by Casey Hays
She peels his hands away and stares at him.
“They took Penelope,” he whispers.
The woman freezes, her mouth falling open in shock. “What?”
He rubs gingerly at his eyes, shaking off his emotions and turns the focus toward me.
“She has a leg wound you’ll need take a look at,” he explains. “And Penelope’s painkillers are wearing off. I hope you have something for her.”
His voice becomes more distant as my surroundings fade in and out. I fight against unconsciousness, but pain is on its side. It creeps up on me; I’m losing the battle quickly.
Sophia studies me. “Aunt Claudia says it’s a miracle that you survived that gunshot wound.”
My mind snaps, alert, and I stare at her, shock invading me. She chances taking a strand of my loose hair in her hands, running it through her fingers.
The woman frowns, pointing. “Go tell Michael that Aaron is here.”
Sophia nods quickly, tosses me a faint smile, and slips out of the room without another word.
I try to focus on the woman’s face, but my energy is spent. I collapse against Aaron.
“Bring her to the children’s room.”
I clutch my side, cringing into it. Aaron sweeps me up into his arms and follows her down a corridor. I release a guttural moan as he deposits me as gently as possible onto a bed. The curtains are drawn. The woman lights two large candles mounted to one wall. They flood the room with brilliant light that casts a yellow glow. She comes to me, places her hand on my forehead. I do my best to focus on her round eyes.
“Kate. I’m Claudia.”
She plugs her ears with a strange object and places the other end against my chest, listening. After a moment she pulls away.
“I’m going to give you something for your pain, okay?”
Weak and full of fatigue, I can do nothing but nod. Something for the pain would be wonderful. I moan again. Aaron purses his lips, his face distraught.
“I was shot?” I whisper. Aaron bends over me.
“Shhh. Just rest. We will explain everything when you’re feeling better.”
He squeezes my hand reassuringly. I close my eyes, too weak to demand any kind of answers at the moment.
“She shouldn’t have been moved, but things were crazy out there,” Aaron says. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t leave her behind.”
Claudia tosses him an exasperated glance. “Of course, you wouldn’t have left her behind. And none of this is your fault.”
Aaron nods, but he emotionally crumples, his shoulders sagging.
“They took Penelope.” He says again. His voice is hard, and tears well up in his eyes. “I let them take her. I couldn’t stop it.”
“I don’t know if there’s any way to stop them from doing whatever they want. But you know what we have to do.” She wraps her fingers around his arm. “We have to pray that God will give us the strength to see us through this. Pray for Penelope’s safety while they have her. Pray that we can resolve this quickly. You know this.”
He nods, pinching the corners of his eyes just at the bridge of his nose, wincing in pain when he remembers his wounds.
“I’m going after her.”
Claudia straightens, a warning in her eyes. “You are not. The last thing we need is for the Vortex to get its hands on both of you.” She pauses. “Did anyone see you come here?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then this is the safest place to be. They won’t hurt her.” Claudia pulls his hand away from his eyes, and takes hold of his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “They need her.”
“Are you so sure?” Aaron yanks out of her grip, piercing her with desperation. “She’s from Eden. What would prevent them from killing her when they no longer need her?”
“And when would that be?” She huffs, places a warm hand on my arm as she scrutinizes the tiny cuts. “She’s the only doctor for miles. They need a doctor just as much as we do. And you need to remember who you are, Aaron. We don’t doubt in this family, even when the worst circumstances come our way.”
I strain to keep my eyes open, to glean any knowledge about my own predicament from their conversation, but the pain is winning. I suddenly don’t care about anything but escaping it. Claudia raises my arm and wraps something around my bicep that squeezes it with uncomfortable pressure. I wince, press my back into the cushioned softness of the bed, and beg for darkness. In the darkness, there is never pain. Only black nothingness.
“Let me take care of Kate,” Claudia says dismissively. The pressure releases. A ripping effect touches my hearing, and my arm is free to fall against the bed. “Michael is in the kitchen with Thomas. He snuck out again, by the way. With the curfew in place, we can’t let it happen a third time. Michael is threatening to lock him in the basement.”
Aaron simply nods. Tense silence fills the room. After a moment, he leans over me.
“Kate?”
I pry my eyes open. Despite his bruises, his smile is warm and safe and greatly contradicts his exchange of words with Claudia just seconds ago. “My sister is the next best thing to Penelope. She’ll take good care of you. I’ll check back in a while.”
With difficulty, I hand him a half smile. Claudia pats my leg.
“I’ll be right back.”
She follows him out. I inhale deeply and take a handful of the blanket in each fist at my sides, clenching it tightly. I’m confused about many things, but I hurt too much to confront any of them.
Claudia returns with a cup of water and a metal tray of items. She places all of it on a low table next to the bed.
“It’s nice to see you awake.” She smiles over me. “Can you tell me specifically where it hurts?”
“Everywhere,” I whisper.
She releases a soft laugh. I study her young face, gauging whether I can trust it. Not that I have any other options at this point. A braid of blonde hair snakes over her shoulder, and she whisks it out of her way as he lifts my shirt. She examines a bandage, presses her fingertips into my side until I gasp. She lowers my shirt and pulls the blanket over me.
“Here.” She lifts me into a sitting position, leans me forward. “Take these.”
In her palm sit two tiny, oblong-shaped objects. What is this? We stare at each other until she raises a brow, a hint of amusement in her face that sends a stab of irritation through me. I want someone to answer my questions. I want to know why my friends are not here with me. I want to stop hurting. I don’t want someone handing me tiny objects of no use. I wince as the fiery pain grows stronger.
“They’re pills, Kate,” Claudia finally clarifies. “Medicine. Put them into your mouth and swallow them. They will cut the pain—a lot.”
When I still look dubious, she nods with assurance, and I take them from her and place them onto my tongue. They sit there, feeling foreign and heavy until she hands me the cup of water to chase them down. I ease back against a pillow. She returns the cup to the low table, lifts one of my arms to examine the tiny shards of glass that pepper my skin.
“Those are going to be fun to remove.” I don’t miss her sarcasm. She lays my arm gently by my side and unwraps the wound on my leg. “At least the bullet didn’t penetrate. Only a flesh wound.” I raise my head, peer down at my dirty shin where a trickle of blood runs off the side of my leg and soils the bed coverings. Claudia seems indifferent to the mess I leave behind.
“This is from a bullet?”
“Yes. There was quite a shoot-out at Aaron’s house earlier. Word spreads fast in this small town, even with a curfew.” She sits on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg over the other at the knee. “Looks like you were caught in the cross-fire.”
She wriggles her fingers into a pair of white gloves. They snap loudly into place against her wrists. She lights a small candle on the tray and takes up an instrument. Several instruments litter the tray, along with various bottles. She holds her selected tool over the candle until the twin metal tips turn red.
She is silent as she douses a cloth with liquid from a bottle. “This will sting. Hold your breath.”
She presses the cloth to my arm. It stings. I wince, hissing air through my teeth and trying desperately to keep myself in place when she pours the liquid straight over the wound on my leg. But the medicine she gave me is taking affect. It helps, and slowly, I relax into it as the stinging, throbbing burn begins to ease. She applies an ointment and wraps tight bandages around the wound.
“You look good compared to when Ian first brought you here.” She works with the instrument now, gingerly picking out the shards one by one and dropping them into a bowl with a clink. I give her a groggy, sidelong glance and concentrate on the sound. “I think you’re past the worst of it.”
The mention of Ian’s name drags me back from the beckoning sleep.
“Should I know him?” I ask tentatively.
Claudia pauses, the instrument pinched between her thumb and forefinger. My question surprises her as much as it seemed to surprise Aaron when I asked it.
“Don’t you know him?” she asks.
“I—I’m not certain.”
Concern washes over her, and she places her gloved hand against my forehead. She presses the back of her fingers to my cheek, runs their tips in light compressions along my neckline. “He saved your life, really. And he seems to know you very well.”
I stare at her until she furrows her brow.
“What do you remember? Before your accident?”
I bite my lip with a shake of my head. “Traveling—with my friend Justin and the others. Running, sometimes. We were going to Eden, but for some reason, there was a change of plans. Something . . .” I press harder until the answer comes. “Something about toxin?”
She settles her gaze on me, and I get the strangest feeling I wasn’t supposed to mention it.
“Well, there is that,” she says quietly. I swallow.
“I think . . . I shouldn’t have said anything,” I whisper.
Her mouth parts slightly before she purses her lips in understanding.
“It’s fine, Kate. I already know about Eden.”
“Oh,” I nod. “And do you also know why I can’t remember Ian?”
Her shoulders rise with a small shrug. “You’ve had some head trauma. You took a pretty hard fall when you were shot.” She plucks out another rather large piece of glass and presses a clean cloth against it to staunch the small amount of blood that spills from the tiny wound. “You fell over the side of a cliff and into the river.”
“I was shot?” I ask again. “With a . . . gun?”
Claudia nods. “Right through the chest.”
I take in a small breath of disbelief. From what I know of guns, they kill. Every time.
“How did I survive this?”
“By a miracle of God, I’m sure. And I have a strong feeling your memory loss is temporary. It seems fragmented, like you remember chunks here and there. Penelope would know more about it than I do, but I think it may come back in the same way.”
Her words don’t reassure me. Not when every backwards glance sends me tripping over a garden full of holes that need filling. I can’t even remember getting shot or falling into the river.
“When did Ian bring me here?” I ask.
“Two nights ago,” she answers. “And it’s a good thing he got here when he did. You’d lost a lot of blood. Hence, the miracle.”
A sad desperation invades. “I wish I could remember.”
She wrinkles a worried brow and wiggles her instrument into my arm. I wince.
“For now, let’s concentrate on physically getting you better.”
I blink slowly under the effects of the pills. They make me comfortably drowsy; I long for sleep. Claudia cleans the cleared wounds with more of the stinging liquid and adjusts the blankets around me. She tilts her head—a small tinge of sympathy flashing and then clearing in her features—and peels off her gloves, turning them inside out in the process.
“So where did you come from, Kate?” Startled, I glance at her. She smiles. “Ian had to have met you somewhere, and it sure wasn’t in Eden. You’re no more from Eden than I am.”
I digest the question, thinking. I have no idea where I met Ian, and something tells me it would be dangerous to say anything at all about my village without my full memory. Especially with soldiers crawling the streets of Jordan. I don’t care for anyone to know where I’m from.
On cue, marching feet accompanied by shouting pass by on the street just outside the window. Claudia raises her head, tensing to listen. They move on. She attempts a comforting smile which somehow evades her. She can’t hide it. She’s frightened.
“I’ve been praying for you,” she says. She tucks the blankets up under my chin. “Every day since you came here. And I will pray that Ian is safe and that he comes here if and when he can. Seeing him again may jog your memory.”
I study her curiously. “Praying to whom?”
Her hand is warm against my skin. “To Yeshua.”
Yeshua. Yes. Justin mentioned this name once. Penelope’s god.
“And who is this . . . Yeshua?” I prompt her.
“The master of my heart—in this life and the next.”
I lift my brows against the drowsiness tempting me. Her answer is strange. I know of the Moirai; I’ve questioned their ways for most of my life. I am familiar with all the rulers of the constellations that reign over us, as much as I despise it. This name . . . Yeshua. Just as before, it ignites a keen curiosity somewhere deep inside me.
I have so many questions for her, but my eyes are like lead. I begin to drift, floating off into the world of pleasant sleep.
Suddenly, on the edge of consciousness, a dream begins to invade. It flashes in the depths of my mind—quick and fluttery. I’m in a cave. A boy is there with me, and I recognize him immediately. Ian. Only he isn’t a giant. He’s an ordinary boy with the bluest eyes. So blue that they flood every other thought out of my head as I take them in.
I gasp, and my eyes fly open. The room replaces the vision. Claudia pauses in recapping various bottles to look at me.
“What is it?”
I merely shake my head.
“Nothing,” I whisper. “Just a . . . dream.” I ponder this. “Or a . . . memory?” For some unknown reason, I press a finger to my lips. “Of Ian.”
His face ripples in and out of my thoughts as if it’s rolling on the waves of a blue ocean before the image disappears completely. But it is so definite—so clearly him. And so real. One encounter would never leave such a vivid image behind. Goosebumps shiver across my skin.
“You see there?” Claudia pats my arm gently. “It’ll all come back to you soon.” She adjusts the pillow more comfortably behind my neck. “I’ll get you some broth and then let you rest. There is plenty of time for reviving your memory when you feel better.”
I lightly touch the stitches embedded in my forehead as Ian’s face fades. Something in her voice tells me to trust her.
I haven’t the faintest idea whether or not I should.
Chapter 13
M
orning comes, and with it the reminder of how bitterly torn is my body. Pain rides in with consciousness and slowly escalates into agony. I pry my eyes open with a soft cry. I’m drowning in pain, and for a moment, it takes every bit of my will to focus my vision. I gasp for air, clawing at the blankets.
The harsh pounding inside my head holds me in place, compressed against the pillow. I concentrate on the yellow-stained ceiling, trying to gain control of my breathing. My chest heaves, and every breath is a thousand knives cutting through my lungs. But still, the relentless rhythmic pulsing of my blood throbbing in my ears gives proof that I am alive. In this regard, the pain is worth something.
My mind churns to life next, replaying scenes, working to fit pieces together. It fumbles through the parts of me that I’ve forgotten, and memories attempt to force themselves upon me in a scattering of faces and plac
es, feelings and objects. It’s too much. I squeeze my eyes closed against the flood and hone in on the easier task—the physical discomfort. Another torturous breath cuts through me.
I turn my head to the left, slow and calculated—and with great effort. I am alone in the room. The other bed, where Aaron spent a restless night, is empty. He’d insisted on staying with me, even as Claudia argued against the idea, assuring him that I would be fine without his watching over me. But in the end, his insistency won.
I vaguely remember us speaking for a little while about things I can’t recall, but I do remember that just before I drifted off to sleep, he told me not to worry. His words invoked a memory of having heard the phrase many times before. Don’t worry. Yet, here I am, recovering from gunshot wounds. And here he is, grieving over the capture of his wife.
Yet the words had slipped from his lips so calmly, eager for me to believe them.
Don’t worry.
I didn’t argue.
It takes several minutes of struggling for me to wrestle myself to a sitting position. It takes even a greater amount of effort to prop the pillow behind me. Flushing with exertion, I rest against it, weak. The pain vibrates up my spine and swarms across my chest, my lower abdomen. Another breath through gritted teeth.
A small curtained window allows in a bit of morning light that is bright enough for me to see the humble room and its contents: the beds, a small table between them, a chair, a bookcase half-filled with books of all widths and colors, and a long mirror attached to the wall opposite me. I catch a shadowy glimpse of my reflection. A ragged, black stitch curves above my brow. My shoulder bones protrude through my blouse at ugly, sharp angles. I squint at the image. How could I have changed so much in such a short time?
I close my eyes, rest my head back against the pillow. The throbbing eases a little.
Penelope cut me open to repair my liver among other things. Aaron told me so last night. After I recovered from the initial astonishment that such a thing was possible, I laid a hand against my side where it swelled with tenderness. I don’t doubt that what he says is true.
I reel from another wave of pain. This morning, I doubt it even less.