“Mostly,” I said.
His eyes met mine, and I sensed a streak of hope within him. “Just ‘mostly’? What’s the rest of your reason for listening?”
“I enjoy a good monologue from time to time,” I said, and I could feel my palms sweating on the leather of my jacket. Yes, in a dream. I still don’t know how that works. “It’s not just about you giving something away. It’s about you constantly overestimating your chances, showing me how arrogant you really are.”
“Maybe I’m just hoping you’ll come around,” he said softly. Sadly, really.
“Don’t bet on it,” I said, still staring him down.
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me. After a moment, he started to fade again. “Take care, Sienna.”
“If I can avoid your thugs,” I said, driving the knife home as he disappeared into the shadows of the dreamwalk, “maybe I will.” I waited for another moment to see if he would respond, but by then the dreamwalk had started to lose its clarity around me, and I fell into a mercifully quiet sleep.
Chapter 20
I woke with the sour face of Dr. Perugini hovering over me, her dark hair gathered back on her head in a bun. Her lab coat was bright white and went marvelously with the ceiling and her olive skin. She was frowning, as she frequently did in my presence.
As far as wake ups go, I think I preferred Sovereign, actually.
The faint beeping of medical machines and my slow, rhythmic breathing reached my ears a moment later. The place smelled of sterile antiseptics, like Perugini had spilled grain alcohol on the floor and never bothered to mop it up. Smelled like whiskey to me, for some reason. Probably because of a bad night I had with—
Never mind.
“Ah, good, you’re awake,” she said.
“Now ‘get out’?” I asked, helpfully filling in her next words for her.
She did not look amused. “You are still missing quite a bit of skin and have several fractures in the process of healing, so no, I would not advise getting out of bed just yet.”
“Gimme a sec,” I said, sitting up uncomfortably. I hurt. A lot. She was probably dead on about that skin being missing, because it felt like it had all been scraped off along my arms from my wrists down to my elbows. I moved with nothing less than a full grimace on my face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes lit up with anger, and she started to reach for me, probably to hold me down.
“I said give me a second.” I held up a hand and noticed the bandages stretched along my wrist, along with angry red marks down the back of my hand. I closed my eyes, tried to ignore the pain and failed. Still, I managed to muster enough mental discipline to make a call.
Wolfe.
He came forth when I beckoned, and I heard a gasp from Perugini. I opened my eyes as she recoiled from me. Skin was growing along the red wounds on the back of my hands, and I could feel the pain of regrowth beneath the bandages as well. New skin crawled across the red and ragged mess, eliciting a noise of disgust from Perugini. You’d think, as a doctor, she’d be pleased to see her patients healing, but no, apparently not.
The entire process lasted about ten seconds and it was done. Thin trails of blood marked the points where the regrown skin had met up, soft, crusted lines that dotted my pale flesh. “Well, that ought to do it,” I said.
Perugini stared at my newly mended arms and then looked up at me dully before snapping her latex gloves off with a little more gusto. “Well, what do you even need me for?”
“For all that trouble I keep bringing down on others.” I threw back the discolored sheet that lay across my abdomen, ignoring the red-brown blood stains that dotted it and put my feet on the cold floor. “You know, that thing you’re constantly bitching at me about.”
She made a glottal stop noise deep in her throat, a sound of disgust, and then stormed off. She paused only briefly to throw her gloves into the medical waste can before slamming the door to her office.
We had a special relationship, she and I.
I looked down at the hospital style gown that covered my body and made sure to tie the straps in the back before getting out of bed. I wasn’t super enthused at the idea of showing my ass to anybody. Literally, not metaphorically. I metaphorically show my ass to people all the time. It’s fun and usually takes the form of sarcasm.
I sighed and my eyes swept the nearby area. There was a faint beeping in the corner and I glanced over to see Agent Li with an IV tree, lines running toward him. He was either asleep or faking it, and I didn’t want to converse with him badly enough to probe which it was. I saw a bandage on his upper arm and wondered idly how badly he’d been hit. It wasn’t immobilized, so I guessed it wasn’t bad, but I made a mental note to inquire when next I saw someone who would know.