by Tiffany Snow
“He won’t hurt them,” I assured him. “Not permanently anyway.”
John acknowledged that with a nod. “Okay. Let’s go.”
I followed him into the room, unsurprised to see a woman sitting in a chair in the corner. Her expression was grim, but she appeared unhurt. John didn’t say anything to her. Instead he immediately set me up on the MRI table.
“Are you claustrophobic?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.” I’d never had an MRI before, but knew the procedure. Lay on the table—they slide you into a tube and could magically see inside. It sounded pretty straightforward.
“Once you’re inside, you’ll be able to hear me talk to you,” he said. “So if you should become uncomfortable, just tell me and I’ll move you out.”
“Okay.”
“You want to come with me?” he asked Devon, who shook his head.
“I’ll stay with Ivy.”
I flashed him a wan smile. He took my hand and held it. The table was narrow and hard and I could feel nausea churning in my stomach.
John disappeared behind another door that took him into the control room. I tried to concentrate on my breathing as I waited, my thoughts going back to what he’d said about things that could cause a nosebleed. My imagination was going crazy thinking of what those things could be, and I was terrified in the way you get when the inevitable is something too awful to consider.
The table began slowly moving me into the tube. Devon held my hand for as long as he could, then I felt his palm on my thigh, then my calf before I stopped moving. I stared up at the inside of the tube, unprepared for exactly how small it was. No wonder John had asked if I was claustrophobic. I’d never considered myself such, but as I lay there, I could feel a creeping unease. I tried to relax.
“You all right?” I heard John’s voice over a tinny speaker.
“Yes.”
“Just relax and lie very still. This won’t take long.”
The table hummed, then the sudden sound of jackhammers nearly startled a squeak from me. I tried not to think about how I was in a tiny metal cylinder and couldn’t get out. The metal above me was scant inches from my nose and I stared at it. I thought I should close my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to. The nausea and panic notched upward and I broke out in a cold sweat.
I felt Devon squeeze my leg. “It’s all right, my darling. You’re doing beautifully.”
His voice and touch soothed me and I took another deep breath. Then another. I wasn’t going to panic and screw this up. It wasn’t like we had much time or that we’d get a second chance.
After what felt like an eternity, John said, “Great job, Ivy. We’re all done.”
Immediately, the table began sliding out of the machine. Cooler air touched my skin and the hard knot in my chest eased as I was finally out. Devon helped me sit up as John emerged from the control room.
“How are you doing?” he asked me. “Feel okay?”
I nodded. “I’m tired and have a headache, but that’s all.”
“Good. I’m going to nicely ask the radiologist over there to help me go over your scan.”
“I’m not going to help you,” the woman said stiffly, speaking for the first time. “You’re not authorized to be here or use this equipment. Not to mention threatening me.”
“I apologize for my friend,” John said. “I am a doctor and circumstances required us to be a little . . . creative in accessing the imaging equipment.” He indicated me. “This woman is very ill. Deathly ill. I need some help in correctly diagnosing her scan. Please. Will you help us?”
The woman’s gaze swerved to me. She was a petite lady of Asian descent, maybe in her mid-forties. The ID tag attached to her clothing read “Sonya.” I waited, unblinking and unflinching as she surveyed me.
“Fine,” she said at last, the word curt. “But I will be reporting all of this to the police.”
“We aren’t asking you not to,” John said, using what I was sure was his “doctor voice.” The calm, reasoned, and reassuring tone that all doctors at some point or another had to cultivate, especially for delivering bad news. “Just take a look at the scans.”
Sonya glanced warily at Devon, who remained quiet, though that didn’t lessen the edge to him that anyone with half a brain could instinctively sense. She got up and John let her precede him into the control room. He closed the door behind them.
Devon slid his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him, waiting. It took the better part of ten minutes, but then John and Sonya emerged.
Surprisingly, it was Sonya who approached me rather than John.
“Your scan was inconclusive,” she said. “You don’t have a tumor, but neither did I see a cause for your nosebleeds or headaches.”
Devon’s hand squeezed my shoulder tight, and I was grateful he was helping to keep me upright. My knees were shaking.
“We’d need to do more tests to determine the cause. Starting with blood tests in the lab.”
Blood tests. But they couldn’t have my blood. They’d know something was different. Would they lock me up again if they knew about the virus?
“It’s come on very quickly, correct?” she asked. “And gotten worse?”
I nodded. “Just in the last few days.”
“Then we really don’t have much time,” she said. “You need to be admitted right away.”
I didn’t know what to say and a heavy silence fell.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and the compassion in her voice and pity in her eyes nearly broke me.
“Thank you,” I managed to get out. I looked up at Devon. “I want to leave now.”
“Of course, darling.” He turned to John. “Is there anything you can do for her?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go. Thank you, Sonya.”
“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand and stepping in front of me. “You can’t just leave and take her. She needs to be admitted. She needs more tests.”
“I’ll do what I can,” John said.
Sonya’s jaw tightened and she straightened her spine to her full five feet. “You’re not removing her from this facility. She obviously needs care and a physician who can diagnose her symptoms. I won’t let you take her.”
I stared at her in awed surprise. She was a stranger to me, standing in front of two men—one of whom had already threatened her and who she had to know was extremely dangerous—yet she was demanding I stay, putting her own safety on the line for a woman she didn’t even know.
“You don’t have a choice,” Devon said, and his tone was such that there was no arguing.
“Thank you,” I said to her. “I’ll be okay.” A blatant lie, but what else could I say?
Sonya watched us leave and I wanted to reassure her further, but I couldn’t find the words. My thoughts were a bit preoccupied, to say the least.
“I want to put Ivy in a room,” John said. “That’ll draw less attention, then I can get her some medication.”
“What kind of medication?” Devon asked.
“Stimulants. Steroids. Things that will help her body fight back and keep going. It won’t cure her, but can’t hurt either. I’ve seen it help terminal patients.”
Terminal. The word gave me a jolt. Was I terminal? The MRI showed no tumor, but it was almost worse not knowing the reason for the headaches and nosebleeds.
John again looked like he knew exactly where he was going, leading me to an empty exam room.
“Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“Should we let him go on his own?” I asked Devon as John left us alone in the room. “Don’t you think he’ll escape or something?”
“He’s not going to try and escape,” Devon said. “I doubt he even views himself as a prisoner anymore.”
We waited—Devon with a relaxed patience, and me barely able to sit still. I was acutely conscious of our vulnerability here inside the hospital.
The minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness, until even Devon began to show signs
of tensing, then John suddenly burst back into the room.
“Give me your arm, Ivy,” he said. He was carrying a needle and he reached for me, yanking the cap off the syringe with his teeth and spitting it out onto the floor.
Before I could reply, he’d pushed the needle into my upper arm and injected me. I hissed—the medicine burned something fierce—then he was repeating the procedure with another syringe.
“These are extremely expensive injections,” he said as he finished. “And I think I just outed us when I took them. So we should really haul ass now.”
I had no idea what he’d given me, but I felt an immediate reaction. A surge of warmth in my veins with a pleasing numbness spreading in its wake. The pain became muted, dulled, and my muscles relaxed.
“Wow, that’s some amazing stuff,” I said.
“Watch out,” he said to Devon. “Its effects are almost like getting high. She may be prone to paranoia or feelings of indestructibility. And you should probably get rid of those scrubs.”
Devon hurriedly complied, stowing the scrubs in the trash bin. Underneath, he wore jeans and a white button-down shirt, complete with holster and gun. Only now he’d added an official-looking badge hanging from the front pocket of his jeans.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Our recce last night. Thought it might come in handy.”
Taking my hand, we followed John out into the hallway. Moving his grip to my elbow, he propelled me forward.
“You’re my prisoner,” he said. “Do come quietly.”
John led us into the ER and we began wading through the people. Three uniformed policemen were gathered around the admitting desk. The nurse was talking to them animatedly, gesticulating with her hands.
“. . . Sonya said they’re still here,” she said. “Random people who threatened her and used the radiology equipment. And she said the girl may be kidnapped.”
One of the cops glanced at us as we walked by, and his gaze dropped to the badge hanging from Devon’s pocket. He frowned and a sense of foreboding crept in to my chest.
“Hey, hold up,” he said, jogging up to us. We’d been feet from the door and I stared longingly at it, the darkness outside beckoning.
We had no choice but to halt.
“Who’re you?” the cop asked Devon. “What are you doing?”
“I’m Detective Clay, MPD, Vice Squad,” Devon said, British accent nowhere in evidence. “This woman is an informant, and I’m taking her into protective custody.”
“Informant for what?”
“That’s not your jurisdiction, officer,” Devon said coolly. “Now, let us pass.” He moved us around the cop.
“Wait a second,” the man said, blocking our path again. “We’ve got a situation here and I can’t just let people come and go—I don’t care who she is or who you are.”
John stepped in. “I’m her attending physician and I say she needs to leave for her own health. If you keep her here, you’ll be responsible should anything happen to her.” He paused, then added, “How’s your professional liability insurance, officer? All paid up on your premiums?”
The belligerent look on the man’s face changed to one of uncertainty, then resignation. “Fine,” he said. “No need to be an asshole about it. Go.”
Devon steered me forward and I looked back at John. He and Devon exchanged glances.
“What about John?” I asked.
“He has to stay for our cover,” he replied, hustling me out the exit. “It would look suspicious if he came along, too, and they’re watching everyone.”
“We can’t leave without him,” I said once he had me inside the SUV.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said. He drove around the hospital to the front, and that’s when we saw the police cars. More of them than even in the back. I counted six. We pulled into an empty space and Devon killed the headlights.
“They’re putting the hospital on lockdown,” he said. “We can’t wait much longer.”
Anxiously, I watched the entrance, hoping John would emerge. He’d already put himself out on a limb for us and I didn’t want him to get into trouble, but neither did I want to lose him.
We finally did see John emerge . . . in handcuffs.
Devon let out a vicious curse and I wanted to cry as they put John in the back of a police cruiser. Without a word, Devon flipped the lights back on and pulled out of the lot.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Devon was driving, but I didn’t know to where. And it seemed he didn’t either because he swerved into a gas station lot and threw the gear into park.
“I need to think,” he said.
The phone Scott had given me was burning a hole in my pocket. The urge to call was strong and I wanted to give in to the temptation to go back to the FBI facility. I was scared. My body was turning against me and I had no clue what to do.
But better to die with Devon by my side than amongst strangers as a lab rat. And yet I was a burden to Devon, sick as I was. Was it fair to him for me to stay? The answer to that was obvious. It would be selfish of me to stay.
“I’ll call Scott,” I said to Devon, digging out the cell phone. “Maybe he and that doctor are still here. I’ll go with them, back to the FBI facility.”
Devon snatched the phone from me. “Where did you get this?”
“Scott gave it to me,” I said. “It has his number programmed in.”
In a flash, Devon rolled down the window and tossed the phone, then threw the SUV into drive and took off from the lot. I stared at him in open-mouthed surprise.
“What did you do that for?” I asked. “Now I have no way to reach him!”
“Scott works for Vega,” he said. “She told me as much.”
Shock warred with dismay. It couldn’t be true. Yes, Scott had turned me in to the FBI, but at least that I could sort of understand—he felt like he was doing his job. But for him to be working for Vega . . . Yeah, he hadn’t mentioned that in the hotel room.
“How long?” I asked, my voice sounding strange in my ears.
“Since the beginning.”
My eyes slipped closed. God, what a fool I was! To think that I’d thought him a friend, had confided in him, trusted him. And all that time he’d been paid to do a job for Vega. It was horrible and demoralizing. I felt his betrayal all the way to the bone.
“So you think that’s how she found us,” I said, pulling myself out of my shock. “At the hotel. Because of the phone.”
“It would be the logical conclusion, yes.”
I winced. Again, my naïveté and trust had nearly undone everything Devon was trying to do. Devon wasn’t going to get himself killed—I’d no doubt manage that as well.
“Forget it,” I said abruptly. “I’m done.”
Devon glanced quizzically at me. “What?”
“I’m done. It’s over. Before, it was just a price on my head. Now? It’s a death sentence. I need to go back to the facility and give them what they want. Sticking with you is only going to get you killed. At the moment, it’s me they want.”
“Bollocks,” he said. “There’s no bloody way you’re giving yourself up to them, regardless of your health. We’ll find a cure. We’ll find another vaccine, just like before.”
“You can’t vaccinate whatever it is that’s killing me, Devon!” I cried, anguish and frustration bringing tears to my eyes, “It’s done. I’m not going to have you wait until I die before you realize that. I’m leaving.”
Devon swerved to the side of the road and jerked the car to a stop. He turned to me, one arm resting on top of the steering wheel, the other on the back of his seat.
“Listen closely, my darling,” he said. “You will not be sauntering off on your own like some martyr waiting to die. That is not the Ivy I know, and I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” I asked, my temper rising. “It’s my life, Devon—”
“No it bloody well isn’t!” he exploded. “It’s my life
, too. Do you think you’re disposable to me? That I can replace you as easily as I could a shirt?” He looked livid, angrier than I’d ever seen him, and it rendered me speechless.
Pressing his lips closed, he turned back to the road, staring out the windshield and gripping the wheel tightly. I stared, then jumped when he slammed his palm against the dash. He clenched and unclenched his fists.
“We’re in this together,” he said at last, his gaze locking on mine. “And I don’t know what else I can say or do to convince you of that. Live or die, we’re together. I will not desert you, and neither will I allow you to separate from me out of some misguided attempt to spare my emotions.”
Tears filled my eyes, spilling over and tracing down my cheeks. Devon reached out, tenderly swiping them away, and when he spoke again his voice was gentle.
“When I say I love you,” he said, “they are more than just words. I want you to hear them, hear me, and understand.” His fingers beneath my chin prodded my gaze upward until our eyes met. “Love is not what you’ve known,” he said. “Love is not pain, and betrayal, and subjugation. It is whole, and selfless, and unconditional. Sometimes there’s sadness and loss, but in love there is always hope. I won’t stop hoping, just like I won’t stop loving you.”
Tears fell even faster and I threw my arms around his neck. He pulled me close as I cried on his shoulder. His hand sifted through my hair and down my back, soothing me. I was grateful, too grateful for words about how incredibly lucky I was to have him, to have the love we shared.
“I love you, too,” I managed at last, once I could speak. My voice was thick with tears.
“I know you do, darling,” he said, brushing a kiss to my forehead. “Now let’s work together on getting you well and no more talk of leaving, all right?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I scooted to my side of the car as Devon put it into gear and swung back out onto the road. Reaching across the seat, he took my hand and we held tightly to each other.
Another hotel, the desk clerk unsurprised at our very late check-in. Devon paid in cash, signing in as Jim Dale and wife. When we got to the room, I was more than ready to lie down.
“No one will know you’re here,” he said, slipping off my shoes for me and covering me with a blanket. “You’ll be safe.”
