Everything Isa hadn’t known about the possibilities of Live Ink constricted around her chest.
“How do we prevent it?” the doctor pressed.
Isa shook her head. “If I could bind the tattoo, I could destroy it. For that, I need my hands.”
“Can someone else do the work?” the doctor pressed.
“She’s the only Live Ink artist we know of who does binds,” Troy said.
“We’ll have to fix your hands then,” the doctor said.
Isa nodded, expecting some comment from her new roommate. She didn’t get one.
Apparently, he understood kill or be killed. Why did that make her suddenly reluctant to destroy him the moment she was physically able to do so?
The doctor shifted closer. “Our orthopedic team is the best on the West Coast, if not in the nation. We’ll get you back to work. You’re right-handed?”
Not trusting her voice, given the burn behind her eyes, Isa nodded.
“Excellent. I can’t promise it’ll be like nothing ever happened,” the doctor said. “That may be outside our power.”
Egotistical— Isa’s alien shadow added a word or a concept that didn’t translate in her head. The contempt, however, did.
Meaning he could make it like nothing had ever happened to her hands?
Ask. No. Beg.
“You belong to Daniel,” she said inside her head. “If I have to ask the price, I can’t afford it.”
I belong to no one, he growled. Dark rage scorched the inside of her skin and bones.
If the tattoo could heal her with magic, what kept her from using magic to heal her injuries?
Don’t bother. You won’t live that long.
“Then neither will you,” Isa snapped.
“I’m sorry?” the doctor said. She looked confused.
Heat crept into Isa’s face. She’d answered the tattoo aloud. “Complex internal dialogue.”
Nodding, the doctor rounded the end of the bed and said, “I’m going to call the orthopedic surgeon. We clearly need to set up an aggressive program to get you ready for surgery.”
She quit the room.
Silence stretched tight.
Troy lowered his cold pack. His right eye had already started to blacken. He cast a guarded look between Isa and Steve. “Find anything?”
Steve shook his head. “We traced the back trail, but with the rain we didn’t get far. I’ve got trackers on it.”
“No one saw anything?” Oki said.
“Manufacturing and industrial part of town,” Steve said. “Not a lot of windows and nothing open in the middle of the night. If there were trucks or cars on the roads, no drivers called in.”
Troy grunted. “You get the answers you need here?”
“Enough to make a start,” Steve said.
The pair of them pointedly did not look at Isa.
“Good,” Troy said. He blew out a huff of breath. “I don’t want to have to protect her from you, too.”
Nathalie’s grin looked feral.
In that moment, Isa realized she’d stepped out of Daniel’s prison and into one she’d never known existed—the care of the people she hadn’t fully realized were her friends.
The creature attached to her hide hissed.
Chapter Ten
Steve’s cell phone beeped twice.
“Damn it. It isn’t me you’ll have to protect her from,” he said. He sounded weary. “Isa. Agent Macquarie is here. One of the marshals who brought the prisoner to your studio was killed a week ago.”
Isa’s heart thumped, and memories of her concerns prior to waking in Daniel’s prison rushed into her awareness. “The dragon?”
Steve nodded.
Already the rapid advance of high heels on polished hospital linoleum sounded in the hallway.
“If the guy’s been dead a week, what’s Isa supposed to know?” Oki protested.
Isa tensed as the agent strode through the door.
“Glad to have you back with us, Ms. Romanchzyk,” Anne said. Her words were fine, but her flat, dead tone suggested she wasn’t at all glad. She took in the straps securing Isa to the bed and smirked. “Your disappearing act let that creature you set free murder one of my agents.”
Did she expect Isa to go all defensive, protesting that she would have preferred not having been kidnapped and tortured? Isa was too weary, the wounds were too recent, and it was too much like a bad TV drama script.
“Yes,” she said.
Troy bristled. “Lady . . .”
Anne’s brows lowered.
Steve stepped in front of him, talking fast and in an undertone so Isa couldn’t hear.
Muttering under his breath, Troy fixed Anne with a dire glare. He stomped out the door.
Nathalie and Oki followed.
The tattoo stirred, jabbing some ephemeral part of Isa with an elbow, as if either of them had the room to jostle for space.
Isa flinched.
He opened his eyes. Interesting that she could feel something like that—the fact that he’d reared up to join her in looking out of her eyes at the AMBI agent. He tightened her muscles as if preparing for another fight.
Barely a sentence exchanged and his assessment of Anne Macquarie matched hers. That they agreed on something didn’t reassure her in the least.
“Do you have any reason to believe that your kidnapping is related to my case?” Anne demanded.
“No.”
The agent straightened. Her gaze sharpened. She looked as if she wanted to carve answers out of Isa’s flesh. “Explain.”
“Daniel went to the smart evil mastermind school of villainy,” she retorted. “He wasn’t exactly forthcoming regarding his motives. If he was supposed to monologue about what he was doing and why, he didn’t get the memo.”
Steve groaned.
The tattoo sniggered.
Oh, good. At least her snide response amused someone.
“I find it hard to believe he said nothing.” Anne’s voice rose.
“He spoke fewer than fifty words within my hearing. All within the first hour of my captivity,” Isa said. She’d memorized everything, the words he’d said, the way he’d said them. She’d had hours to pull it all apart, looking for clues, for meaning, for any reason for what he’d done.
“Anyone else?” Steve prompted.
The tattoo woke a memory of someone hosing her down as if she were an animal.
She cringed. But she couldn’t run from what she carried inside. Not with the tattoo taking such obvious pleasure in dredging up miserable memories of captivity.
An alarm sounded beside her.
Steve appeared at her side as if he’d teleported across the room. “Breathe, Isa. Whatever you’re remembering, breathe through it, okay?”
The tattoo laughed and prodded her recall until she felt the stinging chill of water numbing her skin beneath the blankets of her hospital bed.
“Damn it, Isa!” Steve gripped her shoulder. “Breathe!”
The panic in his voice reached through the overpowering sensation that she’d awakened in Daniel’s cage to find she’d dreamed her escape.
She hadn’t. She couldn’t have. Not even she was perverse enough to dream Anne into anything involving her.
Isa sucked in a shallow breath and let it go.
Footsteps stopped at her door, then entered. A tall, elegant nurse wearing a black headscarf strode to the monitor and silenced the alarm. “Officers, I need you to step outside.”
“No,” Isa gasped. “I’m okay.”
The nurse hesitated.
Isa pulled in another breath, deliberately drawing in air to a slow count of four, held it, then let it go.
The tattoo’s grip loosened.
“Good,” the nurse murmured, watching the monitor. “
You’re not having trouble breathing?”
Not physically. She shook her head.
“Can you take another deep breath?”
She did. The sensation of stinging cold faded from her skin and nerves. Scratchy sheets and textured woven blankets weighed her down again.
“Excellent. No holding your breath,” she admonished. “If this alarm goes off again, I’ll call the respiratory therapy team. Those people are relentless.”
The nurse seemed to expect a response, so Isa twisted her lips in what she hoped looked like a smile. The nurse glanced between Anne and Steve.
“The doctor okayed your questions,” the nurse said. “But if you upset my patient again, that will change.”
“The subject matter is upsetting,” Anne said in a tone so smooth, so friendly, Isa did a double take to make sure it was she who’d spoken. “We need what information Ms. Romanchzyk can offer if we’re going to assure her safety.”
The nurse met Isa’s gaze and lifted a brow. “The room is under video and audio monitoring to assure your safety. Call if you need me. I’ll hear you.” She quit the room.
Isa laid her head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Sorry.”
“Want to talk about it?” Steve asked.
A derisive laugh kicked her diaphragm. She forced it down. “Not a chance. Look. No one spoke to me. I was an object.”
“An object?” Anne echoed. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I assume it was personal. Daniel and I were involved. It was a long time ago,” she said. “Before he changed. Before . . .”
“Before what?” Steve prodded.
She shrugged. “Before he snapped?”
The memory of Daniel at the police station the night the dragon had broken free edged up through the tattered shreds of her sense of self.
The tattoo inspected her recall.
They both jolted at the point when she’d caught a whiff of sulfur and the hint of something else looking at her from Daniel’s eyes.
Tattoo?
Isa had her passenger’s complete attention, felt his intense concentration and the loathing he tried to hide while he examined her memory of Daniel.
Oh, look. Something else they had in common.
“Speculation,” Anne said, sounding impatient.
Isa started, then realized that Anne had addressed her last verbal comment, not the odd-feeling internal dialogue.
“And unless it relates to one dead material witness or a murdered agent,” Anne went on, “your kidnapping doesn’t interest me.”
“No. That falls squarely within SPD jurisdiction,” Steve rushed to amend.
“Both statements are true,” the tattoo and Isa said with her voice.
Isa flinched.
Anne recoiled.
“What the hell was that?” Steve said.
“We’re sharing one set of vocal chords,” Isa said, “and the Ink has a thing for saying aloud what should stay in his—in my head.”
Steve scowled at her.
“Neither of us is crazy about this, either,” Isa assured him while the tattoo sneered.
“You know what interests me?” Anne said, her tone rippling. “What I found when I ran your background.”
Blood congealed in Isa’s veins.
“Isa Romanchzyk isn’t the name you were born with,” Anne said.
The tattoo reared up, slamming his way into sharing her senses as Isa shook her head. She felt him rifling through her brain, digging deeper and deeper, looking for the pieces of her childhood she absolutely wanted him nowhere near.
“What was?”
“I don’t know,” Isa said, slamming walls into place, barring him from her past.
He growled with her vocal chords. That rocked the agent back. Her reaction seemed to please the tattoo.
“How old are you?” Anne asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Your real birthday?”
“No idea.”
Steve’s eyes widened.
“Do you know where you were born?”
“Nope.”
“Are you even an American citizen?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I was adopted.”
“By?”
“Ruth Sinquah.”
Anne’s eyes narrowed as she studied Isa, trying, Isa could see, to work out the ethnicity of the name. Anne glanced over her shoulder.
Steve spread his hands wide. “Don’t look at me. This is the first time I’ve heard any of this.” He sounded annoyed by the fact.
Anne looked back at her. “Where will I find this Ruth Sinquah?”
“You won’t,” Isa replied. “But you’ll find record of her in Arizona. Check with the Navajo Nation.”
“Navajo?” Steve echoed.
“You’re Native American?” Anne asked, looking her up and down.
“I don’t know what I am,” she said, “but I’m not Navajo, not genetically. I could have been adopted from another tribe. I could be Latina. I could be black Irish.”
“How old were you when you were adopted?”
She shrugged. “The local doctor guessed I was between five and eight years old based on my size and the fact that I’d lost one baby tooth.”
“You don’t remember anything about your birth family?”
Nothing that she intended to pull out into the light of day for Anne or for Daniel’s creature to shake like a dog with a toy.
I am NOT his!
“Then stop playing Indiana Jones in my memories,” Isa commanded internally.
They’re mine now. You’re merely borrowing.
“All right,” Anne said. “I’ll find paperwork filed with the tribal court for your adoption?”
“Yes.”
Anne’s gaze tried to pry into her head. Isa was impervious to her, but not to Steve’s concern-furrowed brow. That sliced straight through her chest.
“Anything else I can help you with, Agent?” Isa prodded.
“Get your ass out of this hospital and destroy that monster you freed before it kills again,” Anne commanded, her stare a clear challenge. She spun on the heel of her polished navy pumps and stalked out of the room.
The tattoo watched through Isa’s eyes as Agent Anne Macquarie departed.
Isa’s muscles went limp and she dropped her head back against the pillows as the tap of Anne’s footsteps dwindled.
“Can I take out a restraining order against the AMBI?” Isa asked of the ceiling.
Steve snorted. “You’d be trampled by the stampede to the courthouse if you could. Navajo, huh?”
“It was a long time ago, Steve.”
“Isa. No. Never mind. When you change a name, it’s either because you don’t want to remember or because you’re hiding from someone. Tell me it’s not the latter.”
“It wasn’t,” she said.
“Fine. The rest of it you can tell me when you’re ready.” He went to the door.
Scowling, Troy, Nathalie, and Oki crowded into the room.
“I’ve got a uniform on the door,” Steve said, “but I want one of you here with her at all times.”
“Right there with you,” Troy replied.
“I’m going to see a judge about a search warrant.” Steve walked away.
Relief made Isa weak. Good. She could pick up the pieces of her life and let the law handle Daniel.
The damned thing on her skin chuckled. It sounded condescending.
Oki followed Steve out the door.
“Take me to the apartment?” Isa heard her say. “I’ll stay with . . .” Her voice dwindled as their footsteps receded.
A pair of nurses bustled into the room to put in another IV, saying she’d feel even better once she’d ha
d another bag of fluids.
She was watching liquid drip when the psychiatrist turned up.
“I’ve been updated. I understand the tattoo is Living,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Someone gave me pain medication.”
“Which is bad in cases of Live Ink, yes,” he said. “But I meant what set the Ink off?”
“People were trying to hold me down. He doesn’t like being restrained.”
The man chuckled. “That didn’t work out, did it?”
She didn’t find it amusing.
He ordered a bright red LIVING TATTOO warning banner for her chart and unbuckled the straps.
“Keep that tattoo under control,” he warned, “or I’ll order a seventy-two-hour psych hold in our containment unit. Then that tattoo will comprehend the real meaning of involuntary restraint.”
The tattoo snarled.
Apparently, it showed on her face, because the psychiatrist winked as he walked out of the room.
Even the orthopedic surgeon showed up. She examined Isa’s hands, injected a local numbing agent, set the bones that could be set, and then splinted and wrapped Isa’s hands as much to protect them as to help them heal. She assured Isa she could do surgery under a local, but it wouldn’t be easy. As a result, she scheduled her for mid-April, insisting that Isa recover some of her lost weight before then.
Within twelve hours of the time Isa had come through the emergency room doors, the doctor discharged her.
Steve and Troy appeared as if summoned, Steve bearing a bag of Isa’s clothes.
“I want you under police protection,” Steve said, handing the bag off to Nathalie.
“No.” The tattoo and Isa said with her voice.
Her friends flinched.
Steve recovered first. “Isa . . .”
“I didn’t walk out of Daniel’s prison so I could march into yours!” Just her in her voice that time.
Troy’s lips went thin and white.
Unless Daniel had let her go.
Not on purpose, the tattoo murmured.
“You escaped?” Steve said, nodding. “I need to know more about that.”
Damn it. “Try manipulating me for information like that after I’m dressed, Detective,” Isa said. “I’ll stomp on your toes.”
His brows lowered. The muscles in his jaw bunched.
Nightmare Ink Page 12