A voice to his left had him whipping his head in that direction, confusion still fogging his brain.
Where am I? And how did I get here? What the hell?
But Rhys calmed down a little as, finally, his eyes registered what – or rather, who – they were looking at.
“Brooke.”
Brooke Saunders, his team’s medical officer, was looking at him with a slightly wry smile on her face. She raised an eyebrow as he looked around, still not quite sure what exactly was goingon, even if he was a little more reassured now that he wasn’t in danger.
“Disoriented? I’m not surprised. Wyvern venom will do that to you. Not to mention the wholealmost dyingthing.”
Rhys looked down at his chest, to where his hand still rested over his heart, which had, the last time he remembered, been beating slower and slower with every passing moment.
Wyvern venom?he thought, shaking his head. His memory felt completely fuzzy, as if he was moving blocks of vaguely colored smoke around in his head, trying to make them fit together to create a picture that made sense.
But then, it all came back to him in a sudden rush: the suit guy at the café. The offer they’d made him. The way they’d attacked him in the alley when he’d turned them down.And then…
Rhys frowned. There didn’t seem to be anyand then,as far as his memory was concerned. It was all a big blank.
But that didn’t matter, he decided – the important thing was that he was here now, and he needed to tell someone about what had happened.
“I have to talk to Robb,” he muttered, struggling to get his hands to obey him and pull back the sheet on his sickbay bed. “I have to –”
“Hey, hey, just hold your horses there,” Brooke told him, reaching out and pressing him back down against the thin mattress. “Right now, you don’t have to do anything except lie there and recover. You’re doing fine, but you’re not in any fit state to go charging off. Just stay put for a minute while I do some tests, all right?”
Rhys knew it wouldn’t do any good to complain – Brooke might havelookeddiminutive, but she was tough as nails and she didn’t take any talking back from anyone. So he lay as still as he could manage while she carried out whatever thesetestswere that she wanted to do – shining a light in his eyes, poking a dry wooden stick into his mouth and making him sayahhhh, and prodding at the still-healing wounds on his chest and side.
Those should have healed up ages ago,Rhys thought as he looked down at the still pink-looking bullet hole in his shoulder before Brooke re-covered it with a bandage.
But then, memory hit him like a ton of bricks, as well as what Brooke had said a moment earlier: wyvern venom.
No wonder it hadn’t healed, Rhys thought. And no wonder this had been such a close call.
“How long was I out?” Rhys asked, as Brooke, apparently having finished her tests to her satisfaction, rolled her latex gloves off her hands. The motion prodded at something in Rhys’s memory, but he really wasn’t quite sure what, or why.
“Long enough,” Brooke said, giving him a small, tight smile. “You’re a lucky man, Rhys Richardson. Another few minutes and I don’t think there would have been much I could have done for you. Lucky I had enough antivenom on hand to pump you full of a few doses. And even then it was touch and go for a bit. Good thing you’re a griffin and you have that extra healing power, is all I can say.”
Rhys nodded, the realization at how closely run a thing it had been sobering him a little.
But I’m still here, aren’t I?he thought a moment later.And I have things I need to do…
And, annoyingly, there wasstillsomething pressing on the back of his mind, something he knew heshouldbe remembering – but every time he tried to grab hold of it, it would slither away from him before he could pin it down.
Frustrated, he shook his head.
“So, am I just going to have to lie here all day?” he asked, a little more gruffly than he knew Brooke deserved – andsheknew it too, judging from the look she gave him.
“You will if you give me that tone,” she said. “How about a ‘thank you for saving my life, Ms. Saunders’? Or is that just way too much to expect these days?”
“Sorry,” Rhys muttered, but he knew he was being churlish… and kind of a dick. “Thank you.”
“Not as grateful as I would have expected, but I’ll take it.” Brooke crossed her arms over her chest. “Anyway, it’s not just me you have to thank.”
Rhys looked up, his eyebrows drawing together. “Huh?”
“Since you just almost died I’ll forgive you the lack of articulateness,” Brooke said. “And anyway, I don’t even know what’s going on with that. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Am I still disoriented, or are you just being deliberately mysterious now?” Rhys asked, wondering if Brooke would give him another scolding if he swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit up properly.
