I'm wondering what David would have done if Marana had tried to run during the healing, if he would have shot her as Brivari ordered, or let her go. Haven't even answered that one for myself yet! And "AWOL" (Alien Without Official Leave)........*dies laughing*
Rai: Urza was my favorite Warder too, followed closely by Valeris. Given how the other two turn out, I figured it might be nice to have the two that died be somewhat different.
I have watched Summer of '47 until my eyes glaze over, but I still can't picture Alex as Cavitt.
Some of it was that Colin was so young, but most was that his character is such a certified sweetheart in my mind that I have trouble seeing him any other way. But Michael as Hal Carver (a.k.a. "trouble"), that I have no problem with. I'm so glad the length of this hasn't scared you off, and you'll have every one of your questions answered by the end of this book except for which shapeshifter becomes Langley and which Nasedo. That comes in Book 4. Stay tuned!
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
June 7, 1950, 0700 hours
Eagle Rock Military Base
Sergeant Brisson held the breakfast tray protectively in front of him as he stared speechlessly into the alien's hard eyes, unable to make a sound as its demand to know what had happened to Lieutenant White hung in the air unanswered. Say something! he told himself sternly. The key in situations like this was not to back down, to keep repeating what had already been said. Of course that strategy required a working set of vocal cords, something he seemed to lack at the moment.
"Speak!" the alien hissed, low enough that the guards wouldn't overhear.
"I....I already told you!" Brisson squeaked, flushing at the pitch of his voice. "There was an illness in her family, and—"
"Speak the truth, not the official excuse," the alien interrupted severely.
"It's not an excuse!" Brisson objected desperately, backing up in spite of his earlier resolve to do no such thing. "I—"
"Is there a problem here?" asked a voice behind him.
Brisson whirled around, nearly upsetting the contents of the tray. Captain Spade was standing in the open doorway behind them looking none the worse for wear, with a fresh uniform and a fresh shave. There was no way he'd be looking so spiffy if Lieutenant White had died, so this must be good news, not to mention the fact that his sudden appearance couldn't have come at a better time.
"Captain," Brisson said, sagging with relief. "I'm so glad to see you!"
"Where is The Healer?" the alien demanded of Spade.
"One of the lieutenant's relatives passed away yesterday," Spade said with a perfectly straight face.
"You said her relative was ill, not dead," the alien said accusingly to Brisson, whose mouth opened and closed as he looked back and forth from the alien to Spade.
"So he didn't pass away?" Spade asked Brisson smoothly, not missing a beat. "That's good news. I'll keep my fingers crossed for his recovery. In any case, the lieutenant should be back by the end of the week."
Silence. The alien studied Spade closely, its suspicions unassuaged. "Are you certain of this?" it asked.
"Of course," Spade answered.
For some odd reason, this information seemed to mollify the alien, who nodded briefly and resumed its seat at the table, motioning impatiently for Brisson to set the tray down. He did so gratefully, having almost dropped it in sheer terror several times now, and would have left immediately had Spade not reminded him to administer the serum. A minute later, Brisson hurried gratefully out the door with Spade on his heels. "Thank you, Captain," Brisson whispered just as soon as they were clear of the guards. "If you hadn't come along—"
"Let's be clear," Spade said tersely, taking Brisson's arm and steering him down another hallway. "I couldn't care less about saving your bacon; I just didn't want the prisoner upset. I need him calm right now."
"Why?" Brisson asked.
"Never mind. In," Spade ordered, propelling Brisson into his quarters and locking the door behind them.
"Well?" Brisson demanded. "What happened? Is she all right?"
"Yes," Spade said shortly. "Did you file the papers for emergency leave?"
"She already had a form on Cavitt's desk, so I changed it to reflect the illness of an uncle," Brisson said. "Remember that—the illness of an uncle. A death is too easy to check; illness is easier to fake. If we're going to pull this off, we need to make sure we're telling the same story."
"Whatever," Spade said impatiently. "Did they buy it?"
"Pierce bought it, no problem," Brisson answered. "Cavitt was pissed because I signed the form and I'm not an officer; I told him you weren't here. But enough about that—where did you take her? What did they do to her? You just blew out of here last night without even telling me where you were going or what you were planning to do! What if—"
Smack! Pain exploded in Brisson jaw, followed by pain in his head as he slammed backwards into the wall. He put a hand to his face in shock before Spade hauled him up by the collar, his hot breath flooding Brisson's face. "What the hell are you doing?" Brisson exclaimed, struggling in Spade's grasp. "What—"
"I'm doing what I held off doing last night because I needed you," Spade said, his voice dripping with rage. "You piece of shit, you raped her!"
"I did not!" Brisson sputtered. "It was Pierce! All I did was hand him things, and collect information, and do my damnedest to make sure this didn't happen!"
"Guess what?" Spade said furiously. "It happened anyway!"
"It would have happened a lot sooner if I hadn't done something to prevent it!" Brisson said heatedly. "If you want to cover this up, you still need me!" he added hastily as Spade's fist rose again. "Do you think I didn't notice that you knew exactly how to find an alien? And not just any random alien, but one who's willing to help you? How long has that been going on? Don't you think Cavitt will be interested in hearing that? How long do you think you'll last if he does?"
"How long do you think you'll last if I tell Ramey about what Pierce is up to, and how I found out about it?" Spade shot back.
"You do that, and Pierce finds out she was pregnant!" Brisson exclaimed.
"No, he won't," Spade said grimly. "I don't have to let that particular nugget go to fry your ass but good."
"Same here," Brisson retorted. "If I tell Cavitt I saw you with an alien, he'll be all over you like a rash! Do you want to take that risk?"
Brisson held his breath as Spade's fist hovered in the air uncertainly for several very long seconds before slowly lowering. "Fine. So we each have the goods on the other. And we'd both better keep that in mind before shooting our respective mouths off."
"Yeah. Right. Okay," Brisson panted, reaching up to touch his aching jaw as he spoke. "Jesus, you could have broken my jaw!"
"Ask me if I care," Spade said acidly. "As far as I'm concerned, you deserve to have a lot more broken than just your jaw."
"I'm telling you, there was nothing I could do!" Brisson insisted. "If I'd objected, Pierce would have replaced me, probably with someone who didn't care about the lieutenant! I thought about telling her a million times, but if she'd found out, he would have whisked her out of here so fast that you never would have had time to react! I know it sounds crazy, but it was actually safer for her to be here, with me misleading Pierce and him thinking everything was fine."
"What do you mean, 'whisk her out of here'?" Spade demanded. " 'Whisk her out' to where?"
"He could do it," Brisson assured him. "Pierce has friends in high places that promised him continued access to Lieutenant White even when they almost executed the prisoner two years ago."
" 'Continued access'?" Spade muttered. "That sounds like she's some sort of science experiment."
"That's all she is to him," Brisson admitted. "I asked him once what he would do if she actually got pregnant—you can't hide a normal pregnancy, never mind an alien pregnancy—and he talked about a mental hospital in a 'remote location' where he could hide her. He had it all worked out. You never would have found her, Captain."
"Flaming bastard," Spade fumed. "Just wait until I get my hands around his scrawny little neck—"
"No!" Brisson protested. "That's exactly what you can't do. We have to act like nothing's happened—nothing. No retaliation, no questions, no acknowledging this in any way, or the cat's out of the bag and the lieutenant is toast."
"Not if he doesn't know where she is," Spade pointed out. "And no one does right now. No one but me."
Brisson paused, throwing a nervous look toward the door. "What did they do to her?" he whispered. "Did they take her away in a ship? Is she still pregnant? Is she even still on this planet?"
"What, you think I'm going to hand you more ammunition to use against me with Cavitt?" Spade said incredulously. "I'm not telling you a damned thing!"
"I only threatened to do that because you were going to kill me!" Brisson said in exasperation. "Why do you think I got the lieutenant out of the way so fast last night? Why do you think I told you not to take her to the infirmary? I'm on her side, Captain! And I deserve to know at least some details about what's happened to her!"
Spade stared at Brisson in stony silence for a moment before relenting. "She's on this planet, and she's not pregnant anymore."
"What about all those alien cells in her blood?"
"They're gone. She'll be fine. The hard part now will be making her disappear into the ether so Pierce will never find her."
"She can't come back here, that's for sure," Brisson agreed. "She'd be due for another procedure in about a week or so, and—"
" 'Procedure'?" Spade said in a dangerous voice.
Brisson shook his head rapidly. "Never mind. The point is, she can't come back here. Neither of the alien cells Pierce was using are safe now—they've both impregnated her at least once. She'll need a new identity and the paperwork to go with it. I can help you with that."
"You can help me with that?" Spade echoed.
"Of course," Brisson said. "I don't care what the officers think—it's us enlisted men who run the Army, not to mention every other branch of the service. I can get her a fake birth certificate, a fake driver's license for any state in the union, a fake—"
"Thanks, but no thanks," Spade interrupted.
"But I want to help!" Brisson exclaimed, cutting Spade off as he moved for the door. "I didn't know how to help her last night, but I can help with this. Let me help!"
"If you think for one second that I'm going to let you know where she's going, you're crazy," Spade said harshly. "From now on, Lieutenant White is my concern, not yours."
"Captain..."
"I mean it, Brisson," Spade said menacingly, advancing on him so quickly that Brisson backed up in alarm. "I told she's all right, and that's all I'm telling you. You've done enough already, don't you think?"
Brisson felt himself flushing from a combination of anger and embarrassment. "I meant what I said last night, sir. You're not the only one who cares about her."
Spade's eyebrows rose. Brisson glared defiantly but listed backwards as Spade leaned in closer. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere near Yvonne when she finds out just how much you 'cared' for her."
******************************************************
*Anything?* Orlon asked.
*Nothing,* Amar answered as human soldiers filed by in one of the dozens of hallways inside the human military base. They had arrived late last night and begun scouring the base for any sign of Brivari, without success.
*Where could he be?* Orlon wondered. *Brivari's been making daily visits here for months now.*
*It's not just Brivari,* Amar said. *His allies aren't here either—the nurse whose shape I took, and one of the soldiers. They're both usually out and about by this time.*
*What about Jaddo?* Orlon asked worriedly. *He's still here, isn't he?*
*Seems to be,* Amar answered. *There's no indication that they've lost their prisoner. We'll know in a few minutes when the trucks leave for the hangar.*
Orlon fell into a frustrated silence as they took up positions with a good vantage point of the hangar's entrance. Watching Jaddo's daily trip to the hangar on their frequent reconnaissance missions here over the past several months had been torture for Orlon. The humans had effectively stymied them by sending multiple trucks to the hangar with Jaddo in a different truck each day, effectively forcing them to either choose a truck at random or spread themselves dangerously thin if they chose to attack. They had done neither, of course, merely watching the trucks roll by and cursing the fact that such a backwards race had successfully employed such simple measures against them. It bothered Amar less, as he was more interested in capturing Brivari than Jaddo. So was Orlon, for that matter, but at this point, he would have settled for any prisoner at all.
*You should contact your source,* Orlon announced.
Amar snorted. *I'd hardly refer to Walker as a 'source'.*
*Then we should change our approach,* Orlon persisted. *Reveal that Jaddo is a dangerous criminal on our world, or—*
*I already told you, Walker hates aliens,* Amar interrupted. *The last thing we want to do is to tell him what we really are.*
*It can't be a coincidence that Brivari and both of his allies are missing at the same time,* Orlon argued. *We should make at least some effort to find out why.*
Amar bit back a retort as Orlon continued to fret, wishing again that Malik were here. Malik had always functioned as an intermediary for human interactions, but Amar had never realized how much he had served the same purpose in other areas as well. Like now, between him and Orlon. Or yesterday evening, when they were preparing to leave, and Amar had found a basket on the front porch with a note inside:
Dear Carl,
We're so sorry to hear about the tragedy in your family. It's really hard to lose someone. Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. We hope these things will make your trip a bit more comfortable and remind you that we are thinking of you.
The note was signed by virtually every family on the street, including all the children. There must have been thirty or forty signatures, some written neatly in ink, some awkwardly in pencil, some scrawled in crayon. The basket contained wrapped sandwiches, a few pieces of fruit, and a small amount of human currency, a collection apparently having been taken up for "Carl's" benefit. Amar would normally have scoffed at such a gesture, but he'd read the note with a tightness in his throat, even snapping at Orlon when he'd wanted to simply leave the basket behind.
*We should give it more time,* Amar said to Orlon, struggling to keep the exasperation out of his voice as the hole in his life where Malik should have been grew larger. *The humans became much more mobile after the x-ray machines were installed, so it's possible that Brivari's allies are simply off the base on 'leave', or whatever they call it.*
*Damned machines,* Orlon said sourly, the x-rays being yet another simple device that had proven an insurmountable obstacle. *Now we know where those came from.*
*What do you mean?*
*Malik, of course,* Orlon said. *He knew all about those infernal machines, so he probably tipped the humans off as to their usefulness.*
*Malik knew about them because he had repaired them,* Amar said, eyeing Orlon severely. *In case you've forgotten, Malik was our front, our interface with the humans and the source of the currency we needed to survive.*
*And apparently a willing stooge for Brivari in his efforts to sabotage us,* Orlon said darkly.
*Where is this coming from?* Amar snapped. *Yesterday you told me that you caught Brivari sabotaging the emergents' tanks, and that Malik and Marana had likely been killed in the fight. Then you turned around and accused him of being a traitor, and today you're doing the same thing! How can he be a traitor if he's dead?*
*I told you I'm not certain he's dead,* Orlon replied. *I said I thought Marana was probably dead because she was badly injured, but I don't know what happened to Malik. Maybe he's alive. And if he is, that means he's a traitor.*
*Like hell it does!* Amar retorted. *That could also mean he's captive. And what makes you think he might be alive? Have you seen something to make you think that?*
Orlon looked away. *No.*
*Then I'm not following your line of reasoning, assuming there ever was one,* Amar said coldly as Orlon's eyes flashed. *Is there something you're not telling me?*
*Of course not,* Orlon said impatiently. *I'm just uneasy about all the unanswered questions. I want to be prepared for any eventuality, and you should be too.*
Believe me, I am, Amar thought sourly. It wasn't lost on him that Orlon had not yet revealed his involvement with Athenor; if Orlon was keeping some things from him, there was reason to believe he would keep other things from him as well. And just in case Orlon got any bright ideas, Amar had left him a little present back at the house that would make him regret the day he'd decided to lie to Amar.
******************************************************
7:50 a.m.
Proctor residence
"Mama!" Dee called up the stairs, her book bag over her shoulder. "Mama, where are you? I—"
She stopped as her father appeared at the top of the stairs and put a finger to his lips. "Keep your voice down," David said. "Your mother's downstairs putting in another load of laundry, so hollering up here won't do you any good."
"I thought she did the laundry yesterday, and I wasn't 'hollering'," Dee said.
"She didn't finish," her father answered. "Your mother was a little too preoccupied yesterday. And since we've taken these people in, the least we can do is let them sleep in peace. Please, no more yelling, Dee."
I wasn't yelling, Dee thought, gazing at her father in consternation. What was it with her parents today? Both were adamant that she not disturb the two aliens upstairs, going so far as to close the guest room door and insist that she couldn't so much as peek. Both looked like they'd been up all night, with her mother looking even worse than that. Dee dimly remembered hearing raised voices a couple of times last night, and weary as she'd been from healing the aliens yesterday morning, she'd just rolled over and gone back to sleep. Had they been up arguing last night? Is that why they were both so tired and jumpy?
"Well, I'm leaving for school now," Dee told her father. "I need a note because I was absent yesterday."
"I'll do it," her father said, pulling paper and a pen out of the hallway drawer and scribbling briefly. "Got your lunch?"
"Yes....but I wanted to say goodbye to Mama," Dee said, glancing at the nearly illegible note.
"I'll tell her," David said, planting a kiss on top of her head. "Bye, honey. Have a good day at school."
Dee eyed her father suspiciously for a moment. He usually tried to get her to say goodbye to her mother when they were having one of their battles—why was he so willing to let her skip that this morning? "Daddy....is everything okay?"
"Sure. Why?"
"Is everything okay with Malik and Marana? Is that why you won't let me see them?"
"They're fine," her father said. "I just didn't want to wake them, and you know your mother doesn't want you around them anyway. Let's not upset her; she was upset enough yesterday. You'd better get going, or you'll be late."
A minute later, Dee found herself on the front porch, staring at the door her father had just closed behind her. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn he was trying to hurry her out of the house. Was something else going on? She had half a mind to nip around the back, creep upstairs, and see what was what when she saw Anthony standing on the sidewalk, watching not her, but the house, as though expecting a spaceship to fly up out of the backyard at any moment.
"Hi," Dee said when she reached him.
"I came over after school yesterday, but your mother wouldn't let me in," Anthony reported.
"Of course not," Dee sighed. "She's going to be paranoid all over again."
"So....are they still here?" Anthony asked in a hushed voice.
"Good morning, you two," a voice called behind him. Mary Laura and Rachel were approaching, with Mary Laura using her very best school teacher voice. Anthony threw an anguished look Dee's way, and Dee made a command decision.
"Anthony and I really need to walk to school alone this morning," Dee said. "We have some things to talk about."
Rachel shrugged. "Okay."
"A bit brazen, don't you think?" Mary Laura asked with raised eyebrows.
"Don't be such a priss, Mary Laura," Dee said severely.
"Hmph," Mary Laura sniffed, stalking off as Rachel threw sympathetic glances in Anthony's and Dee's direction. Dee knew that Mary Laura would have this all over school by lunch time, but she didn't care; she and Anthony needed to talk. One of the reasons she'd been careful about what she had and hadn't told him these past few years was because she hadn't wanted to put him in danger just like she and her family were....and the other was that she was afraid the truth would scare him off. Now that he was all the way in on the secret, she needed to know what he was thinking.
"They're still here," Dee told Anthony as soon as Mary Laura and Rachel were out of earshot. "At least I think they are. Mama and Daddy wouldn't let me near them this morning."
"Are they okay?" Anthony asked, falling in step beside her.
"They were yesterday," Dee said.
"Are you okay?"
"I was just tired," Dee replied. "Those stones really wear you out."
"I noticed," Anthony said. "How do those work, exactly?" he added, lowering his voice even though no one was around.
"They let whoever is hurt use your energy to heal themselves," Dee explained. "At least I think that's how it works. That's why whoever's holding them is tired afterwards."
"Is that how they fixed you when Denny hurt you?"
Dee nodded. "I woke up in the woods behind the school and saw all four of them standing over me with glowing stones in their hands."
"Wow," Anthony breathed, falling silent for a moment before continuing. "So why didn't your father use one of those stones? I mean, I know why your mother didn't, but why didn't he help?"
"Because he couldn't," Dee said. "They work for all the aliens, but not for all humans. I can, and so can Mama, but they've never worked for Daddy." She paused a moment, eyeing Anthony curiously. "So are you going to tell me what he said to you yesterday when he took you to school?"
"He didn't tell you?" Anthony asked uncomfortably.
"Nope."
Anthony stopped walking. "I—I'm sorry, Dee, but.....he knows. He knows you told me a long time ago. I didn't tell him, I swear. He just knew."
"That's okay," Dee said. "Daddy's like that. What else did he say?"
"Not much," Anthony admitted, as they resumed walking. "Turns out I knew most of it anyway. You know....the war, the king and his family, the guy who stole the king's throne. The one part I didn't know is that they could change what they look like. Can they look like anything else besides us and...them?"
"They've been animals," Dee confirmed. "Coyotes—"
"Coyotes?" Anthony echoed. "You mean....you mean like the coyote that killed Denny Miltnor?"
"Yeah," Dee said quietly. "And they've been birds. Hawks, owls—"
As if on cue, a bird sang in the tree they were passing, and Anthony jumped, staring up at the branches. "And this is why I never told you they were shapeshifters," Dee said gently. "Because I was afraid you'd think every single thing you saw was an alien."
"How do they do it?" Anthony wondered. "How do you go from being a human grown-up to being a bird?"
Dee shook her head. "I don't know. But I've seen them do it. It's weird to watch."
"I'll bet," Anthony said, wide-eyed. "Can they look like us too? I mean, I know they can look human, but could they look like you or me?"
"Yes," Dee said heavily, bracing herself for what she knew would be the response.
"But....then how do we know?" Anthony asked, bewildered. "How do we know anyone we see is really who we think they are? Anyone really could be an alien."
"First of all, there aren't that many of them," Dee said, having carefully rehearsed this speech many, many times in the past two years. "Right now there are only six aliens I know of on the planet, so everyone you see can't be an alien. And the way you tell is by asking someone something only they would know. Like, what if I asked you what we were doing the day we met?"
"We were in your backyard, and Ernie made up that stupid capture-the-alien game," Anthony answered. "And you popped him."
"Exactly," Dee said. "An alien who looked like you wouldn't know that. They can only copy what we look like and sound like, not our memories. Now you ask me something."
Anthony stopped walking and studied her for a second. "Tell me about the first time you came over to my house."
"I crawled in the window," Dee answered, "because you were grounded for setting off all those firecrackers around Valenti's car. And you showed me your telescope and your orrey, and I had to leave fast when your mother showed up to send you to bed."
To Dee's surprise, Anthony actually blushed. "Yesterday, I asked your father if he was an alien," he confessed. "I even wondered if you were."
"Mama probably thinks so sometimes," Dee smiled. "And why not? Sometimes I feel like one."
"What do you mean?"
"I know what it feels like to be the one who doesn't fit," Dee said, staring at the ground, "and how lonely it can get when you have to keep a secret."
"Do you ever wish you hadn't found them?" Anthony asked.
Dee shook her head. "No. Never." She hesitated before turning the question around. "What about you? Do you wish you hadn't found out?"
To Dee's enormous relief, Anthony broke into a wide smile. "No way. I wouldn't trade this for the world."
"Really?"
"Really."
They were approaching the school now, and Anthony came to a halt. Dee followed his gaze and sighed in exasperation. Mary Laura had been exceptionally speedy this morning; almost all of the students waiting for the doors to open were watching them approach with some combination of smiles, giggles, and in Ernie Hutton's case, various lewd gestures he'd picked up from his older brother. "Good Lord," Dee grumbled, borrowing a favorite expression of her mother's. "I thought we'd at least have until lunch."
Anthony shrugged. "Who cares? We both know that there's more to life than school gossip, right?"
He smiled at her, and she returned his smile as they walked toward the school, ignoring their classmates. She knew it was selfish of her, but she'd imagined this over and over, the time when Anthony would know everything, or enough that there was no longer any reason to keep things from him. When she no longer had to think carefully before she spoke, when she had someone else to talk to who wasn't a parent. This wasn't exactly the way she'd thought it would happen, but no matter—she was just glad it had.
******************************************************
Proctor residence
Emily set the laundry basket down outside the guest room and leaned wearily against the wall. This was her watch—Dee had left for school, mercifully unaware of the drama she had slept through, and David had headed to bed for some much needed sleep after having been up all night, leaving strict instructions to wake him when Captain Spade returned around lunch time. Emily had been relieved to hear that Spade was coming back to break the news to the nurse about what had been done to her; that was a job she didn't envy him. Besides, she had her own talk to look forward to. She and David had managed a semblance of normalcy this morning as Dee got ready for school, but they couldn't keep this latest turn of events from her much longer, not with Army officers coming and going and Brivari back in the house. As soon as she got home from school, they planned to sit her down and fill her in, and Emily winced inwardly at what she knew would be the response: An announcement from her daughter that the means by which the nurse had been healed were the same means used to heal her three years ago, means developed via methods Emily deplored. This would be followed by a charge of hypocrisy, which would be followed by fruitless counter-arguments, which would be followed by David trying to make peace. It made Emily more tired just thinking about it.
Picking up the basket, Emily carefully opened the guest room door and padded inside, her slippers making no sound on the wood floor. The nurse was still curled in a ball, sleeping peacefully, and Emily removed one of the still warm blankets from the basket and spread it over her. She appeared to have recovered completely with no bleeding, no fever, no outward sign of how close she'd come to death. And that had been very close indeed; Emily's own fatigue was a testament to that. When more than one person used healing stones, some sort of link was formed between them, which explained why she had always been able to tell when her daughter was tiring when both had used the stones simultaneously in the past. Last night was the first time Emily had used the stones with anyone besides Dee, and she had been surprised at how accurately she could gauge the energy all of them were expending. Whatever had ailed the nurse must have been severe because Brivari had worked his tail off, pulling heavily from both Emily and the alien scientist to fix the results of the Army doctor's meddling. And Emily had poured everything she'd had into it, embarrassed beyond belief that this latest example of playing God came from none other than her own people.
Now she glanced toward Marana, still asleep in the rocking chair, her face pale and drawn. David had tucked a blanket around her, and Emily felt another stab of pity that Brivari had used her the way he had, taking from her as relentlessly as he had from Emily, even though she'd had precious little to give. But Brivari had been right; even though he and Emily were strong and rested, the two of them alone may not have been enough to heal the nurse. What little the scientist had had to give had proven crucial.
Emily hesitated a moment before removing another warm blanket from the laundry basket and draping it carefully over Marana....only to pull back in alarm as her eyes flew open.
"What are you doing?" Marana demanded.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Emily exclaimed. "You scared the hell out of me!"
"I said what are you doing?" Marana repeated loudly.
"Keep your voice down!" Emily whispered. "I was just giving you another blanket."
"Why?"
"Because you looked cold," Emily said impatiently. "Is that a good enough reason for you?"
"No," Marana said flatly. "Since when do you care about me?"
"Quiet!" Emily insisted. "You'll wake her!"
Marana's eyes flicked sideways. "Too late."
Emily's heart sank as she turned around to find the nurse's eyes wide open, eyes that moved slowly around the room and finally came to rest on Emily.
"Where am I?" she whispered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'lll post Chapter 127 next Sunday.
Honest, I didn't do that on purpose! There will certainly be glitches, but he got out on the show, so he gets out here. Not only that, but the vast majority of the good guys win, while the vast majority of the bad guys get their butts kicked. You'll probably agree it's about time. 