear. She gave Lily that same friendly smile she’d used in the waiting room. But this time, Lily saw the death behind it.
The woman shoved discarded scrubs into knapsack, tossed the laminated name tag she’d worn onto the floor, tugged a latex mask over her head. She worked fast. It was a good mask, the skin tone lifelike, turning her into a jowly old lady. Baggy, shapeless black wool pants, a round shouldered wool coat, a gray wig.
“Hurry, Mel,” the guy muttered.
The not-nurse put on a pair of pink-tinted, distorting glasses, and smiled at Lily. “Off we go, sweetheart,” she whispered.
Lily had to inhale. Darkness surged. The guy yanked her backwards off her feet, into a chair. A wheelchair. With her last crumb of conscious awareness, she felt them twist her hair up, pull a wig onto her head. Glasses, on the bridge of her nose, a plastic oxygen mask settling onto her face. Cold. Ticklish. She could no longer move at all.
She saw Bruno’s face in her mind. Felt a sting of aching regret. Something that was slipping away forever, but she couldn’t grasp what it was, just that it was rare and lovely, and never again. She groped for it, but it was going, gone. She had no point of reference to cling to. The sadness, the ache of disconnected loss, the fear, it was all whipping up into a huge vortex, roaring in her ears like the souls of the damned.
It sucked her down deep, into nowhere.
