Handy, that. No wonder the wraiths were so determined to fi nd her.
Whatever had happened, the event was localized to her immediate area. The plane and its captain were unaffected, taking off, business as usual.
“Did that scare the shit out of you, too?” Custo put a hand to the back of his neck.
“I think we’ll be okay,” Adam said. “Talia’s doing it.”
“You can’t be serious.” Custo dropped into the seat opposite Adam.
Adam continued his thoughts aloud. “The dark. The strange sounds. She’s doing it somehow. I figured the wraiths were after her because of the Shadowman mention in her paper, but maybe it’s something more. She’s not normal.”
“Wraith?” Custo’s gaze shifted to Talia’s supine body.
Adam took in her white face, the deep circles under her eyes.
“No. She’s seems to be having a typical response to the extreme heat. Frankly, I don’t know what she is. We may have stumbled onto something here that will finally give us some leverage against the wraiths.”
The idea made him both cautious and excited, as if he had just found a rare butterfly in an urban jungle. He dropped his gaze to the floor. He needed time to think events through. To disregard all his conclusions and open himself up to new ones.
He took a deep, steeling breath. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I want all the information there is on her. I want friends, professors, neighbors questioned. I want birth records, medical records, report cards. Anything and everything.”
“We have a good start already from our missing-persons search. I’ll go back further, dig deeper,” Custo answered. “And for chrissake, when the doctor is done with Talia, make sure to have him take a look at you. You look like hell.”
Gray. The perfect color. A little darkness, a little light. Talia was comfortable here.
The wind whispered a nonsense of soft, punctuated s’s. “…she’s stable. Sleeping soundly…”
Talia opened her eyes. She lay in an unfamiliar twin bed, covers folded across her chest and tucked under her arms. The walls beyond were painted a soft yellow, unadorned. A bare table stood at the foot of the bed. No windows.
She glanced down at the shape of her body. It seemed foreign to her, a long and shallow mound under a light blanket. A clear tube tethered her to a bag of fluid in her peripheral vision.
Beep. Her eyes flicked over. Beep. A monitor of sorts displayed a line dancing with sharp peaks and valleys. Beep.
Heartbeat. That was something, at least.
She tried her legs, twitching her feet and pulling a knee up. Her joints ached, and a prickling told her she had to pee.
She shifted her hips.
Something was already between her legs. Burned, that.
Her stomach tightening, she slid a hand under the covers to investigate.
No panties. Narrow tube. Oh, God.
“Hello?” she called. “Somebody?”
She held her breath, listening. Then tried again. “Hello?”
Abruptly, the door opened. A woman in a lab coat entered, smiling brightly. She was fiftyish, short, a little heavy, with sensible short brown hair. “Well, hello to you, too, Talia. I’m Dr. Riggs. Patty.”
Dr. Riggs lifted the covers at the bottom of the bed and raised a plastic bag half filled with pale yellow fluid. “Good girl.”
Her eyes rested on the heart-monitoring machine, then met Talia’s gaze. “Excellent. You’re doing much better. How do you feel?”
“Um…confused?”
Dr. Riggs’s smile broadened. “No kidding. You’ve had rather acute hyperthermia. Heatstroke. It can be very dangerous. Renal failure. Heart attack. You were in pretty bad shape when I got you, but you’re making excellent progress now. You’ll probably experience some lingering effects like confusion and temperature sensitivity. We’ll work on the confusion. Are you too hot or cold?”
“No…” Talia had much more pressing worries. “Where am I?”
“The Segue Institute. It’s a research facility.”
“What am I doing here?”
“You’re here for research. Adam will explain it better. Let me call him, and then I’ll take care of that catheter for you.” Dr. Riggs flashed her bright smile again and exited the room.
Talia froze. She was here for research. So someone could prick her and prod her until they discovered how she worked.
Put me in a maze like a rat. Might as well have left in me in that alley. At least those rats were free.
The door thumped, banged, then reopened. Dr. Riggs pushed in a metal cart and parked it at the side of the bed. “Adam will be right over. Let’s remove the catheter and get you comfortable. I’m sure you will have a lot to talk about.”
Dr. Riggs flipped up the sheet from the bottom and crouched embarrassingly low. “Can you bring your legs up? A little more?”
Did she have an alternative?
“This might be uncomfortable, but it will pass quickly.” Dr. Riggs wore gloves so Talia couldn’t gauge her intentions or personality by her touch. Frustrating.
Talia held her breath. A burning sting shot inside her.
“There, now,” Dr. Riggs said, standing. “You’ll have the IV until the rest of that bag empties, but let’s get you out of bed and moving.”
Talia nodded. The floor was icy on her feet, all the little bones painfully brittle, but she pulled herself up—Dr. Riggs at her elbow—and shuffled toward the door. The hospital gown gaped at the back, but she lacked a third arm to hold it shut. A cold shiver spiraled up beneath.
Dr. Riggs reached down to a lower shelf on the cart and grabbed a robe that Talia had not noticed. She helped her with the right sleeve. “We’ll just wrap this around your left side until you get the IV out.”
Talia hobbled out the door into…a large, comfortable lab. Of sorts. To one side, it seemed a typical research environment: Stainless-steel counters lined the wall and were placed at parallel and right angles in the middle of the room. Machines of several varieties vied for space. Smaller apparatus, microscope, and computers all had their corners.
The other side of the room was dominated by a flowery sofa set, tufted and pillowed with a matching chair. A colorful rug in an indistinct pattern of blues and reds covered the floor, over which a large coffee table hulked with elaborate rolled legs. A picture of a little white dog sat framed on its surface, next to an empty coffee cup, plate with crumbs, and some strange printout filled with rows of almost-microscopic numbers.
“The chair,” Dr. Riggs directed.
Talia was soon tucked in softness. Dr. Riggs reached down and assisted Talia to put her feet up on the table.
“You okay?” Dr. Riggs asked.
“I’m more confused.” Talia’s gaze wandered the room for emphasis.
Dr. Riggs chuckled. “This is my personal lab. We all have our own work space, what we need for work, and enough creature comforts to tailor Segue to our personalities and needs.”
Dr. Riggs gestured to the photo of the dog as she took a seat on the sofa. “Handsome is in my apartment upstairs. He used to play with me in the lab, but after a little mishap two months ago, he’s been banished.”
Apartment upstairs?
Across the lab, two doors slid open and Adam entered, striding in as if he knew his way around. He wore dark slacks and a blue button-down shirt, open at the collar. He was taller than Talia remembered, and he’d shaved, though a scabby rash still smeared across his forehead to his temple. But the eyes were the same. Stormy ocean eyes.
Talia tried to sit up. Without him, she’d have lost herself.