A jolt of panic sizzled through Gabe. He had to be going mad. This couldn’t be happening. Whateverthiswas.
He felt a hand clasp his and looked up to see Olivia leaning over him.
“You made it,” she murmured. “Other victims of the Solomon Clinic rescued us. We’re on their boat, going back to St. Stephens.”
At the mention of the town, panic flared. “Smith will find us.”
“No. He thinks we’re at the bottom of the bay. And we’re going to take care of him.”
Before he could focus on that, Travis spoke to him, mind to mind in that new weird way.
Do you understand what’s happened?
Did he?
You were dead.
Someone had said that before.I was dead?He tried to wrap his head around that and failed.
If I was dead, how am I here?
My spirit...infused you—brought you back to life. I’m with you. In your body. In your mind.
Maybe it was finally sinking in. He could either accept the reality of what had happened or he could go mad. He chose sanity.
Thank God.The exclamation came from both Olivia and Travis, and somehow, that was what he needed to ground himself.
He tried to sit up, but the one who was a doctor—Matt Delano—put a hand on his shoulder. “Just lie here for a while. You’ve been through a pretty nasty ordeal.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” he muttered.
Someone had slipped a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. He closed his eyes, drifting to the motion of the boat. The familiar motion.
Familiar? What did he know about boats? Not much. But Travis did.
I’ll leave you alone now,the other consciousness inside his brain said.
How could Travis ever leave him alone? He was here with him. He struggled to work that out, but the effort to slog his way through it was currently too much.
He was holding Olivia’s hand, clinging to her as if she could make sense of everything for him. Vaguely, he knew there were things he should say to her, but he wasn’t sure they were the right things. He wasn’t sure what to worry about first. His relationship with her? Or his relationship with his life? Was he still a Decorah agent, or what? At the moment, it was all too much. He would have to make sense of everything later. Right now, he couldn’t even cling to consciousness.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Gabe woke with a start when the boat bumped against a pier. Olivia was no longer beside him. She was talking to one of the women—the one he knew was called Rachel.
He heard her say, “It has to be confusing for him. Give him some time.”
Olivia nodded, and he sensed that she was making an effort to give him some space.
Good. Because he needed it.
He sat up and looked around, seeing that they were at the public dock in the center of St. Stephens.
One of the men came over and gave him a critical look. “How are you feeling?”
He considered the question. Somewhere in his mind, he heard the word, “Reborn.” But instead of saying that, he answered, “Okay.”
“Good. You remember who we are?”
