I sighed as the nurse continued chattering as she made notes on my condition, a buzzing noise I was beginning to find annoying, but she finally paused for breath, looking up from her chart, pencil stilling in the air. “You know, I was there pretty quickly after they brought you in.”
I blinked. “Sorry?”
“At the hospital. Your lawyer flew me in from California as soon as he found out about your accident…remember, I just said that?”
I squinted. Had she?
“I mean, not to be vain or anything, but I’m the best there is. I took care of the Von Witt family matriarch and the…” She trailed off, seeing she was losing my interest. “Well, whatever the Archer family wants…right?”
I huffed, and laid my head back.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, you were pretty out of it, mumbling about the water and how it was stealing your soul and being lost in the middle of heaven. Getting swept into that tunnel system must have been really rough for you, not just physically, but…” She shrugged at my raised brows, realizing she was making me recall something I’d rather not. I turned back to the window. “Well, they sedated you then, and you seem fine now, but I know these things don’t just go away. So, you know, if you ever want to talk about it or anything…”
Slowly I turned my gaze on her. It didn’t burn red anymore, but from the way she startled, I was pretty sure the effect was the same. “Let me see your hands.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your hands, Ms…?”
“Scaglia. But you can call me Angie.” She frowned as she came forward, and I could tell I’d insulted her. “I wash them religiously. I know my job.”
I looked anyway. Fine whorls and liquid lines were laid like artwork upon each fingertip, the prints marking her as mortal. I swallowed hard, and managed an apologetic half smile as I glanced up. “I, um, read palms. Your arrival here is…fortuitous.”
“Oh. Really?” She brightened at that, and began to speak again, but before she could get too chatty, I dismissed her.
“Thank you, Angie.”
“Oh. Sure.” She put her chart away and looked around for something else to do, anything else I might need, but there was nothing. Another small smile and she turned to leave, but she paused in the doorway, looking back at her right hand, wondering what I’d seen there. “By the way, your mother stopped by.”
“What?” The word barely passed my lips. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.
“At the hospital? After you were sedated.” She glanced up, noted my surprise, and realized she’d just said something that could get her fired. If she knew her job as she claimed, she would’ve read up on the Archer family history. Color spread to her cheeks and she began to stutter. “At least s-she said she was your mother.”
“What did she look like?”
Angie opened her mouth, her inhalation hanging on the air like a question mark. She searched for the memory for so long that I knew she’d never find it. Whoever it was had either messed with her memory or was well-disguised.
“Honestly?” she finally said, shaking her head. “She looked pissed.”
And Angie, a woman who knew nothing of superheroes or Shadow agents or worlds outside this one, crossed herself as she walked out the door. I leaned back in my stacks of supporting blankets and pillows and imagined what Zoe Archer was capable of when she was pissed. Then I closed my eyes to rest.
Later, alone, with the curtains drawn and the house silent, I studied myself in a hand mirror. I looked past all of Micah’s impressive handiwork, tried not to get hung up on my sister’s beautiful face, or the physical scars I’d accumulated in the past year…beyond it all to that which even Micah couldn’t hide. Eyes so dark nothing shone in them. Funny, I thought with a sigh, but before my near drowning, I’d actually begun to believe my mental wounds to be healing.
I leaned forward, scanning my body, tentatively feeling along my forearms, my waist, my neck, fingers finally playing over my face. I swallowed hard, meeting my own gaze, trying to see myself as soft and vulnerable as the world saw Olivia, laughing at parties, taking trips on a moment’s notice, lunch dates like they were a part of a regular business day. After a moment I lowered my eyes and shook the visual away. Yes, those were Olivia’s pastimes. But not mine.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…” I muttered to myself.
Couldn’t put Jo together again.
“Then it’s up to you alone,” I told myself, lifting the mirror. “Again.”
That’s when I finally saw something I liked. It was very close to the expression my mother must have worn earlier in the week at my bedside.
I cleared it from my face when Helen entered. She flipped on the overhead light without warning, momentarily blinding me. I dropped the mirror, blinked, and covered my face with a pillow.
“You should let me change your bandages.”
I cracked an eyelid to look down at my wrapped palms. They were folded carefully so that my printless fingers were hidden-good habits die hard-though the light caught on the smooth tip of my right thumb, making it gleam like a pearl, a beautiful taunt.
“You should go to hell,” I muttered, pulling the covers up to my chin.
The room grew uncomfortably still, though if Helen was going to strike, I’d have been six feet under before I even knew she’d moved. As it was, the undercover Shadow agent left in a huff, slamming the door behind her without another word.
I smiled at the small power. She probably had orders to stick close to the remaining Archer, see if I couldn’t be as easily bought as my father, turned into a lackey for a secret paranormal organization. The Tulpa had to be growing increasingly desperate, weak, and with fewer resources than ever before. I thought of the way Warren would pounce on that. How Vanessa would be sharpening the blades of her steel fan while Felix joked about the chances of a Shad-owless city by spring. I wondered if Gregor still parked his cab behind the Peppermill in wait of dawn and dusk, and if Micah ever wondered about my long-term medical prognosis.
Tekla, I knew, was probably trying to determine the same via her charts and constellations and diagrams, though one never knew with her. She, more than anyone else, operated autonomously of Warren, and according to her own whim. Kimber wouldn’t be sorry to see me gone, that was for sure, and I wondered if Chandra had finally been given my Archer sign.
My heart squeezed at the thought, and I turned away from it so fast I ran smack dab into another. Hunter.
I turned away again.
Hunter.
Everywhere I turned.
Hunter. Hunter and me. Hunter and Solange.
“You knew me,” I whispered into my pillow, feeling the darkness draw in closer. He’d known me, shared my bed and body-even a surprising ability to wield the same weapon for a while-and he’d said there was nothing wrong with me. I wondered if he’d retract that now. How flawless he’d find me without even two superpower chips to rub together.
Of course, the greatest hurt in all this was that Hunter had been looking for Solange long before Skamar’s appearance in this world alerted him to the existence of Midheaven. Even with all of Warren’s lies and denials, once he found out about Midheaven, he knew that’s where she was, and had been plotting his way to her, and using my greatest enemy’s soul to do it. Maybe someday I’d be able to look at the manuals detailing how and why, and begin to understand.
“Unlikely,” I said to the empty room, because meanwhile he’d made love to me even while knowing he would soon return to Solange. Sola, he had called her, I remembered with a sneer. The worst of it was, I’d really believed he’d felt something for me…and maybe he had. Lust. Possibly affection. Probably pity.