“Occam?”
“Yes, Nell, sugar. I’m here. You’re okay.”
I sobbed and realized that my face was damp with tears and snot and sweat. My short hair clinging to my skin. My heart was racing, and my chest and belly ached. Memory returned. The light-and-shadows dancing in the earth. Evolving to light/shadow-silk/hemp—concepts that almost, but not quite, described what I had seen and felt and experienced.
The blacker-than-night thing so far below, separated from everything by a membrane of... I didn’t know what.
But the light-shadow dancer had been trying to eat me. Or merge with me. Or become me. My heart rate spiked. I jerked upright, crying out, “Noooo!”
“Nell, sugar!”
“No!” I screamed. I forced my eyes to open. The world outside my head was murky and dim, cloudy as if a fog surrounded me. I tried again to sit up and realized I was tied to a hospital bed. “You’uns lemme up,” I shouted. “Lemme up!”
“Panic attack,” JoJo said. “Let her loose. The restraints are just making it worse now.” A voice murmured something and JoJo said, “You set her free or I’ll cut your expensive restraints myself.”
And suddenly I was unbound. I scuttle-walked on butt and heels and the pads of my hands to the head of the bed. I was gasping, crying. Sweaty with exhaustion. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly.
The lights in the room were low, medical devices attached to me, beeping, all crazily now, with my awareness. With my fight.
“Nell, sugar?” Occam. His hand was out in front of me, palm up, offering an anchor.
I slipped my hand into his. My whole body shuddered at the contact.
“You’re okay, sugar. I gotcha. I gotcha, girl.”
“You cut me free,” I gasped. “You and T. Laine.”
“Yes. You remember.”
I fell back on the mattress, the sheets wet with sweat and other bodily fluids. My heart rate and breathing steadied. Slowed. Occam’s hand was a sturdy moor, like a piton in a mountain of rock, or an anchor in a stormy sea, though I’d never seen the ocean. “I remember. I remember. I was trapped. You cut me free.”
“Yeah. About that. I’m sorry, Nell, sugar. You got some stitches. A lot of stitches.”
“You coulda cut off my arm and I’da been good with it. I was trapped.” Tears started again and Occam tightened his grip. I placed my other hand over our clasped hands and would have tightened my fingers but for the pain that ratcheted along my flesh.
“Stitches,” Occam said again.
“Oh. Ow?”
“Pretty much ‘Ow,’” he agreed.
I blinked my eyes clear and asked for water. When someone handed me a Styrofoam cup, I released Occam, drained it all at once, and took another. This one I dumped over my face. The cold felt wonderful on my flushed and sweaty skin. Pea peeked out of Occam’s shirt and darted back inside. The wereleopard chuckled at us both and someone dressed in scrubs patted my face dry with a rough towel.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“University of Tennessee Medical Center, the paranormal room of the emergency department,” Occam said.
“Why?”
“You weren’t breathing right when we got you free. Your heart rate was racing. There was the little matter of the blood. And someone had called an ambulance. Rick said to put you in it. Boss’ orders.”
“I’m not complaining,” I said, again holding his hand as if it were the only stable spot in my universe. “This ain’t the first time you cut me free from the earth. Thank you.”
“Welcome.” There was humor in his tone and I focused on his face. His blondish hair was pulled back in a tail, his eyes amber and gold, the gold of his werecat.
I was suddenly aware of the rank smell that came from mybody and my state of dishabille. My nakedness beneath the thin hospital gown. I almost let go of his hand, but he said, “It’s okay, Nell, sugar.” And encircled our clasped hands with his other one, his grip tightening. I realized that I felt safe with his hands on mine.
Scrubbing my face with my shoulder, I scuffed my hair back and looked around.
