“Nattie?” I said, my voice weak and strained.
“I’m here,” she answered.
Her voice sounded strange. It must have been from the hit to my head. But at least she was with me and safe. Maybe I was at home. I bet Alex and Ava took me there.
I let my eyes open slowly this time, hoping the room didn’t swirl around me. A figure hovered over me, and after a few blinks, I recognized Nattie.
I smiled up at her, reaching up to cup her face in my hand. “Hey, there you are.”
She wrapped her fingers around mine, squeezing my hand.
“Ugh,” I moaned, “I had the weirdest dream. You’re not going to believe this.”
I scrubbed my face with one hand as I shook my head, making myself a little dizzy again. “You had this British accent because you were a princess…no wait, like a queen in waiting. You were about to be queen, and you had this really mean twin sister. We called the ice queen she was just awful. And you told me your dad was cryogenically frozen.”
I heaved out a sigh as I laughed at the ridiculous story. “Funny, huh?”
The smile on Nattie’s features faded as I focused on her, and her nose crinkled a little.
My eyes widened as more memories tumbled back through my mind. “Ohhhh, that wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I’m afraid it wasn’t.”
I sat up way too fast, the room dancing around me in a violent enough way that I felt sick. I reached for her, and she steadied me.
With my eyes open again, I spotted a leather-clad match to Nattie across the room and winced. I leaned closer to Nattie, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Has she been here the whole time?”
“Yes,” Nattie answered.
“Hello, doctor,” Nadia answered, crossing her eyes. “’Tis I, the ice queen.”
I winced, squeezing my eyes closed.Not good.Not good at all. I’d just insulted the woman I loved and her sister.
“Lie back, Kyle, take a few minutes to recover from the drug.”
Drug? I eased back onto the cot, my head finding the soft pillow. I remembered everything now. I really was in some secret laboratory about to see if I could unfreeze Nattie’s father and bring him back to life. And I’d gotten here after Nadia had drugged me despite my most vehement protests.
It wasn’t Nattie’s fault her sister was a…well, I wasn’t going to spell it out. Not while my head was pounding.
“Are you feeling ill?” Nattie asked.
I snapped my eyes open again and shook my head. “It’ll pass. It’s just the drugs wearing off. At least, I think so. What did you give me anyway?”
“Nothing that will harm you,” Nadia called.
Nattie’s features pinched with concern as she gently rubbed a thumb against my forehead. “I am so very sorry, my darling.”
“No, I understand. I get it,” I reassured her.
She offered me a sad smile. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Water,” I answered, hoping it would help flush the grogginess from my system. “Are we in the lab?”
“We are,” she answered as she waved a hand in the air with a snap of her fingers.
Someone delivered a bottle of water to her a moment later, and she cracked it open and offered it to me. “Small sips. You don’t want to–“
“I know, hon, I’m a doctor.”
