“Brogan?” Lu sounded like she’d picked up a tin can and was using it as a telephone. “Bro—oh, shit. Hold on, love…”
The line went dead and blessed darkness smothered the pain in my head and dragged me down.
I was on a boat.The sway and rock of waves was the first thing I noticed. I should smell the salt of water, or hear the creak of wood, but instead, I heard Lula.
“Set him here. Thank you. Yes. Careful.”
A great wave rolled the ship, and cool sheets pressed against my skin.
“You need to swallow this,” Lu said. “Brogan, open your eyes.”
If there was a breath of will left in me, I would try to do what that woman asked of me. So I opened my eyes.
Not a ship, a room. Unfamiliar and mostly beige, low light bleeding through closed blinds. The smell of dust and mustiness, with the slight tang of pine cleaner.
A motel.
“There you are.” Her face came into view. She loomed above me, my love, my life, and her smile was soft, even though the lines between her brows sketched worry.
“Pain killers, good ones. Open your mouth, and swallow these with water, then you can go back to sleep.”
Behind her stood Hado. He was no longer a little black cat. He was a large, stern looking dark-skinned man. He must have been the one who carried me out of the truck and dropped me onto the bed.
“I’m fi—” I started, but as soon as my mouth was open, she dropped a pill onto my tongue and held a plastic cup to my lips.
“Swallow,” she said. “Pain killers.”
The water was cool and refreshing and I drank it all down.
“It’s just a headache,” I whispered. “I’m fine, Lu.”
“I know,” she said, though the lines of worry were still there. “Sleep. You haven’t been getting enough of that. I’ll be here when you wake.”
Some cartoon kidwith a squeaky voice was having a heck of a time figuring out how to open a door, or maybe it was how to close a door. They had one goofy-voiced friend giving them advice that I could tell—even groggy and coming up out from under a flock of sheep—wasn’t gonna do them any good.
“Righty tighty?” Abbi giggled. “What even is that?”
“Instructions,” I tried to say, but it came out scratchy, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “How to open and close something.”
I opened my eyes. The room hadn’t gotten any less beige, but the light through the blinds had changed.
It was night again. I’d slept the day away.
“Hi.” Abbi hopped off the other bed in the room and stood next to mine. “Lula told me to feed you more pain pills if you wanted them.”
“I don’t want them.”
Abbi frowned, her bottom lip sticking out. “But she told me I was in charge of the pills.”
I rubbed my hand over my face then grunted and groaned until I was sitting with my back to the headboard. The room swayed once, but I blinked until it steadied.
“My headache’s better,” I said.
Hado, standing by the closed door with his arms crossed over his chest, snorted.
“Maybe just one pill?” she begged. “It’s small.”
“No pills. Not even small ones.”
