His eyes were dark with shadow. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
His face was closed, hard, as if he’d only expected my reaction. There was a lifetime of hurt behind that expression, and something inside me wanted to crush the ones responsible for it. I cursed myself for reminding him of it, no matter what my reasons had been.
“I’m sorry, baby.” I reached out to draw him closer. “I was half asleep. Something about that spot on my neck—it just scared me, that’s all. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
His hand smoothed my hair, traced a line down my cheek. “My fault. I should’ve guessed you’d be sensitive there.” He brushed my lips with his and smiled. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby.” It was a lie. The truth was I needed a distraction from the memory that had just surfaced like so much black oil on the still water of my consciousness.
I wanted a reminder of why I should be in no rush to leave our warm bed. I wanted to feel my body, my heart, still humming with the afterglow of the night we had just spent in that bed—the love we had shared, the things we had said. I didn’t want that to end. In fact, I was greedy for more.
I moved closer to Ethan, threw my leg over his hip so I could feel him between my thighs, slid my hand under his arm to his back so I could feel his muscles under my fingertips.
“We don’t have to get up yet, do we?”
He pressed into me so I was certain to know that he was growing harder by the second. “It’s still early.”
Desire flared deep in my belly in response. I rolled him over onto his back and molded my body to his, my breasts to his chest, my belly to his. I cradled his shaft along the crease of my hip and massaged it with a slow grind until he groaned, a sound that rumbled deep in his chest and vibrated in my own. I smiled and bent to tease him with a flick of my tongue across his lips.
“Good. Because it’s my turn to drive you crazy.” I nibbled at his chin. “And that might take some time.”
His eyes lit with anticipation, a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I seem to have all morning.”
In fact, the morning was mostly gone before I let him go at last. Apologies were such pleasurable things between us.
At last, sated and connected once again, I lifted my head to kiss him and found him smiling at me. “’Morning, beautiful.”
“’Morning,” I returned, my lips brushing his.
“That certainly was a damn fine way to start the day.”
“I wasn’t in the mood for oatmeal.”
“Lucky for me.”
I started to move, thinking to head for the bathroom, but he held me back. “I had an idea of something to do today.”
“Oh, yeah?” I settled back down against his chest, my upper body lifted just enough that I could look into his face. He was wearing a serious expression again, one that might have worried me if his arms weren’t still warm around me.
“That scar on your neck. I thought we might get it checked out.”
Despite everything, a shiver ran up my spine. Of all the things he might have said, this was the least expected.
“What do you mean, get it checked out?”
“I have a friend, a doctor at a clinic in Rome. He could take an X-ray for us. If there’s something there, he could remove it so we could take a look.”
I slid off his body and sat up in the bed, pulling the sleeping bag up around my chin. It was as if all the blood in my veins had suddenly been replaced with water the temperature of the lake outside.
Ethan’s hand stroked my back. “It might provide another piece to the puzzle, Asia. But if you’re not ready, we don’t have to do it.”
“Another piece to the puzzle,” I repeated. “Proof, you mean. Proof that all these things I’ve been telling you are real.”
Ethan sat up and turned me to face him. “Asia, I don’t need proof. I have pages and pages of notes from the sessions we had with AL. I have pages of notes from Ida’s sessions. I’ve seen the scar from the tunnel collapse—something you didn’t even remember until three days ago. I believe you because I believe in you.”
I smiled at him and reached up to touch his face. Thank God I had found him.
“If there is something under that scar, though,” he went on, “others might find it a little easier to believe. And we might be able to convince someone to help us. We can’t keep running forever.”
A lump formed in my throat that made it hard to say anything. No, we couldn’t run forever. And we couldn’t hide up here in the boonies, either, as pleasant as it might be. Eventually we had to go back to our lives. Or, at least, Ethan had to go back to his. I’d never had much of one to start with. When we met, I’d asked him for my three hours back. It was beginning to look like he’d done that. Beyond that, I hadn’t thought—until this very moment.
My heart developed a tiny, very painful crack.
“You’re right.” Before I could chicken out, I committed myself. “Why don’t you call and set something up? Let’s go see your friend.”
The ride to the little city of Rome was relatively short—just over an hour by the scenic route Ethan chose—and quiet. I hadn’t felt much like talking since we’d decided on this course of action, and Ethan, sensing my mood, had let me be. I didn’t want him to know how much the idea of holding an alien probe in my hands that had been removed from my body scared the hell out of me, so I kept it to myself.
There was a sense of ending in the air that morning, a feeling that something was close to being over. For the first time since the goon squad attacked us, I took the time to sort through the pieces of what I knew and realized what questions remained hardly mattered anymore. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, I had been stolen from my life and press-ganged into another one, a life of emptiness and slavery and deprivation in another time and place, for how long I don’t know. Through the bravery of Dozen and unknown others, I was rescued from that life and returned to my own, with the loss of three precious hours and at an unbearable cost. Did it really matter now who took me, or why? Did it matter precisely who was interested enough in my story that they wanted to kidnap me and keep me as a guinea pig in a lab somewhere? I wasn’t sure anymore. What really mattered was whether we had the power to stop them.
I glanced at Ethan and felt that teeny crack in my heart grow a little wider. He would do anything to protect me, even at the cost of his career, or his life. He’d said so, he’d done so, but even more, I’d seen it in his eyes, in the way he touched me, held me, made love to me. What he didn’t know was that I would do the same for him, given the chance. Despite the things we had said to each other last night, perhaps because of what we had said, that chance was bound to come. Sacrifices would be made.
I was so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed that the woods had thinned and yielded to suburban office parks and housing developments and strip malls until Ethan hit the first red stoplight and turned to look at me.
“Are you all right? You can still change your mind if you want to.”
I met his gaze. “No. I need to do this. Are we almost there?”
He nodded. “Just ahead.” He scooted forward when the light turned green, then took the next right into an artificial “town square” of dark brick and glass office buildings. He pulled into a parking space near one of them, and we went inside. The lobby was full of sun and tall plants and moderately expensive furniture; the receptionist was pleasant and efficient; the registration procedures were dull and routine. I had no job; I had no insurance. This was going to be a cash-only transaction. I was hoping Ethan could strike a deal. Ethan’s friend came out himself to meet us. He burst through the waiting room door—tall, African-American, with light skin and dark eyes and a huge grin for a friend he hadn’t seen in what Ethan told me had been six years.
“Ethan! Man, I couldn’t believe it was you on the phone this morning!”
Ethan’s grin was just as big as they exchanged a back-slapping hug. “It’s good to see you, Dom.” He t
urned to me. “This is Asia Burdette. Asia, Dominick Carter.”
The doctor smiled and offered me a hand in greeting. “Ethan and I used to get in a lot of trouble together in high school.”
“Really?” I lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”
Dr. Carter opened the door that led to the interior of the clinic and ushered us in. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.” He merely smiled when Ethan groaned theatrically. “How long are you folks in the area? Maybe we could do dinner or something?”
Ethan gave the appropriate social responses, feeding Carter a tolerable line about how and why we were in the area, asking about the wife and kids and so on, smoothly keeping his friend’s attention while I struggled to control the rising panic that threatened to send me screaming back into the parking lot. My pulse was roaring in my ears and my palms were clammy by the time we reached the doctor’s office. I was grateful we hadn’t gone directly to the nurses’ station to check my vitals, or they might have called a code on me right then and there.
Once we settled into our chairs in front of the doctor’s desk I knew I’d run out of time. Carter looked at me with bright professionalism.
“So, what can I help you with today, Asia? Would you prefer to speak to me alone, or do you want Ethan to stay for this part of things?”
I glanced at Ethan, a smile twitching at the corners of my lips despite everything. “Actually, I’d prefer to have him with me for as much of this as possible. I’m a little nervous about medical procedures.”
Carter returned my smile. “That’s not unusual. I don’t make a terrific patient myself. Ethan said something about an old neck injury?”
“Yeah, well, it’s the damndest thing.” I spun the lie we’d concocted to cover the truth. “I cut the back of my neck on a metal window frame when I was a kid—you know, just one of those stupid accidents. I’m leaning out the window, I pull back and scrape my neck and end up in the emergency room with stitches. Anyway, just lately the thing has started aching like a sonofagun. The last couple of nights I could hardly sleep. Ethan thinks maybe there’s a splinter or something in there trying to work its way out. Do you think that’s even possible? I mean, after all this time?”
Carter’s brows had come together in puzzlement as I told the story, but a smile replaced the frown as I finished up. “Tell you the truth, Asia, I’m not sure. It’s not unheard of for that kind of thing to happen.” He got up and moved to the back of my chair. My heart started beating a little faster. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
I shook my head. “No, of course not.”
He brought an examination lamp over to put some light on my neck. I felt the warmth—and renewed panic—as he switched it on. My fingers gripped the arms of my chair, and I tried to breathe. He moved my hair aside to take a look.
“Now if you’d asked me last week, your story wouldn’t have been very high on the weird scale. I had a guy in here who’d swallowed a hearing aid battery instead of his heart pill and wanted to know if it was going to kill him.”
I felt his fingers probing the scar, and my eyes opened wide in fear. Ethan gazed back at me, letting me know nothing was ever going to hurt me again the way I’d been hurt when that scar was left on my neck. And because I believed him, I could stand Carter’s hands on me, I could survive the last few seconds of the exam.
Carter straightened at last and turned the light off. “Well, it’s a little red and raised there. It’s certainly an unusual scar. I’ve never seen stitching like that before.”
I gave him a shaky smile. “Yeah, my mom said I made quite a mess of my neck.”
He pinned me with a hawk-like stare. “You look pale. Is it that painful?”
“Well, it’s nothing like having a baby, if that’s what you mean.” I tried to give my best impression of nonchalance. “When you touch it, it feels like a needle working its way into my brain stem.” I was lying, of course. What I felt wasn’t pain at all, really, just the memory of pain. But the memory was just as I described it.
The doctor massaged the back of his own neck in unconscious empathy. “I don’t know, I guess they could have left a little splinter in there. The only way to tell is with a scan. A CAT or MRI would be best, but we can’t risk it if that frame might have been steel. We’ll just have to run an X-ray and hope it’ll show us something. Wait here a minute, and I’ll have one of the nurses set it up, okay?”
I nodded, too drained to speak. It was up to Ethan to answer, “Thanks, Dom,” before Carter swept from the room.
Ethan leaned forward and took both my hands in his. He searched my face. “This is more difficult than you expected, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t answer him. My eyes dropped to his hands, so warm and strong and steady, a lifeline I suddenly found I desperately needed.
“I won’t leave you, Asia. You’re safe here with me and Dom. This is an X-ray, just a brief, noninvasive procedure that you’ve given the doctor your permission to perform. Now I know you understand all that intellectually, but you have to know it emotionally, too. Repeat it to yourself until it makes sense in here.” He touched me very gently in the center of my chest.
I glanced up at him and managed the tiniest of smiles. “Thanks, Doc.” The words came out in a frightened whisper. I took a deep breath and tried to follow his advice.
He grinned at me. “I think you’ll find my fees have gone up since the last time you were in my office.”
“And I think I might have paid in advance this morning.” I released a nervous laugh.
The office door swung open and Carter stood in the doorway with a nurse right behind him. “The nurse will take you down the hall to X-ray. I’ll see you folks in a few minutes when the films come back, okay?”
I took a deep breath and got to my feet. Fortunately the office space was tight; no one noticed Ethan as he put a hand under my elbow to steady me. I was grateful for it as we made our way down the corridor. Everything had taken on the skewed aspect of a drug-induced haze, the result of hyperventilation and too much adrenaline. My heart was battering the inside of my chest and my lips were stuck together over my dry mouth.
Ethan left me outside the X-ray room with a final squeeze of my fingertips, and it took every bit of courage I possessed to walk the few steps to the machine. Thank God I was allowed to sit for the films, or I would have passed out for sure. Once again, Dr. Carter’s people did their jobs well. The big machine buzzed benignly, I was asked to change positions a few times, and I was sent back into the hallway and Ethan’s arms within minutes.
Ethan leaned in close as he walked me back up the corridor. “You okay?”
I nodded, beginning to find my breath again.
We waited outside Carter’s office for a while before he called us in to view the films. My nerves spiked again as we sat down across the desk from him, but my fear was quickly replaced with surprise.
“Well, there’s nothing here that I can see.” The doctor turned his chair to point at the films in the backlit viewer behind him. We sat forward in our chairs to peer at them. The scar, which had been circled, showed up as a slightly lighter mass, but nothing hard-edged stood out. “You would hardly know there was anything there if we hadn’t marked the scar for you.”
Ethan and I looked at each other. His face was unreadable.
Carter shrugged. “Sometimes you get a little phantom pain in the area of an old injury like this. No one knows why.” He pulled out a prescription pad. “I can give you some lidocaine cream to put on it and some Tylenol-3 so you can sleep at night. That should calm things down. If you’re still having pain by the time the prescription runs out, see your regular doctor and talk to him or her about the possibility of a cortisone shot, okay?”
“Okay.” I tried not to seem like a complete idiot, though I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say. Was I disappointed that he hadn’t found an alien probe in my neck? Relieved? Or just confused?
“Thanks, Doc.”
> Again, it was left to Ethan to say all the right things, which he managed as adroitly as ever. Carter walked us to the lobby, where we said our goodbyes amid promises to get together before we left New York, and we finished up the paperwork. Ethan and I made it all the way out to the car before I collapsed and started shaking like a Chihuahua in a snowstorm.
He pulled me close and held me until I could breathe. “It’s okay, Asia.” He smiled at me and brushed the hair out of my face. “Let’s get you home.”
The afternoon had turned gray and cold by the time we pulled up in front of the lake house, and a gusty wind was blowing off the water. I shivered in the kitchen, putting on water for tea while Ethan got a fire going in the fireplace and threw another couple of logs into the woodstove. Soon enough, though, the fire was snapping bravely against the draft and things were starting to warm up. Outside, the wind had blown up a rattle of raindrops against the windows. I was glad to curl up with my mug and microfleece on the bed and watch the flames dance in the fireplace.
Ethan stretched out on the bed beside me, propping himself up on one elbow and balancing his own mug of brew in front of him. He wasn’t watching the fire, though. He was watching me.
I turned to look at him and smiled. “Okay. I guess I’m ready to talk about it.”
“Only if you want to.”
“I don’t think this bed is big enough for the two of us plus the great big elephant we brought with us back from the doctor’s office.”
Ethan smiled. “You have a point.”
“So. No alien probe. No proof.”
“Right. But that’s not the only problem.”
“No.” My stomach was suddenly churning. “Because if the probe is no longer there, where is it? I mean, was it removed? And if so, who removed it?”
“Exactly.” Ethan took a thoughtful pull on his tea. “Asia, what if your loss of memory about the time you spent in captivity wasn’t the result of trauma? What if it was the result of a deliberate effort to make you forget?”
Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1) Page 25
