It was her father, he’d finally come to get her, just as he’d promised he would. He’d hurt James, probably because he’d been protecting her.
She looked up for help, praying to see anyone, it didn’t matter how old he was, just anyone. There was no one around, not a single soul.
Oh, God, what should she do? She was leaning down to look at the wound when the blow crashed directly down on the back of her head and she crumpled over James.
She heard the sound. It came at short intervals. It was water, one drop after another, hitting metal.
Plop.
She opened her eyes but couldn’t seem to focus. Her brain felt loose, as if it were floating inside her head. She couldn’t seem to think, she could only hear that plop. She knew something wasn’t right. She tried to remember but couldn’t quite make her brain fasten onto something that would trigger a thought, any thought, anything that happened to her before she was here, wherever here was.
“You’re awake. Good.”
A voice, a man’s voice, his voice. She managed to follow the sound of his face. It was Dr. Beadermeyer, the man who had tormented her for six long months.
Yes, she remembered that, not all of it, but enough to have it burn through her sleep and terrify her over and over in nightmares that still brought vivid pain.
Suddenly she remembered. She’d been with James. Yes, James Quinlan. He’d been struck on the head. He was lying unconscious on the ground in that small sliver of land next to the Hinterlands.
“Nothing to say, Sally? I cut back on the dosage so you could talk to me.” She felt a sharp slap on her cheek.
“Look at me, Sally. Don’t pretend you’re off in outer space. I know this time you can’t be.” He slapped her again.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard.
“Is James all right?”
He stopped shaking her. “James?” He sounded surprised. “Oh, that man you were with in The Cove. Yes, he’s fine. No one wanted to take the risk of killing him. Was he your lover, Sally? You only had him a bit over a week. That’s moving fast. He must have been desperate.
“Just look at you, all skinny and pathetic, your hair in strings, your clothes bagging around you. Come on, Sally, tell me about James. Tell me what you told him.”
“I told him about you,” she said. “I had a nightmare and he helped me through it. I told him what a piece of slime you are.”
He slapped her again, not too hard, but hard enough to make her shrink away from him.
“You’re rude, Sally. And you’re lying. You’ve never lied well and I can always tell. You might have dreamed, but you didn’t tell him about me. You want to know why? It’s because you’re crazy and I’m so deep a part of you that if you were to tell anyone about me, why, you’d just collapse in on yourself and die. You can’t exist without me, Sally.
“You were away from me for just two weeks, and look what happened. You’re a mess. You tried to pretend you were normal. You lost all your manners. Your mother would be appalled. Your husband would back away from you in disgust. As for your father, well-well, I suppose it’s not worth speculating now that he’s shuffled off his mortal coil.”
“Where am I?”
“Ah, that’s supposed to be the first thing out of your mouth, if books and TV stories are to be believed. You’re back where you belong, Sally. Just look around you. You’re back in your room, the very same one decorated especially for you by your dear father. I’ve kept you under for nearly a day and a half. I let up on the dosage about four hours ago. You took your time coming to the surface.”
“What do you want?”
“I have what I want; at least I have the first installment of what I want. And that’s you, my dear.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll bet you are. Holland, where are you? Bring some water to our patient.”