I’m in… the operating room. Once again?
No. Not again. I never left.
Dr. Telfair backs away from me, syringe in one hand, the tip of the needle wet with my blood.
Vaguely, I become aware of a stinging in my left shoulder. I look at it and see the mark the needle left.
Jeremy crouches beside me. He seems hesitant to touch. “Are you all right?” he whispers.
“I…I think so,” I answer in a shaky voice. I bring a hand to my head, and am instantly relieved when I find only the shortest sprouting of hair there. I look over at Dr. Telfair. I rub my shoulder. “What did you give me?”
“Something for the pain.” He looks solemn. Morose. Regretful.
None of those looks are good on a doctor who’s just completed surgery.
I have enough experience reading Jeremy to tell that something is ghastly wrong. “What happened?”
“You panicked,” he tells me. “You started to scream.”
“I mean, with the operation,” I say. I force myself to bulldoze through the immense shroud of fear that clouds my deepest suspicions. “It did not go according to plan,” I swallow. “Did it?”
Dr. Telfair exhales.
“No, Lilly,” he says. “It did not.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
LILLY
Even though I’m lucid, the remaining hours of the day pass in a dark and terrifying haze.
My very worst fears have been imagined. As Jeremy and Dr. Telfair scream at each other and fling accusations back and forth, I cower, afraid and horrified over what comes next.
The nurse—her name is Jill—sits beside me on the bed. She does not say anything. She merely holds my hand.
That is more comfort than I should be allowed.
“What the bloody hell do you mean her body rejected the serum?” Jeremy roars. “You had it made for her specifically! We spent millions on this! You said—You promised me!—that it would work!”
“I said this was her best chance!” Dr. Telfair snarls back. The two men have long since given up trying to involve me in the conversation. All I’ve been able to do, once the horrifying news had been revealed, is go into a state of semi—delirious shock.
The operation backfired. The procedure was botched. Uptake of the medication did not occur as Dr. Telfair has expected.
What that means for me in the future, I still haven’t fully grasped.
“A chance,” Jeremy laughs. It’s a crude laugh, cold and sharp. “A chance? You all but guaranteed success! And now—look at her! Look at her and tell me what you got!”
Dr. Telfair spares a curt glance at me. “Lilly’s stable,” he says. “That’s what’s important now.”
“Yes, but for HOW LONG?” Jeremy explodes.
I shy back at his yell. Jill holds my hand tighter.
How long, indeed. I don’t know. Dr. Telfair doesn’t know. Jeremy doesn’t know. It’s clearly driving him crazy.
But not as crazy as I might be soon.
I run a hand through my hair. Still short. This is real.
“Lilly,” Jeremy looks at me. Fear fills his eyes. “Lilly-Flower. Look at me. Tell me you’re still here.”
“I am,” I whisper.
Jeremy turns back to his brother. They continue their argument. They’ve been going in circles for hours.
Meanwhile, there I sit, uncertain of how much longer my sanity will last.
“The injections?” Jeremy tries. “The ones from before. The ones with the counteragent. We can make more. We can give her more!
Dr. Telfair shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s impossible to say how she’ll react. She has too many chemicals swirling around in her system. Too many chemicals flooding her brain. I need to monitor her, Jeremy, goddammit! I need monitor her and see what happens next.”
That uncertainty lies at the crux of all the tension. It’s what makes me feel helpless and weak. A passive victim unable to do anything to help herself in any way.
And that uncertainty is what fuels these constant arguments. Dr. Telfair won’t let Jeremy take me out of the facility.
That’s good, at least, because for now, there’s nowhere that I’d rather be.
In essence, we’re all waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I rub at an itch at the back of my head. That was the source of the initial searing pain.
Nobody knows what will happen next. Will I succumb to the visions again? I did once already. That is what has us all worried. Without the benefit of the counteragent, but with some portion of the brain injections active, where will I end up?
How much of a hold does Hugh’s poison have on my mind?
I scratch at the back of my head again. That damn itch isn’t going away. I listen to the ongoing argument, while still scratching, when suddenly a horrifying screech comes from beside me. “Lilly, stop!”
I turn immediately to Jill and when I do, I catch a spot of red on the shoulder of my robe. I frown, look at it—and then see my hand.
It’s stained to the knuckles with blood.
I scream. Jeremy and Dr. Telfair rush over. I stare at my hand, dab at the back of my head. Every time I do I come away with more blood.
“Dammit! What did you do?” Dr. Telfair hisses. He turns on Jill. “You were supposed to watch her!”
“I—I—I didn’t know,” I stammer. I stare aghast at my hands. “I didn’t feel a thing!”
Dr. Telfair grips my hands in an unyielding grip. “Bandage the wound,” he tells Jill. He looks at Jeremy. “She’ll need to be restrained.”
“What?” I gasp. “No! No! This was an accident. I’m still here!”
“She’s becoming hysterical,” Jeremy notes. His voice and his face are both clear of any emotion. “Is she gone?”
“No!” I scream. I rip my hands out of Dr. Telfair’s grip. “No, I’m right here!”
Jeremy’s brother catches them again. “Get the bonds,” he tells Jeremy.
Jeremy—my future husband, the love of my life, the man who I alone live for—obeys without a single glance at me. He turns away and returns a second later with the straps that bound me to the bed.
“No!” I say. “No, no, no, no! I’m right here! I’m fully lucid!” I fight against Dr. Telfair. But he is very strong. The next thing I know, Jeremy is strapping my hands down to the bed. “What are you doing?” I whisper.
He does not meet my eyes.
I start to cry.
Somehow, I find myself lying on my front. “Holy shit, she cut in deep,” Dr. Telfair mutters. “I’ll need to stitch this up. Bandages won’t do.”
I start to tremble with despairing sobs.
I don’t feel anything as he applies the needle and then thread. How can I? I didn’t even feel it when I dug into my own skull.
“She’ll be a danger to herself unless I can administer the injection again. If that’s even possible.” Dr. Telfair says from behind me. They speak as if I’m not even here.
They think I’m already crazy.
Waves and waves of anguish crash into me like tides against blackened rock.
“Do you see now why I can’t allow her to leave? Why she must remain here until we have a sense of her condition?”
“I do.” Jeremy agrees.
“There’s a free room on the eleventh floor,” Jill volunteers. “She can stay there overnight.”
“Jeremy?” Dr. Telfair asks. “It’s up to you. You act as her guardian ad litem now. Will you let us bring her?”
Jeremy takes a long time to answer. Finally, he says:
“Yes.”
--
In a small room on the eleventh floor, I lose my mind.
My hands are wrapped in soft cotton mittens sealed onto my wrists with a sort of zipper. They are impossible to undo with my teeth.
Despite all my protestation that I am still fully lucid, nobody takes me at my word. Jeremy does not even look at me. His brother observes me with a clinical detachment. Once Jill comes cl
ose.
She spends the first night with me. When it’s time to go to sleep, she turns off the lights and locks the door.
I toss and turn and walk crazy little circles around my bed until morning comes. Then the door opens. Jeremy and Dr. Telfair stream in.
They find me still, on the edge of the bed. I look up at the two men, the two brothers, the two twins. I feel tears well in my red-rimmed eyes.
“Please,” I beg. I hold my hands out to them. “Please take these off. I won’t—I won’t do anything like this again.” I touch the back of my head.
Dr. Telfair shares a long, appraising look with his brother. Then he chuckles and breaks out in a smile. “By golly,” he says, “I do believe she’s telling the truth.”
And he walks forward and takes the mittens off. I stare in awe and wonder at my hands. They’re free!
That’s all it took?
I jump up in pure joy and throw my arms around Jeremy. He embraces me as if his body were a perfect match to mine. He brushes my hair aside, gently nips my earlobe, and whispers, “I love your long, luscious curls.”
I giggle madly at the praise and run an easy hand through them. They fall in red tresses down to my waist. “I thought you would,” I bite my lip deviously. “Lover.”
He grabs me by the waist and yanks me into him. Our hips touch. His cock is hard against my belly.
“Don’t mind me,” Dr. Telfair says from the side. He adjusts his tie and then begins unbuttoning his shirt. “Lilly. I heard you have a thing for twins.”
I laugh in delight and float toward him like a lustful siren. I run my hands over his broad, smooth chest, circle the ridges of his abs, and then rise up and kiss him.
Jeremy spins me around from behind. “Why does he get all the fun?” He grumbles. Then he tips me back and kisses me long and hard, too.
I drift on a current of peace. I satiate in that kiss, in feeling Jeremy’s hot lips against mine, the suction forming the most perfect type of vacuum into which go all of my thoughts—
I feel a tug on the back of my head. I ignore it, but then it comes again. Harder this time.
Irritated, I break away and look over my shoulder. Dr. Telfair is lying nude on the bed, stroking his lengthening cock beneath the thin cover of a white blanket. He has my long, blonde plait around one wrist, and he tugs at it again.
I sigh and turn my attention to him.
“Lilly, wait.” My mother’s voice comes from behind me. I turn around once more, surprised but not entirely shocked to see her here. “Didn’t I teach you anything, silly girl? Men hate strippers but love a tease.” She runs both hands up from her head over her too-curvy body. She stops them on her breasts and presses them together to emphasize her considerable bust. “Here, I’ll show you how.”
She sways toward Jeremy who’s looking at her with such sinful desire in his eyes that it makes my jealousy flare. She kisses him in the way that only I’m allowed to kiss him.
Well, two can play at this game, I think. To prove my point, I saunter toward Dr. Telfair…
I never reach him. I yelp and fall as my legs catch on a long, snake-like tangle of pitch black hair. It starts wrapping itself around me, tightening around my calves, and thighs, like a starving python. I yank and pull and try to see the source. Horrified, I realize this is all my own hair.
As the understanding crashes into me so does the grim truth: None of this is real. All of this is in my head.
I open my mouth to scream. As soon as I do, bunches of my hair writhe inside, muffling all noise, cutting off my voice, cutting off my air, and my vision.
The whole world goes black.
Chapter Forty
LILLY
I open my eyes and gasp. My heart’s racing like a jackhammer. A grimy, sticky sweat coats my whole body.
I look around me. I’m in the MRI room. On the… on the floor?
My hands are free. I rub my scalp. Relief flows through me when I find those comforting short bristles.
Jeremy and Dr. Telfair are leaning over me. Jill is holding my head up.
I blink to make out all the faces. To see if they will change or shift. They do not.
“Lilly?” Dr. Telfair asks. “Tell me what happened.”
“A—a vision,” I stammer. I oscillate my eyes from Jeremy to his brother. “I thought I hurt myself, and you locked me up, and…”
I catch a glimpse of the faintest hint of red on my fingertips. My eyes widen. “Oh God!” I gasp. “I really did it.”
Jeremy takes my hand and brings it to his lips. He kisses my fingertips. “Nothing more than a scratch,” he tells me gently.
I frown at him and Dr. Telfair. I frown at the floor. “How did I end up here?”
“After Jill caught you scratching,” Dr. Telfair says heavily, “You started to scream. You screamed and screamed to be let go, for us to believe you. Then you fell.”
“You started mumbling nonsense on the floor,” Jeremy says. “I was terrified for you.”
“And…and then what?” I whisper.
“You calmed down as soon as Jeremy came to your side,” Dr. Telfair says. “Jill propped your head up. You closed your eyes and immediately fell asleep.” He glances at his watch. “That was two minutes ago.”
“Two minutes?” I marvel. “Doctor, I saw—I lived through—an entire night and day!”
“Time passes differently when you dream,” he says.
“How did you get me back?” I whisper. I touch the back of my head and find a small bandage there. “You didn’t stitch me up?”
Dr. Telfair shakes his head. “Is that what you thought I did?”
“It’s what I… what I lived through,” I admit in the softest of tones.
Jeremy’s hand tightens around mine. “My poor Lilly-Flower,” he says. “I will fix this. I promise you, I’ll find a way.” He clasps his brother on the shoulder in a death grip. “Atticus and I will. Together.”
I exhale and let my head fall back. Jill gives me a tiny, reassuring smile from above.
“My hair!” I gasp and bolt up. I move so fast I startle both brothers. “I need to get rid of my hair.”
“What?” Jeremy hisses. “Why?”
Dr. Telfair looks at him. “It’s her totem. A way of distinguishing illusions from reality.” He nods at Jill. “Run and get a shaver. Quick!”
Jill rushes out of the room. Half a minute later, she returns with a hand-held, battery operated razor.
“Let me,” I say. I reach out to take it from her. “I have to be the one to do it. To make sure it’s all real.”
Jeremy catches Jill by the arm just as she’s handing it over. “Lilly,” he says. He looks uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I exclaim. I grab the razor from Jill’s outstretched hand. I turn it on. The tiny vibrations of the motor running through my hand give me some very reassuring comfort.
I bring it out in front of my face, and blink a few times as I take in exactly what I’m about to do, willingly. Then I apply it straight to my scalp.
The hair falls off me in waves. I shiver under the unpleasant sensation, but force myself to keep calm. I do it entirely by feel. One row up the middle. Another beside that. One more after.
And again and again and again I trace the razor over my head, until there’s not a single hair left anywhere.
Then, without any thought, and entirely on auto-pilot, I graze the blades over my eyes, doing away with my left eyebrow.
Jeremy catches my hand and tries to stop me, but I move my face in the opposite direction to complete the shave.
“What are you doing?” he hisses, sounding angry and terrified at once.
I blink again, rising from my stupor. My grip on the handle weakens. The razor clatters against the floor.
“I—I don’t know,” I mutter. And suddenly I feel so very weak, and so very, very scared.
I succumb to my emotions and cry.
Jeremy immediately has me in his arms. He holds my head to his ches
t as I cry, dejected, scared, petrified into his body.
The feel of his hand against my freshly-shaven skull at least tells me that this…this nightmare…is still real.
Together, we stand up. I huddle into him for support.
“There’s a room you can spend the night in,” Dr. Telfair informs us, “free, on the eleventh floor.”
A shiver runs through me. The eleventh floor.
Coincidence? Or…
Premonition?
--
That night, Jeremy and I lie together in an unfamiliar bed.
The room is cheerful and spacious. Dr. Telfair told us it’s used for post-op recovery.
Fitting, I think.
“I’m not going to let you go,” Jeremy tells me as he holds me tight. “I’m never going to let you go. Do you hear me?” He takes my hand. “Today was just a misstep. That’s all. My brother will think of something. I have faith in him.”
Yes, I think. But who has faith in me?
--
The first thing I do when I awaken is run a hand through my hair. When my fingers find nothing but stubble, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Safe, I think. For now.
My movement wakes Jeremy. He opens his eyes and looks at me. “How do you feel?” he asks.
“Still here.” I mumble. “Still sane.”
“Lilly…” Jeremy sits up and looks at me in earnest. “I’m not going to abandon you. You know that. Right? I’ll always be here beside you.” He traces the outline of my jaw. “I love you.”
“Even like this?” I muster. Sadness wells inside me as I remember how difficult it was to talk to Paul. More sadness comes as I am reminded that he’s dead.
“I love you,” Jeremy says with utmost conviction. “No matter what. Nothing can make me stop loving you, Lilly.”
He sounds so very sincere and firm that it only serves to strengthen that gloomy sadness. “I don’t think I deserve your love,” I say in a hushed breath.
Jeremy’s eyes narrow. He brings both hands to my face and holds me firmly by the jaw. He leans closer.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 115
