No, not directly at me. She’s looking in this direction, her glazed eyes pulling together, tracking the sweep of window. Trying to solve a riddle. Even now, I realize, she knows she’s being watched.
“Don’t be fooled,” Warner says quietly. “Go in there with your guard up.”
“Yeah.” I take a breath. “Yeah, okay.” I hesitate as something occurs to me. “Hey, has she been given anything to eat yet?”
Warner shifts his weight. “Fluids have been administered intravenously, but she’s not eaten anything solid yet, no. Why?”
“I have an idea.”
Rosabelle
Chapter 21
I might be dreaming.
The problem is, my eyes are open. The problem is, the glare of overhead lighting is unromantic. The problem is that the steady beep of medical monitors winds a tension in me that coils only tighter even though my hair is loose, freed from its knot. The problem is that I am not safe even though my body feels stronger, better in a way I can’t qualify. I close my eyes, forcing myself to take a deep, steady breath, but the hallucination intensifies, my senses attacked by the mouthwatering scent of flame-broiled meat; my stomach contracting at the promise of food. The honeyed aromas of sautéed onions and garlic fill my head. I smell mint and basil. Lemon. Pepper. Cheese.
Delirious.
I open my eyes.
I can hear my heart beating in my chest; its movements echoed out loud by the kind of machine I haven’t seen in years. The equipment in this room is old, except that it looks new. It hadn’t occurred to me to consider that they might not possess the same technological advancements here. I frown. Where?
Not a dream.
I tell myself that I have arrived in The New Republic.
Phase one complete.
I’d breathe a sigh of relief except that I can’t remember landing here. The details recounting my entry into enemy territory do not exist; where there should be memories there is only blankness. I have been at the mercy of the rebels in a state of unconsciousness, and I have no idea how I might’ve exposed myself or what they might’ve done to me. I implore my mind to use reason: remain calm. Stay the course. An agent of The Reestablishment has been assigned to contact me within forty-eight hours of my arrival.
I have no idea how long I’ve been here.
My immediate priority is to find a way out.
“Hey,” he says, holding out the glass. “Seriously, it’s just water.”
I go very still.
James is sitting next to my hospital bed, magically whole. I’d noticed him earlier, but as I hadn’t decided yet whether I was dreaming, I hadn’t known how to account for him. His presence is so vivid he feels dreamlike, his energy taking up most of the room. There’s a weight to him that I like. He seems solid. Unshakable. But without a thick layer of blood and grime obscuring his face, he’s much harder to look at, and I struggle to meet his probing stare. He’s studying me with a flat, slightly curious expression. He is otherwise unreadable.
Not a dream.
He walked in a few minutes ago with only a glance in my direction,wheeling in a table piled with plates of food the likes of which I haven’t seen in years.
He’s still holding out the water glass, waiting for me to take it. His eyes are a kaleidoscope of blues; like the sea, at turns tranquil and turbulent. Right now he’s unhurried and easy in his body. I have a strange thought: I wish I could gather up his calm and pull it over me, sleep beneath it as if it were a blanket.
“Rosabelle,” he says. For the first time, he cracks a smile. “C’mon. I swear it’s not poison.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
“Can you sit up a little more?”
“Why?”
“You need to eat,” he says. “I brought you food.”
“No.” I say it like a question.
