She coughed again, her throat so sore she swallowed convulsively. “More water.”
He gave it to her, and after she’d sipped slowly for a few more minutes, she said, “More sleep.”
He eased her back down on the couch, and she closed her eyes. Her eyes popped open again. “Have you slept?”
“Very little.”
“You must rest. Maybe if you lay down on the bed you can sleep.”
“I’m not leaving your side.” Aching tenderness filled his voice. “I’m not leaving you.”
With that gentle promise, she felt safe enough to close her eyes again.
* * *
Cade awakened with a start, his heart pounding. For a few seconds he couldn’t remember where he was. The cabin. The enza. His entire body shook from the inside out. Why? A bad dream? No. He hadn’t taken the laudanum that called his name. It beckoned. His stomach rebelled, his body wanting the drug as it had wanted it before. Stupid. Stupid. It hadn’t taken away his awareness of evil. Too bad. He wouldn’t be under the influence of it while the situation continued with Annabelle.
Annabelle. Her face was deathly white, her lips slightly parted. Dread filled him as he took in the dark shadows beneath her closed eyes. Her chest barely rose and fell. He took her hand and didn’t know whether or not to welcome the heat he felt coming from her skin. Placing his hand on her forehead, he tested for fever. She was still burning up.
He consulted his pocket watch. Darkness had come to the cabin. He’d slept far too long. He hadn’t intended to sleep at all, his need to watch Annabelle constantly eating him alive. He’d remembered to eat, but just barely. Nothing mattered but her getting better. She would recover. God help him, she would.
He stood and stretched his cramped body and poked at the fire to stir up the flame. It cooperated, and he sighed with relief. Some small pleasures he would never take for granted again. All of it was better than a trench in France. No. No it was not. He would gladly be in a trench right now, with a bombardment pounding all around him, if only he could know that Annabelle was well and safe. He would go back to war. He would give his own life. Tears assaulted his eyes and this time he let them fall. Christ, how had he reached this point? The point where this woman meant this much to him? He hadn’t wanted or asked for it. Yet here it was.
“Cade?”
He turned swiftly and sat in the chair by her side. He managed a smile. “More water? Something to eat?”
“Water.”
He propped her up, delighting in the feel of her warm body alive against his. She drank water, and that was a good sign.
“Cade, if I ... if I don’t make it—”
“No.” He reacted with pain. “Don’t say that. You’re going to make it.”
Her eyes were hollow. “I want you to take my things to my aunt and uncle. My jewelry. My aunt might want them. And your journaling ... keep on doing that. It is good for you.”
He drew in a shuddering breath as more tears ran down his face. He didn’t care. “Listen to me you stubborn woman. You are going to live.” He reached for her hand again and pressed it to his lips. He whispered against her skin. “You fight, you hear me. You fight. No matter how awful it feels, no matter what, you fight. I’m not letting you off the hook.”
“The hook?”
“There’s so much I have to apologize for. To make amends for. You can’t leave me.” Her eyes had closed, and panic struck him. “Annabelle? Damn it, Annabelle, open your eyes.”
She didn’t speak. The warrior part of Cade used to having people obey orders wanted to yell, to act in a way unbecoming a gentleman and an officer of the United States Army. He wanted to plead and beg her. He wanted to collapse to his knees. Instead, he checked her pulse and found it strong. He touched her face. It was cooler. Her breathing seemed even and smooth. If her fever had broken ....
He tried to wake her, but she wouldn’t crack an eyelid. Once more he held her hand, and then did something he hadn’t in many years. He prayed.
* * *
Annabelle lay in a stupor, or rather a cloud of wild dreams, sweet and simple, innocent and delightful. She was back home with her aunt and uncle, a young girl with worries mostly minor. All her delights gave her joy, and then uncle and aunt would have a fierce screaming match and she’d stay upstairs. She wanted to crawl under the bed, to hide from the sound. They wouldn’t come upstairs and harm her, but their harsh and unreasonable fights scarred her just the same. When they fought the world became a scary, unstable place. She didn’t have anywhere to go. She couldn’t run away or find a new uncle or aunt when they fought. But oh, how she wished she could.
Her dreams turned to other subjects. Cade was with her in several of them, always smiling and laughing. His handsomeness made her ache. Wicked nightmares overwhelmed, swamping the delight with fire-breathing demons. She wandered the halls of the asylum without Cade. Men cried for help in every room, their torment evident. She couldn’t help them, and guilt weighed her down from head to toe as she struggled to find the men who needed her. They pleaded with her; they whimpered and screamed, their torment a scream from hell. If she couldn’t find them, they would die. A brilliant flash erupted in Annabelle’s face, and she felt the heat as the fire raced toward her. Velia was in there. She was in there and she couldn’t save her. God, she couldn’t.
Cade. Cade could help her. He called her name, and she searched. The asylum became a maze. Every corner she hoped to find him, but his voice moved, eluded. Frustration grew. She needed him, needed to express so much. Finding Cade was impossible as she ran from door to door calling his name. The darkness followed close behind, breaking the lights in the hallway as it went. If she didn’t run from the night, the darkness would swallow her. It would envelope her until nothing but a shell remained. The monster would eat all until she knew nothing but the black hollow that resided in the heart of evil. She struggled for breath as she ran to Cade’s room. She pounded on the door. Her throat ached as she cried out for him. He opened the door and joy rolled through her. He hadn’t left her. He hadn’t left. The door slammed in her face. Waves of hot and cold assaulted her. So cold. So alone.
“Annabelle, I’m here.” Where heat had suffocated her, now she lay frozen. No heat to be found, no way to return to blessed warmth. “Annabelle, please stay with me.” Warmth and strength surrounded her, lifted her up, pressed her close to a muscular body. “You cannot get rid of me this easily. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Do you hear me? You’re beautiful. You’re kind. You’re strong.” His tone turned to pleading, the sheer fright in his hard, deep voice bringing her alarm. “You’ve taught me things about myself I never understood or knew. I need you.”
She reached out and his hand took hers. She couldn’t leave him. She needed him too, and there was a sweet, wonderful reason to stay. With effort she opened her eyes. Cade sat on the couch with her in his arms, blankets surrounding them both, and the fire cheerful in the grate.
More than that, the joy in his eyes took her by surprise. “Is there ...” Her voice was rusty with disuse, but her throat wasn’t as sore. “A reason to be happy?” He laughed softly, and tears ran down his face. The sight of him crying did her in. She’d seen many men cry during the war, despite their efforts to stifle such a so-called un-masculine display. This was different.
“You’re awake and alive. Your fever has broken.” He kissed her forehead.
She smiled. “I feel much better.”
“Thank God.” He drew her tighter into his arms and she buried her face in his neck.
Hours passed, and she napped. Cade watched Annabelle carefully, and his constant attention made her feel incredibly protected.
As he ladled beans from a pot on the stove, her stomach revolted. “I don’t know if I can eat that.”
He turned to look at her, and his gaze traveled over her with concern. “Stomach giving you trouble?”
“A little nausea.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think I eve
r want to see another can of beans in my life after today.”
She sighed with a strange contentment. She’d spent the greater part of a day sleeping. Whenever she’d awakened, Cade had been there. The tenderness he’d shown had brought her the greatest joy. Behind the extraordinary revelation that she was getting better, unease stalked her. She ignored it once again. She couldn’t dwell on it when she worked with every fiber of her being to return to full health. Weakness made even life’s more personal and private needs a difficult process, but Cade helped her.
“I’ll take some of that tack,” she said, waving away the bowl of beans. “The beans are all yours.” He settled in the chair with the bowl of beans while she munched the hard tack. “We’ve been here three days.” She gazed out the window at the dark clouds. Snow had threatened earlier, but so far hadn’t materialized. “No one came to see how we are.”
“Does that bother you?”
She sighed. “Maybe, but it shouldn’t. Do you think something bad has happened at the asylum?” She’d told him about her nightmares, how at the deepest point of her illness she’d dreamed of the evil.
“I hope not.” He finished his beans in record time. “But let’s not worry. You need to get well. As soon as that’s happened, we can go back.”
He left the chair to clean the bowl and spoon, and when he returned to her side, Annabelle decided he needed to know a pertinent fact. “I may not be fully well for quite a few more days. Longer.”
“We’ll stay a day or two more if we have to. After that our supplies will be almost exhausted. I’ll carry you if I have to. If it starts to snow we’re leaving right away.”
She understood his reasoning. Trapped by a snowstorm when they ran low on supplies could be disastrous. “Carry me a whole mile?”
He winked. “I’m strong enough.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve seen your muscles.”
“I hope to show them to you again. Soon.”
Heat swept over her, but this time it was a low craving in her body for more of his arms around her, more kissing, of joining her body with his once and for all. It would have to wait, unfortunately, until strength returned to her.
A knocking on the door made her start. Cade leapt up from the couch and retrieved his rifle. He cracked the door open and then let it swing wide.
Margaret and Penelope stepped through the door along with a soldier Cade hadn’t talked to much—a Corporal Peter Hemmings. Hemmings and the women carried heavy backpacks. The nurses wore facemasks. Hemmings saluted Cade. “Sir. We’ve come to help.”
Annabelle smiled with happiness. “I’m so glad to see all of you.”
“We have news,” Margaret said, her eyes dark with a sorrow Annabelle didn’t want to see.
Penelope’s expression was grim. “You won’t believe what’s happening at the asylum.”
“At this point we’d believe almost anything,” Cade said as the three people entered the room. “Annabelle has just suffered through the influenza, and she’s not over it yet. Corporal Colleto died from it.” Penelope and Margaret rushed to Annabelle’s side. They fussed over her while Cade offered water to Corporal Hemmings.
Hemmings looked gut shot. “Colleto is dead?”
Cade explained everything that had happened since they’d arrived at the cabin three days earlier. “Colleto is buried outside.”
Penelope turned her attention to Cade. “You don’t have any sign of the sickness?”
“None,” Cade said.
Penelope sighed. “A blessing. Perhaps you’re immune.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears. “The asylum has been besieged.”
“What do you mean?” Cade asked.
Hemmings shook his head. “You won’t believe it.”
“I don’t think anything you can say will surprise us,” Annabelle said.
Margaret sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “This is like the end of the world.”
“Oh, pooh.” Penelope made a dismissive gesture. “It is not. Don’t be alarmist.”
“It’s normal human nature.” Annabelle’s stomach rumbled, but whether from hunger or nerves she couldn’t be certain. “People can panic so easily.”
“We have a reason to panic,” Margaret said.
Annabelle drew her blanket closer around her. “I’m afraid to ask.”
Cade planted his hands on his hips. “Someone get to the story please.”
“Ziggy came back to the asylum without you,” Hemmings said. “He said that Nurse Dorrenti had fallen sick and that you were staying with her. He started acting strange. Yelling that the disease was retribution on all of us for killing people in the war. He wouldn’t calm down, wouldn’t stop raving.” Hemmings swallowed hard. “Prever got control of him and took him to his room. A little later in the day Dr. Hollenbeck found Prever dead in Ziggy’s room.”
Annabelle’s stomach flopped. “Oh, my God.”
Hemmings cleared his voice. “Dr. Prever’s head was smashed in with a chair. Ziggy was found in the games room acting as if he had no idea what happened.”
“Son of a bitch,” Cade said.
Annabelle barely knew what to say. “What ... when did this happen?”
“Not long after Ziggy returned,” Penelope said.
Silence held them all in a thrall for a few moments. Finally Hemmings continued the story. “A couple of us took it into our heads to tie Ziggy up so he couldn’t harm anyone else. Hollenbeck had Ziggy incarcerated in one of the old cells in the basement.”
“Damn it,” Cade said. “I was afraid that he’d do something drastic.”
“He wouldn’t stay here,” Annabelle said. “We were afraid he’d infect others at the asylum.”
“We think that’s what he did,” Penelope said.
Annabelle frowned. “The real question is where did Colleto get the enza? He’s been with us at the asylum for months.”
“Some are saying the enza is popping up around the world in different places at the same time.” Margaret pulled off her navy blue knit hat. Silence enveloped them again, until Margaret came out with, “Anyway, Hollenbeck has been acting like a demigod for the last two days, ordering people about with so much anger.”
“Four soldiers have fallen ill with the enza. Who knows how long it will last. People are doing the strangest things.” Penelope closed her eyes, as if doing so would save her having to face the truth. “They aren’t rational. The fear is enormous there. People’s eyes tell the story.”
Annabelle’s skeptical side emerged. “It is hard to say whether it’s the asylum or the fear of influenza causing the problem.”
“Damned asylum is haunted,” Hemmings said without hesitation.
Annabelle didn’t expect such an admission coming from a soldier, then she reminded herself that Cade believed in ghosts. “Have you seen a ghost?”
Hemmings shrugged and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. “Might have. I was walking around outside trying to get some fresh air yesterday. I thought I saw Colleto walking toward me. I walked toward him, happy to see he was back. He faded away like he was never there.”
Margaret and Penelope exchanged glances, then Penelope said, “Until the other day I wouldn’t have believed anything supernatural. Now I’m not so sure.”
Hair prickled on the back of Annabelle’s neck. “Why?”
“Margaret and I are both hearing strange things at night.” Penelope shivered and rubbed her arms. “Odd things. Nothing ... nothing I can put my finger on and say ‘that’s what frightened me.’”
“Knockings.” Margaret shifted on the couch until she faced Annabelle. “Every night I hear knocking on my bedroom door. When I open it, there’s never anyone there.”
Cade cleared his throat. “A few days ago, a black mass leaked in around my doorway. It engulfed the entire room until I thought I’d be suffocated. I forced it away.”
Annabelle could almost feel the cold surrounding her. “My God. How did you force it away?”
He shrugged.
“By will, I guess. I didn’t shrink back from it.
“Last night, all the men woke up on the ward with nightmares again.” Penelope’s eyes reflected uncertainty, a disturbance that crawled through Annabelle.
“Weather’s acting a might strange.” Hemmings chugged down his water. “But only right around the asylum. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. We left the asylum and the wind was blowing hard, but only directly around it. Nowhere else.”
Annabelle understood, and she locked gazes with Cade in a moment of connection. “We’ve seen that, too,” Cade said. “Listen, I know this will sound strange, but you should all know.” Cade explained about the supernatural forces possibly at work in the asylum. He took his time, but the three visitors listened to him.
“How ridiculous.” Margaret shifted her attention to Annabelle. “The knockings I heard are probably just imagination. We know that some of the people catching the influenza hallucinate. That must be what has happened at the asylum.”
“Combined with mental deficiencies and problems, added to fear of the disease, and the biological component, that must be the explanation,” Penelope said, nodding in satisfaction. “Maybe all this talk of supernatural around us is just nonsense. We never should have brought it up.”
Annabelle shook her head, and marveled that her headache had disappeared entirely. “I’ve seen and felt things at the asylum before I caught the flu. And you all know that I’m one of the most rational people. I never believed in the supernatural before I started working at Tranquil View Asylum.”
Unease crossed Hemmings face. “When I went into the basement yesterday to visit Ziggy, he was raving in a way I never heard before. The cook gave us some food for him, but she refuses to go down there herself. Says the place gives her the jimjams.”
Cade ran his hand over his face. “It makes sense ... about the basement. Ziggy was overtaken by whatever is there. If he’s down there permanently ....” He shrugged.
“We asked Hollenbeck to move Ziggy back to his room and just tie him up. Ziggy could die otherwise,” Hemmings said. “Hollenbeck refused.”
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