“What?” I yell. Ryanne jumps, and I apologize before turning back toward Logan. “How?”
“They have a dream-walker too. I don’t know how, but he was able to knock Ryanne out from inside Dravin’s compound.”
“Can you do that, Liam?” Emma asks.
“I don’t know. Never tried.”
Ryanne is staring down at the plate, no longer trying to eat. She’d only eaten half of the first piece. “Keep eating,” I tell her quietly. She doesn’t look very good. She turns around and looks at Logan. She places the toast on the armrest and crawls off my lap over to him. He’s not looking at her and doesn’t turn toward her when she moves. Reaching forward, Ryanne grabs onto his hands and closes her eyes.
“Ryanne, you don’t you don’t have enough energy for that,” he says as he tries to pull his arms away, but Ryanne keeps a firm grip on him. I watch as the dark circles under his eyes disappear. She is giving him some of her magic to help him heal faster. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says when she finishes.
She crawls back onto my lap. Instead of grabbing the toast, she curls up and leans back against my chest. “You’re welcome,” she says while yawning. Closing her eyes, she instantly falls asleep. I look back toward Logan; he’ll have to explain everything now.
Emma sits down in the chair with David and asks Logan, “What the heck happened? When I walked upstairs, she was sitting on the floor in the bathroom brushing her teeth because she couldn’t hold herself up, even after you healed her. I had to hold her up because she kept swaying.”
I wrap my arms around her. It is times like this when I realize how small she actually is. Curled up in this position, she fits in my lap perfectly. Despite this tough demeanor she gives herself, she is very breakable, and I am constantly being reminded of it.
“I don’t really know what happened. She was knocked unconscious and suddenly she was standing inside of Dravin’s compound. He ran forward and grabbed her neck, lifting her off the ground. He poured some liquid down her throat, coercing her to swallow. I’m pretty sure it was the truth serum. This time he gave her way too much. Her body couldn’t handle it. She fell to the ground and just started screaming.” Logan’s shaking his head. I know that he doesn’t like seeing this stuff. He especially doesn’t like having to restate everything afterwards.
“He kept asking what her powers were. He still needs to know the extent of her magic. He knows some of it from Natasha but not everything. Ryanne kept…screaming. She couldn’t speak, and when she didn’t answer his questions, he attacked her. I’m glad she was wearing that sweatshirt. One, because it softened some of the blows, and two, because you couldn’t see the extent of her injuries. She eventually passed out from the pain and that’s how she woke up. Her body rejected the truth serum which was why she threw up.”
I don’t realize that I am holding her so hard until she groans and starts to move. I loosen my grip around her, and she settles down and curls closer to me. What am I going to do with her? I can’t be with her 24/7, but I’ll sure as hell try. There’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight from now on. I look around the room. Tom is leaning against the wall; he seems to be lost in his thoughts. David and Emma are both staring at Ryanne. Bragden keeps glancing between Ryanne and Liam. Liam is back in the chair he was in earlier. Now, he is the one with his head resting in his hands. Natalie is sitting on the floor at his feet. She keeps looking up at him, and her eyes tell us that she wants to help. Larkin is pacing in the back of the room.
“Liam, are you alright?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I just don’t feel very good.”
“Like you don’t feel good or Ryanne doesn’t feel good?”
“I think it’s her, but I don’t know for sure. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
I reach down and feel her forehead. She's burning up. “I’m pretty sure she has a fever.”
“I’ll be right back,” Larkin says as he transports out of the room.
Chapter Ten
Colton
“Where’s he going?” Emma asks.
“Who knows?” I say. No one really knows what Larkin does. He does what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. I glance down at Ryanne again. Her usually fair skin looks even paler than usual, but her cheeks are bright red. I sweep her long hair over her shoulder, out of her face. She sighs when my hand grazes her neck. I can get a reaction out of her even when she is sleeping.
“I wonder what she saw in that vision,” Natalie says. Oh yeah, I forgot that she went into a vision when I touched her earlier. Obviously she saw something pleasant for once because she tried really hard to hide her smile. I think that it has something to do with us because when she looked at me, her smile got bigger. Can’t she ever get a break? She goes from being happy one moment to in pain the next. “I bet it had something to do with you, Colton,” Emma says.