Six Waking: Book 2 of the Otherworld Trilogy (Free Sample)

1

"Let him go," I commanded, my voice hoarser and far less intimidating than I would have liked but better than I had expected it to sound. They obeyed without hesitation and he darted towards me before anybody else could think to stop him.

He swept me into a hug and I braced myself for my various injuries to scream in protest, but they didn't. I stood there for a moment processing the absolute lack of pain before it fully sank in and I realized I was not hurt. I had felt no pain since getting up. It had vanished with my nightmare.

But the memory of it lurked just below the surface, like a snake ready to strike if I looked it in the eye. I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could, closing my eyes and resting my head against his shoulder.

He ran his fingers through my hair, another strange and new but comfortable sensation. "I thought I lost you. We lost you," he added quickly, as if correcting himself. "They wouldn't let anybody see you or tell us how you were." I wanted to reply but I didn't trust my voice. It took too much work to keep from crying and if I opened my mouth I was sure it would all go to waste. We stood like that for what felt like hours, silent and content, and then Griffin pulled away. He traced his fingertips down the side of my face, the side that had been burned. "How?"

"How?" I echoed, the question bouncing around my still-fuzzy head.

His dark eyebrows pulled together. "There's no way that could be healed without scars."

I was still confused but one of the men by the door answered. "Look at yourself, Griffin. We have talented people here."

"I know what you did for me," he replied, the slightest edge in his voice. "But that was nothing compared to this."

I registered their words and looked down, staring at his bare arms. Where bloody gashes had once crisscrossed the skin was nothing; smooth, flawless, without a trace of the wounds SAM had left behind. The last time I'd seen Griffin he'd been careful with every movement, pale with the effort it took to hide his pain and clearly exhausted by it. But now it seemed as if it had never happened. Surely I hadn't been asleep long enough for them to be healed—and I couldn't believe they would heal without leaving behind marks.

I took a step back, looking around the room finally. It was a small, square place done all in white and a soft, dusty brown shade. The fluorescent lights overhead were harsh and still stung, though not as badly as before. The only furniture was the flat bed I'd woken up in, with a variety of monitors and machines beeping on either side. Four people I had never seen before stood around, two by the door and two by the bed. Three were men, one a woman, all middle-aged and clad in sharp, professional dress and white coats. Next to them Griffin looked even scruffier than usual with his tousled brown hair, ripped jeans, and worn gray t-shirt. He was cleaner, though, without any of the blood, dirt, or scrapes and bruises I'd grown accustomed to seeing him with. It felt odd, as if I should treat him as a different person.

He had hugged me with the desperation of somebody who had nearly lost a person they cared about. The last week of my memory wouldn't just vanish, I knew—we'd been through enough together to seal us in a solid companionship at least—but I didn't know what else we were. Friends? Were we the same as we had been, now that we weren't alone scavenging for food among the eerie remains of a ghost town, or would civilization change that?

Was he the same person who had dueled with me with dusty plastic swords, who had backed me into a corner and kissed me until he couldn't bear to any longer, because every touch hurt him?

I had no answer and no idea how to find one, but he wrapped an arm around my waist easily, as if he'd done it a thousand times before. The doctors scurried aside at our approach, something akin to fear in their eyes. I filed that away to ask about later and decide whether or not to take advantage of it. "We'd really like to talk to you, Fox, and make sure there's no damage—"

Griffin cut him off without hesitation, clearly having done this before already. "I don't care what your policies are or where you want to take us, we're not going until she gets taken care of. You look like hell, Fox."

I managed a weak laugh. "Where would I be without your charm?"

"Still sleeping in a freezing motel and living off of ancient canned ravioli."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on? Where are we?"

"It's a long story. The others are here, we're all okay, and supposedly once you're up for it we'll get to find out exactly what happened."

"I'm up for it," I replied quickly. I was sick of not knowing.

He laughed, pushing me lightly towards a closed door. "Shower first. I know we all got used to the lack of hygiene before but you wouldn't believe how much better clean clothes make you feel after waking up in a hospital surrounded by people who won't give you straight answers."

I looked down to what I was wearing: a pair of jeans with frayed ends and a long tear in one leg, mud ground into the knees, and a faded shirt dotted with dried blood. My attention trailed over to my wrist, which had in my last memory been wrapped in crude, bloodstained bandages from a dog bite. The combination of real bandages and t-shirt strips we'd used were gone and not a single mark remained of the bite. The skin there felt tingly, like the distant feeling of pins and needles, so subtle I didn't notice it until I focused on it. When I did I realized I felt it along the side of my face and in my ankle as well, and to a lesser extent scattered across all the little scrapes and bumps I'd gained. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling.

"They healed us," I said to Griffin, not a question and not quite a statement, either, just wrapping my mind around the fact aloud.

He just shook his head. "I don't really know, either, I just know we're not there anymore. Get cleaned up and then we'll find out. Hopefully."

"It's safe?"

"As far as we can tell."

I considered that answer for a moment. I didn't trust these strangers, not yet, but I trusted Griffin to let me know somehow if we were somewhere he suspected was dangerous. He seemed relaxed enough that it took the edge off of my worry, though didn't erase it completely. I'd decide exactly how safe we were for myself.

But a hot shower sounded really, really nice.

"Okay," I murmured, nodding. "Better than nothing."