Chapter 18
He looked like he’d been shell-shocked. Then she felt that way too. She slowly stood up, feeling her body less solid than ever. That was something she had yet to share with anyone. Every time she ingested poison, she became more one with it. One with the plant world around her and a whole lot less than who she was before. It was an odd feeling and hard, if not impossible, to describe. She walked a few steps to the couch and collapsed.
Instantly London was at her side. “How are you feeling?”
She gave him a wan smile. “I’ll be fine. It just takes a few minutes to regroup.”
“Regroup?” he asked in disbelief. “Is that what you call this?”
She studied him carefully. “What would you call it?”
“Recover. Heal.” His voice held confusion and bewilderment. “Although I’m still not close to adjusting to the shock.”
At a heavy pounding on the front door, London jumped to his feet. But she didn’t move. It took energy to move. Not much was left. She watched as Steve blasted into the room as if expecting major trouble. He came to a stumbling stop when he saw her sitting calmly on the couch.
He bent in front of her and asked, “Are you okay?” His gaze zipped to London. “What the hell happened here? You were talking about poison and canisters and all kinds of shit. I came as fast as I could, and yet I see you both, looking like nothing’s wrong.”
London pointed to the canister on the floor, in the other room. Steve straightened so he could look. He froze and stared at it. “What the hell is that?”
“Some kind of special gas canister.” London shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s army issue or made special for today, but I’d sure like to know who sent it.”
Steve looked at Fern. “Is it safe to approach it?”
She shrugged. “I think so.”
He turned to London. “Let’s get it to the lab.”
London walked into the kitchen. An empty grocery bag sat on the counter. London grabbed it and went back to the canister. He held it for them to study. No logo, no serial numbers. Nothing to identify where it was made or by whom. He turned it upside down, and she tapped the AMAX logo on the bottom. London took a deep breath. “Well, that’s not good. That’s Dr. Sartain’s pharmaceutical company.”
Steve asked, “How did somebody get hold of a weapon like this?”
London looked at him. “Have you seen one of those before?”
Steve nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, only I’m not exactly sure where. This one is bigger than those I’ve seen though. I thought the top was supposed to come completely off, but this just separated, allowing the gas to escape.”
“It could be a new model.” London put it on the coffee table gently.
She watched as London took pictures of the canister. When he was done, she picked it up, making sure no one would get hurt. It appeared empty. London could take it to the lab, though she doubted they’d find anything. As she replaced it on the coffee table, her arms trembled with the effort. Not sick, not injured, but the blast had shaken her. Dr. Maddy had done her best, but Fern would need time.
She moved toward the stairway. “You two can discuss the merits of that canister some other place. I’m heading to bed. Let yourselves out please.”
London rushed up behind her. “I’m not leaving.”
She gave him a hard glance. “Yes. You are.” She needed to make sure he understood it wasn’t safe for him here. She glanced at Steve. “Take him and the canister.” With that she motioned toward the front door.
There was a hard silence. London shook his head. “No way in hell am I leaving you here alone. Somebody just tried to kill you.”
“And they didn’t succeed. I’m going to bed before anybody makes another attempt. I doubt anyone is stupid enough to come back again tonight.” She grew weaker. And then she decided she didn’t give a shit if either of them left or not. She continued upstairs and headed for her bedroom. At the doorway, she stopped to stare at her bed.
It was still unmade, still full of suitcases. She bowed her head. Her legs barely held her up. She briefly contemplated going to one of the two spare bedrooms at the opposite end of the long hallway and lying down there. But even that would be too much effort. She walked to her bed and dragged one of the suitcases off the surface and onto the floor. Then dumped the second one beside it.
The blanket was crumpled underneath. She tossed it straight across the bed and lay down on top, grabbing the corner, and rolled herself up. When Dr. Maddy had said it would be like a blast had hit her, she wasn’t kidding.
Just healing energy ran through her system right now, so she didn’t know where she started and where she stopped. She figured, if she could have a few minutes alone to sort through the images, the energy and the poisons, maybe she could learn something. But she was so exhausted she doubted it would be possible. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she zoned out.
She wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t awake.
She was caught in-between.
After a few minutes of lying in a fog, she got up to lock her bedroom door, intent on keeping London out. She didn’t know why it was so important. Except she wanted him to be safe.
She leaned against the door and suddenly found herself on the other side of it. She froze and glanced back, but the door was solid behind her. She stared at her hands. She was glowing green as if her whole body was infused with a poisonous air. Which of course it was.
Most of the time she looked normal. Acted normal. Not many knew she needed a diet of poisons to keep her system functioning. The doctors would lock her up in a mental hospital if they had any idea.
At least half of them would. The other half would put her in a lab and run as many tests on her as they could, like her parents had.
She walked to the top of the landing, not exactly sure what was happening to her body. She stared out the front windows and watched as Steve got into his vehicle. He had the canister with him. But he was alone. He reversed down the driveway and headed along the street out of sight. She bowed her head, so not ready to deal with London. But he wouldn’t give her any choice as she heard his footsteps coming up the stairs. She turned to face him and realized he didn’t see her. He walked right past her and headed to her bedroom. He pushed the door open wide and stepped inside.
She raced behind him, calling out, “Why didn’t you leave?”
He faltered, turning to look down the hall and then back into the bedroom. She watched the frown flicker across his face. She stepped into the bedroom behind him and gasped. He jumped several footsteps to the side and stared at her.
“Can you see me?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“But you can hear me, can’t you?”
Wordless, he nodded, his gaze going from her to the bed and then back again, shocked.
Of course he was.
She was too.
Her body lay on the bed. Exhaustion having claimed every part of her, except her soul. Her soul buzzed with the energy of the poison circulating through her system, visible as a green floating gaseous mass separate from the physical form that lay still, waxen like death, on the bed.
She’d heard about this phenomena from Stefan but hadn’t expected to experience it herself. She walked over to the bed and lay a hand on her arm. Her skin was cool. She studied her complexion, seeing the eerie look that London had tried to describe.
She sat on the side of the bed. “I’m not even sure I want to go back inside.”
Behind her a strangled sound escaped London. “Can you get back inside or are you dead?”
*
Ever since he had first met her, his belief system had been pulled from one direction to the other. Was she a murderer? Was she innocent? For a while he worried about this, then he believed the other, only to have his brother drag him back to the opposite side.
Now he sat, facing it all over again.
And so much more.
He stared at Fern’s glowing green vision in front of him and the pale white solid body on the bed and realized he had no idea what to believe. The only thought he could latch on to was: he believed in her.
“Would you believe you’ve been right all these years, and everything else you’ve seen and felt and heard were wrong?” She smiled, but it was sad. “You can get out. You can walk away. You don’t ever have to come back.”
He stared at her green form. “It’s not easy to walk away from a lifetime of knowledge.”
“No, but it wasn’t a lifetime of knowledge. It was a lifetime of limitation. You don’t have to stay in that close safe little box anymore. You can open yourself up to seeing and believing and experiencing so much more. But I’d understand if you can’t do this. I understand if this is more than you can take on.”
“Too late.” His smile was crooked. “I went through a lot during the trial, trying to figure it out. Then you were gone, and I was lost. There were no answers. No closure. Just more questions. Since your return, I’ve done nothing but make one crazy jump to another.” He spread his hand and motioned at her two figures, one ethereal and one physical. “Part of me wants to ignore what I see in front of me right now.”
She smiled. “At least if you are seeing what’s in front of you, that’s halfway to believing.”
She turned toward her body and, in a weird transposition, lay down on top. As he watched, she slowly sank deeper and deeper and deeper into her physical form. He stared, his jaw falling open. How was any of this possible? And then she opened her eyes and stared at him. He jumped back. She gave a gentle sniff. “So, you are afraid of me?”
“You startled me,” he protested. “That doesn’t mean I’m afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be. I just absorbed all the poison from that gas.”
He sank on the side of the bed, close, but not touching her. “I understand that’s what you did, but I don’t know how.”
“That’s where your belief will get stretched one more time because I can’t really tell you how. I can just tell you that I absorbed it, that my body was happy to take it in.”
“Then why did Dr. Maddy step in and help?” he asked sharply. “If it was something you should be doing, something that was good for you, you shouldn’t need their help.”
“Good point.” She shuffled under the blanket and propped up against the headboard. “It’s because this time other elements were in that poisonous combination. They are harder for me to deal with.”
“Other elements?”
“Synthetics. Chemicals. The poisons I have an affinity for are natural poisons. Poisons which Mother Nature creates on her own. But when man gets involved, they create nasty, horrible concoctions so my system has a much harder time with them. They could probably kill me,” she admitted. “But I can’t know for sure.”
“So, if somebody knows you can’t be killed with natural poisons, have they added the other poisons on purpose?”
She took a deep breath. “That’s quite possible. It’s also quite possible somebody’s testing me. Trying to see exactly what I can do, how much I can absorb, what I will react to.”
He sat back and studied her. “Like you’re some kind of lab rat?”
She nodded, her gaze solemn. “That occurred to me. Every poison has been a little different. The delivery has been a little different. It’s almost as if they can’t run legal tests on me, so they’re running illegal tests.”
“By trying to kill you?”
“And yet is it really trying to kill me? Or are they just seeing what I’m capable of?”
He swallowed hard. How the hell was he to keep her safe from him?