The Butterfly Code

by Wyshynski, Sue

  My head drops and my eyes drift from the dizzy ceiling to Hunter’s face. His surgical mask is pulled down under his well-shaped jaw. Dried blood stains his neck. From when he carried me.

  Hunter sinks down until our heads are level. “You scared the hell out of me. You know that?” He gives me a half smile.

  “Dad,” I croak. “You have to help Dad.”

  “He’s here. He’s perfectly safe.”

  Of course, he was in the operating room. I heard him. Relief gives way to fresh shock at a fragment of recall.

  “Our dog—”

  “Sammy’s all right, too.”

  Hunter smooths away my hair, and my skin tingles faintly in response. My sluggish brain takes a moment to process it all. Sammy looked so hurt. And Dad—they were kicking him and beating him. I breathe out. Dad’s all right. Sammy made it. Thank you, God.

  The chase comes back to me, vivid images fast and rough.

  Me approaching the gates. Screaming at the cameras. And then Hunter was there.

  “I saw you …” I break off, staring at him, trying to make sense of it. How had he gotten there so fast? He lifted the ATV off me and threw it. He threw it! An eight-hundred-pound vehicle. At the windshield of the men who were chasing me. I saw it smash. No, it wasn’t possible. A vivid dream. Was I even conscious?

  “What do you think you saw him do?” Victoria demands.

  Emotions surge over me. It’s weird, though, because they’re not my feelings. They’re hers. I sense them almost as clearly as if they were my own. Wariness and anger flow from her, resounding on a different pitch than if they’d come from me. Hers is a faster, more refined vibration. She’s suffering an overlying emotion that colors it all.

  Fear.

  Victoria is afraid. It’s the kind of fear that makes my stomach churn. I don’t know how I’m feeling it, just that I am. Is it because I hit my head? It’s coming on so strong I need to make it stop.

  Hunter’s stormy amber gaze snaps from my face to hers. “Out.”

  Her mouth opens in surprise.

  “Go,” he says, pointing to a mahogany door set in the far wood paneling. It has a brass knob that looks to be from another century.

  “Yes,” she says. The door creaks as she opens it and marches out of the room.

  Hunter may as well have flipped a switch. The crippling fear disappears, leaving me drained. How did he know I was upset by her emotional turmoil? Was it the look on my face? Can he read me that well?

  From beneath my heavy lids, I notice the red-haired man leaning against a steel counter.

  His face is grim. “So you’re the lucky girl who’s captured Hunter’s interest.”

  The way he says it sends a chill over my prone form. I say nothing as he straightens and crosses under the blazing lights.

  “Back in a few,” he tells Hunter, who has moved to a flashing monitor.

  Hunter grunts in reply.

  The door opens again. This time, I catch a brief glimpse of a warmly lit room with overstuffed chairs and rich carpets before it clicks shut.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” Hunter says with a calm strength that cushions me. He wets a cloth at the sink and rubs it softly over my face. “You doing all right? You’ve had a bad shock.”

  It was more than shock. But his attention distracts me. I close my eyes as he continues to stroke the hot fabric over the bridge of my nose and forehead. Clearing away the blood. Still, he can’t completely wipe away the remnants of Victoria’s fear that cling like a knot in my disembodied center.

  Did he notice what I sensed from her? Did she? Or is he right? I’m in shock. I need to stop freaking myself out. I need to calm down. Splintered recollections barrage my mind. I can still hear Hunter begging me to come back to him. And then—

  “You injected me with something,” I whisper.

  “I injected you with a lot of things.”

  My pulse throbs in my temples. “I thought I was going to die.”

  “You think I would have let you do that?” He puts down the cloth and touches my cheek with his thumb. I turn and press my face to his palm.

  A bout of nausea takes hold. I wrench my face away. The ceiling wobbles and begins to spin, butterflies flying in a circle above me.

  “What’s going on?” Hunter says.

  “I’m going to faint.”

  “Deep breaths, there you go. I got you.” He checks my blood pressure as he talks.

  I breathe in, gulping air until I can speak. “I would’ve been dead if you hadn’t come.”

  “Yeah. Well.” He looks away. “It’s my own damn fault you had that key.”

  “You couldn’t know that. So thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me for trouble I got you into,” he growls.

  “Try and stop me,” I whisper.

  He grows unnaturally quiet and then says. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

  I’m fading fast and trying to keep my eyes open. I know I’m badly hurt. Mangled, even. I should be afraid. His presence soothes me, though.

  “Guess we won’t make that concert,” I say.

  He lets out a low laugh. “Exactly my thoughts when I saw you leading that chase like some batgirl out of hell.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do. The only way I could think to get rid of them was to throw the key through the gates so it would be gone.”

  His mouth opens, his brows draw upward, and then he shakes his head. To my surprise, he lets out a bark of laughter.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You.”

  I’m struggling to speak. “What are you talking about?”

  “You just take the bull by its horns. You don’t even know how to stop. You jump on and go for it.”

  “What choice did I have?” I swallow and a dizzy wave hits me.

  “That actually wasn’t a bad plan. Most people would have hidden in the bushes until the bad guys left.”

  “How did you get there so quick?”

  “I was nearby,” he says vaguely.

  I close my eyes. I can’t fight the creeping blackness much longer. “I just wanted to save my dad and Sammy.”

  “You did, Aeris.” His voice is soft. “You did good. I’m proud of you.”

  I glance down to see his strong hand against my arm, but something’s wrong. It’s like my arm is dead. An amputated limb.

  I can’t feel it!

  Adrenaline spikes me out of my stupor. I attempt to wiggle my fingers. Nothing. Then the real fear strikes. “Am I paralyzed?” I cry.

  “No. I think it’s only temporary.”

  I stare at him as a phantom feeling of cold floods into limbs I can’t actually sense.

  “You think?” I say.

  “Let’s take it one step at a time.”

  My music. My work. My soul. My root. Will I ever be able to play again?

  I clamp down on the question. I’m not ready for that future. I can’t get enough air. Blackness narrows in, pressing at the edges of my vision. Blood drains from my head.

  “Stay with me, Aeris,” he says, concerned. “Come on.”

  The sheet rustles at my side, and he takes my disembodied hand.

  Numb or not, I sense the connection immediately. A wall. No—almost a force field around him—seems to rip loose. His emotions stream into me like water from a scorching river. A jarring rush. Masculine and completely unlike my own. Urgency. Guilt. A savage protectiveness. For me. So fierce it makes my breath hopscotch.

  I stare at him, mouth open, and let it rush in.

  My own emotions surge back like the outgoing tide and seem to slam into him. It’s intense and beautiful and astonishing, and I don’t want it to stop. This wild, inexplicable exchange. My heart starts to pound. If I told him what I was experiencing, he’d think I was crazy.

  The heart monitor pings faster, ringing in my ears. It doesn’t matter that I’m numb. I’m shaken. I hear it. Thanks to the machine, Hu
nter can, too.

  That’s great. That’s all I need. A broadcasting device.

  He steps away, quickly. A wall comes down and I no longer feel him. If I felt him at all. Maybe the drugs they gave me are messing with my ability to think straight.

  He adjusts an IV bag. “Don’t worry. I’ll have you back the way you were, I promise.” His voice is ragged. “Good as new.”

  My eyes grow damp and I blink, hard. Please, let it be true.

  He smiles to reassure me, yet it’s strained. “There’s going to be pain. I need to warn you. But you’re up for the fight. I know it.”

  I nod.

  “I’m going to get your dad.”

  I’m left with the orange-red sea of butterflies overhead.

  I hear Dad’s familiar stride. Panic flares in me out of nowhere. Inwardly, I flinch away with an awful, unreasonable terror. A wild, animalistic instinct winds up inside for a fight. I’m injured; I need to protect myself! But that’s ridiculous. Dad wouldn’t hurt me.

  Blinding terror rises higher and higher and flies from my mouth in a groan.

  “Aeris.” His gruff voice barely covers his shock.

  “That’s close enough,” comes Hunter’s voice.

  It’s Dad, it’s just Dad, it’s just Dad… .

  Reason fights with dread. I have to destroy him, get away, have to find safety, to find a dark hole to heal my wounds.

  Dad calls, “Peanut, if you can hear me, I love you.” His voice breaks. “You’re safe. You’re going to be fine. I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”

  Pain flares to life in my right leg. White hot. I gasp as it moves to my left leg, and into my hips. What was numb before is now on fire. Dripping hot fire, like flesh melting over a bonfire of violent flames. I open my mouth to scream.

  Nothing comes out.

  I’m dropping away from consciousness. Howling pain is coming along for the ride. It’s flaying me alive, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. No way to cry out for help.

  I realize now what hell must be like.

  I’m drowning in molten lava, bones melting. I have to get out. Voices penetrate suddenly, from a long way off. I strain, agonized, toward them.

  “Let’s get her into a recovery chamber.” Hunter’s voice. A recovery chamber? I puzzle over the odd choice of words. “We can save the chitchat for later.”

  “Make that you,” Ian says. “I want no part of this.”

  “It’s our duty, on about a dozen levels of which you are fully aware, to keep the patient in this room, in this very house, alive.”

  “Don’t tell me my duty. And if you think I’m going to talk technicalities with her dad, you’re wrong.”

  My body throbs as I try to cling to the conversation.

  “Out of everyone, you’re coming down on me?” Hunter says. “When you’re always raging about restrictions?”

  “Not about this.”

  “You know who she is. You saw her blood sample. You would have let her die?” Hunter pauses. “Don’t walk away from me.”

  My blood sample … my pounding brain struggles to grasp what he’s saying. I recall a prick in some security booth—here, outside the gates. It took my blood.

  Footsteps grow farther away.

  “What’s done is done,” Hunter calls.

  The footsteps stop.

  “She has multiple fractures in both arms and legs,” Ian says sharply. “Broken ribs, extensive organ damage. She was crushed against a gate by an eight-hundred-pound moving vehicle. Look at her.” The sound of a fist slamming metal is followed by a curse. “Thorne saw her—he knows she should be dead. It was all over his face. You shouldn’t have let him in.”

  “Well, I did,” Hunter says.

  “Damn the present, remember? Remember that? The agreement that keeps the feds and every Jack, Dick, and Harriet with a budget out?” He’s nearly shouting. “You think we want them in here? Me, or Vic, or any of us?” His rage sends me riding on a wave of terror. I sense he fears for his life. Worse, for his sanity. “She was dead.”

  Dead? I was dead? That can’t be true.

  I feel a phantom prickle across my scalp as I share his panic, unable to block the pummeling current of dread.

  Did Hunter use some experimental drug to restart my heart? Did he break some rule? Even so, it doesn’t justify Ian’s wild fear seeping through my bones.

  Another presence enters the room. Waves of soft, female energy pour over me, wise and comforting, soothing the raging fire.

  “That’s enough,” the woman’s voice says. “Let our young friend rest. The last thing she needs is to hear you boys bickering.”

  “Bickering?” Ian snorts. “Don’t you get it?”

  “There’s no turning back. I think we should make her feel welcome.”

  “Yeah? For how long, Lucy?”

  “As long as it takes,” Lucy says.

  “You were in trouble once, Ian, remember?” Hunter asks.

  “How can I forget when you keep reminding me?” His bitter feelings flood me. “I’m going to find a drink.”

  Hunter says, “Good luck with that.”

  “Yeah.” Ian lets out a harsh laugh.

  I breathe out, spent.

  “The police are here,” comes Victoria’s voice. “They’re demanding to see her.”

  “Damn it,” Hunter growls.

  “They can’t hurt us now,” Lucy says. “Let them in.”

  A second later, hard, squeaky shoes make tracks across the floor. A man coughs. Two more mutter words I don’t catch.

  Fiery pain grabs me and yanks me into a volcanic abyss.

  The brightly lit room and its people are lost to me.

  There’s no way back.

  Sixteen

  I have no idea how much time has passed.

  Occasionally, I hear voices. Hunter, Victoria, Ian. Commenting on my status.

  More than the voices, however, it’s the emotions of the people in the room that I latch onto for distraction. It’s the only thing that brings me some measure of relief. How I feel them, I don’t know; yet they comfort me. Is it a side effect from the accident? Forced solitude that’s making my senses stronger? Complete imagination, perhaps? Insanity?

  Whatever the cause, it occurs to me in this moment that people wear emotional signatures. I feel Victoria in the room with me now. She’s a fierce blend of satire and sharp edges, with an odd vulnerability underneath that I can’t quite put my finger on.

  There’s a clank of metal instruments dropping on a tray. Small wheels rolling across the floor. Buttons clicking on a keyboard. The sound is mildly muffled, as though my bed has tall, solid sides.

  I’m getting that same fear from her again. It’s deep and blended with churning confusion. Anger warring with fierce caring. For what, I can’t tell. Her emotions are just that—emotions with no further information attached. Like hearing jarring movie music with a blanket covering the TV screen.

  Ian enters. A wave washes between them and I follow its movement, letting it obscure my own agony. It’s love, for her.

  “Don’t worry, it’s under control,” he says.

  “Is it? We don’t know that.” She’s not accusatory. She’s looking for reassurance.

  “The levels are experiencing significant die-off. Look here, at the numbers.”

  Are they talking about me? No, must be some research thing.

  “They were dying off,” she says in a stiff tone. “Now they’re holding steady.”

  “A brief plateau. It’s going to be fine.”

  “If not?”

  Alarming waves hit me. Dark and loud. Pummeling me from their end of the room. Their frightened feelings mix with my pain. It’s like they can sense me in the same way I sense them. As if my pain is affecting them internally. Injuring them.

  “Ian,” Victoria demands, “and if she’s not under control?”

  “Then we’ll deal with her.”

  His tone fills me with terror.

  �
��How?” she demands.

  There’s a long pause.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Ian growls. “It’s too much. It’s giving me a headache.”

  I desperately try to pull back from him. Why do they want to get me under control? What’s happened to me?

  Things grow jumbled then. My legs are shattering. Every one of my bones is exploding. I’m like the giant oak in front of Dad’s house, aflame. Tree limbs cracking and sputtering in the blaze. Over it all comes the sound of my unfinished composition.

  I can’t go on. I just can’t make it.

  Mom’s here.

  Oh god, thank you, Mom. I miss you. Need you.

  Her cool hand touches my brow and drapes icy wet cloths over my flaming eyes. I want to tell her what I’m going through. I don’t need to, though; it’s clear she understands. The fierce sympathy that flows from her soothes me.

  When she speaks, it’s with Victoria’s voice. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Not even you.”

  I fade for a while, into a place of blissful silence.

  How many hours have passed?

  Hunter’s in the room. His emotional signature is instantly recognizable. It’s a barrage of contradictions I’m coming to know. Guarded yet expansive. Cheerful yet sober. Stubborn and dark, but with a bright streak leaking through. Solid yet wary—of what, I can’t see.

  It’s a surprise when I hear Dad speak. I didn’t feel him there. I strain to use my newly honed senses, imagined or not, to detect how he’s holding up.

  He’s blank.

  “How did you find out?” Dad says. Grim.

  “From her blood sample at the security booth. Victoria ran a trace. That was when it all started making sense. You, for one.”

  I’m trying to focus, yet the more I do, the more the earlier fear I felt toward Dad starts creeping up. Enraged that I could fall prey to such a hallucination, I clamp my terror down by sheer force of will. The effort leaves me spent.

  “Look. She’s alive,” Hunter says. “And she’s going to be fine. Exactly as she was. No long-term effects. You could at least be happy about that.”

  “I am. By god, yes, I am.” Dad sounds older. Tired. Beaten down. I want to hug him and tell him not to worry.