There is no moon in hell.
TWENTY-ONE
LILY started awake, her heart pounding, her eyes wide with terror.
Scent seeped in through the fear-fog, a mix of antiseptic, flowers, and body fluids that said hospital. With that understanding, reason woke, too, and began sorting the sensory impressions into sense.
The sound she’d heard, the noise that had sprung her from sleep so abruptly… she backed up mentally, replayed it, and decided someone had dropped something on the hard hospital floor outside her room.
She’d been dreaming. Wisps of the dream clung to her despite the harsh awakening… thick fur beneath her hand, fur warmed by a strong body. There’d been a sense of physical well-being, too, and a goal, a place she needed to reach. She had to walk to get there. That’s what she’d been doing when she was jerked awake. Walking.
In the dream she hadn’t been alone. Here, she was.
It was early. Gray light from the room’s single window barely smudged the outlines of things, but she could see that the space was empty of threats. Empty entirely, with a flat, lifeless feel, less real to her than a stage set.
As empty as she was with something nameless and necessary drained out.
Lily closed her eyes, riding out the backlash of unused adrenaline, waiting for her heartbeat to steady. She found herself alone with the numbness growing like a cancerous vine out of the dead place inside her. The place where her Gift used to be.
Grandmother, you said this couldn’t happen. That it wasn’t possible for me to stop being a sensitive. Suddenly she wanted her grandmother, wanted her with the intensity of a child waking from a nightmare, crying out in the dark. She needed to be held. She needed someone who could explain what had happened to her, even if she couldn’t fix it.
She wasn’t going to get what she wanted. Lily opened her eyes for the second time on a day she didn’t want to face.
Rule was missing.
Missing, she reminded herself. Not dead.
Gradually the room took on context, substance, becoming real once more as the light subtly brightened outside. Just as her dream had suggested, she had a goal. She had to find Rule. She didn’t know how—where to look, how to find out, who might have the pieces she needed to make sense of his vanishing. But she’d take her dream’s advice there, too. She’d take one step at a time.
Her first step, she realized, would be literal. She had to get out of bed.
The skin’s two main jobs were keeping contaminants out and fluids in. Large burns compromised its ability to do both tasks, so they’d given her antibiotics and kept her overnight to get her fluids replenished.
The IV had done a damned fine job. She was awash.
Sitting up wasn’t too bad in a bed that answered her commands, but twisting around to slide off the bed hurt.
So did standing, breathing… she’d just have to put up with it. She began inching toward the bathroom, trailing her IV stand.
Maybe the nasty sense of unreality she’d woken up with had been an aftereffect of the painkiller they’d given her last night. She’d needed it. By the time they moved her to this room her mind had been so fuzzed by pain and emotion that she couldn’t have reasoned her way through tic-tac-toe.
No more drugs, though. She had a lot of thinking to do.
They probably wouldn’t offer her anything stronger than ibuprofen, anyway. She’d be leaving soon. There was no reason to keep her any longer.
Lily did what she could to make herself ready to face the day. She used the facilities, the hospital’s toothbrush, and the hairbrush from her purse. She washed her face and hands and gave the shower a longing glance.
Even if she hadn’t been warned against it, though, she wouldn’t have taken a shower yet. She didn’t have anything clean to put on. She’d have to call someone… someone other than her mother.
Lily stared at the shiny white sink, the forgotten hairbrush clutched light in her hand. Words ran through her head, broken bits of actual dialogue tumbling around with all the things she might have said.
No doubt last night had been a take on every parent’s nightmare—two children in the ER at the same time, both victims of violence. And her mother always handled anxiety by assigning blame, as if by fixing guilt she could fix the problem. So Lily supposed she was a fool for needing what Julia Yu was unable or unwilling to give… but understanding didn’t stop the ache. Or the anger.
At first Lily had been too raw to comprehend her mother’s tirade. So much of it was reruns, the same tired complaints about Lily’s profession. Only so shrill. So full of blame. Your fault, her mother had said. It’s your fault
your little sister is hurt, was nearly raped, nearly killed.
What about me? Lily had said, or maybe she’d just thought that. I’m so sorry Beth got hurt, but I’m hurt, too. I did my best…
When had her best ever been good enough? But her mother hadn’t left it at that. She’s gone too far, Lily thought. This time her mother had gone too far.
So had she. When Julia Yu had yoked Rule in with her daughter, needing more than one person to haul around the shitload of blame she was dumping—when she’d said it was just as well he was dead—Lily had slapped her.
Lily shook her head, throwing off thoughts that had nowhere to go but round and round. She put down the brush, shoved open the bathroom door—and her heartbeat went crazy.
The outer door had swung open at the same instant, leaving her and a dark-skinned man in baggy scrubs staring at each other in mutual surprise.
The doctor, she thought, feeling foolish as she took in the stethoscope and harried expression. She had to get over this business of jumping at every unexpected sound or sight.
Twenty minutes later she was back in bed scowling at the blank screen of the television. She’d pulled the tray-table in front of her. It held a steaming cup of coffee and the pen and pad from her purse.
They were keeping her another night “for observation.”
There was no reason for it. The doctor had hemmed and hawed his way around an explanation, citing trauma and the danger of shock. Lily wasn’t buying. There’d been some danger of shock last night, but that was over. The IV was gone.
The bastard with the stethoscope had actually patted her hand and told her she was lucky. HMOs and insurance companies were forever kicking people out too soon, and here she was being invited to stay an extra day. She should take advantage of it and rest.
Ruben had told her to rest, too. Damn him.
A paranoid type might think someone wanted to keep her where he could find her. Someone official, with plenty of pull. Someone who just might prefer that she be declared insane.
Of course, a paranoid type might be kept for observation in case she started seeing little green men conspiring against her.
Lily had reported to Ruben twice last night. First she’d called him from the scene, giving him a rough sketch of events. She’d followed up with a more detailed account while waiting to be moved from the ER to this room.
Something had changed between the first time she spoke with him and the second. Something or someone had convinced him Rule was dead, not missing.
He’d made noises about the lupi removing the body, just as they’d spirited away their wounded. She’d insisted they wouldn’t do that without telling her. That’s when he’d told her to rest.
Cullen hadn’t believed her, either. No one did. And they should have.
There was no body.
Last night she hadn’t liked where her thoughts were taking her. She’d hoped that sleep would clear her mind enough to come up with an explanation that didn’t involve conspiracies. But today she found herself heading in the same direction.