The ambulance arrived. Medics intervened, one of them moving her aside and asking what had happened.
“I—I don’t know,” she stuttered, at a loss for what to say, half her attention on Peter. She didn’t want to be standing this far from him. She needed to keep giving him magic. “He coughed up blood and his heart stopped—it’s restarted now, but it’s weak?—”
“We’ve got it,” the medic assured her. “But do you have any idea what caused this?”
“Magic,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. Peter’s blood was spattered down her shirtwaist, and her legs were shaking. “I think it was magic.”
They loaded him into the ambulance, an oxygen mask over his face. She leaned against the vehicle to keep herself upright, waiting to get in after him.
“Miss, come with me,” the officer said. “I’ll get your statement and someone will take you home.”
“No,” she said, trying to clamp down on the sobs that would brand her an unstable woman in his eyes. “Imuststay with him.”
The officer’s face softened. “Are you his wife?”
“No.”
“Then you really do need to?—”
“I’m his fiancé,” she lied. “Don’t take me away from him!”
The red-haired medic who’d asked her what had happened leaned out of the vehicle and whispered, “I’ve got this.” Louder, he said, “She’s not looking so good, Mac. I want a doc to give her a once-over. Let her come with us.”
She scrambled into the back of the ambulance before the officer or anyone else could object. She clutched Peter’s hand with both of hers.
“Miss?”
She opened her eyes with a start. The medic with the red hair was looking at her with some concern. “We’re here,” he said.
She tried to stand and couldn’t. It was like being in the thrall of Ella’s drug, except this time the exhaustion was real. “Help,” she whispered.
“It’ll be OK,” the medic said, half-carrying her to a wheelchair. “You’re in shock—we’ll get you checked in.”
The hospital was a blur. She tried to explain that she needed to stay next to Peter, but talking was a struggle and no one listened to her. They put her in a room with four beds, the other three of which were occupied by women.
“No,” she said, the word coming out thick and odd. “Peter…”
“We’ll take good care of him,” a nurse said, patting her. “Don’t worry, dearie.”
And for the second time that ghastly morning, she fell asleep against her will.
CHAPTER 25
Peter was not dead. But to say he had survived would be grossly overstating the matter.
At first, the doctors told her he was simply recovering from surgery and would wake up. But finally they had to acknowledge he was in a coma, and they couldn’t say when—or if—he would emerge from it.
They’d admitted her as well for severe dehydration. Doctors, nurses, police officers and, on one occasion, the FBI agent—Radcliffe—had come to ask her questions to which there were no answers she could give.What happened? What were you doing before you both took ill? Why were you in Washington?
“I don’t know,” she said over and over. And, “I don’t remember.” And, “It’s all a horrible blur.” Because dehydration and confusion went hand in hand, they seemed to accept that.
She sat with Peter every moment they let her, holding his hand, but he didn’t miraculously improve from the magic she tried to send him. Perhaps nothing was passing between them. Perhaps the CPR alone revived him, and that would not be enough to overcome what the weapon had done to his body.
She had heard that people in comas sometimes remained aware, and she’d hoped she would see him dreamside. But two nights had come and gone. No dreamside. No Peter. Nothing.
As for Ella, she was gone, her room cleared out. Whether she had also taken the transmitter was a question to which Beatrix feared the answer. Lydia went to look the day before, following her directions, and couldn’t find it.
Also missing: Garrett’s body.
