Boreal and John Grey Season 1 (55 page)

Great, she’d been reduced to Finn’s mode of talking.

Mike waved a hand over Ella’s head. “They’re moving him to an ambulance. As soon as you can, we’ll go down.”

“I need to go to him, Mike, right now.”

“Listen, girl.” He leaned over her, his eyes concerned. “The cut in your arm’s infected, you’re running a fever. The doctor cleaned it and gave you a shot of antibiotics and analgesics, but you need to take care of yourself. He stitched the cut in your palm, too.”

Damn, she hadn’t realized she was down to her tank top and that her arm and hand were wrapped in fresh gauze. Woozy, that was how she felt. It made her want to giggle.
Definitely woozy
.

“I’m doing okay,” she said and fell back on the hard pillow. “We can go.”

“Are you sure? The doctor wanted to check on you again when you woke up.”

“Dammit, Mike, Finn isn’t stable. Do you want him getting shot again?” A sob caught in her throat.
Damn infection and damn fever
. She rode the emotional rollercoaster and clenched her jaw. “Help me up.”

“Yes, boss.” Mike rolled his eyes but drew her to a sitting position and wrapped an arm around her as she stood, still wobbly. “Rough night, huh?”

Running on rooftops, searching for Finn as Gates randomly opened all around, having Norma almost die in the car, then Sarah draw a gun on her twice, and barely saving Finn... On top of finding out Finn was John Grey and going through one melt-down already when she’d thought he’d died...

Ella forced down another giggle. God, yeah, you could say it’d been a rough night — and day.
More like a rough month
. “Any word about Norma?”

“She’s the same.”

Wordlessly, she let Mike lead her to the door, under Dave’s glare. Well, it wasn’t a match for Finn’s.

They stepped into the elevator. She was steadier now, and her legs didn’t feel like they’d buckle at any moment.

“Mike...” Ella squeezed his arm as they rode down. “You’ll stay here, yeah? Keep tabs on Norma, and say hi to Scott from me. Go to him. He needs you.”

“You need me more,” Mike grunted as the elevator doors dinged and opened into the lobby of the clinic.

“We’ll be fine.”

“Hey, are you Ella?” A nervous-looking nurse stepped in their way. He was running a hand through his blond fringe over and over.

“Yes.”

“Oh good. That guy, he’s been asking for you. Could you calm him down? The men are getting jumpy.”

The men?
Ella let go of Mike and hurried outside to find Finn struggling with two attendants, trying to get off the stretcher. The fact that he hadn’t knocked them flat on their back yet just went to show how weak he was.

And afraid. The air crackled around him, stretching and glittering like the surface of a soap bubble, filled with writhing forms.

“Finn!” she shouted.

Around the stretcher stood six police, their guns trained on him, their fingers on the trigger.

“I’m here,” she called, hurrying over to the stretcher, trying to ignore the way the ground pitched and moved in her blurry eyes. “All of you, step back. Finn, stop!”

The tableau froze, Finn with a fist drawn for a punch, an attendant in the act of hauling Finn back.

The Gate shrank and faded. Finn dropped his fist, shoulders slumping. She could read relief in every line of his body, but his eyes were glazed over and she wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

They’d taken him away while she was unconscious. They really didn’t understand Finn needed to feel safe.

“Stand down.” She reached Finn and placed a hand on his chest. “Everything’s okay.”

The guns didn’t lower, though. She pushed Finn and he lay back, covering her hand with his over his heart. The gesture always seemed to calm him.

“I’m here. Everything’s okay.” She repeated the litany as Dave strode out of the clinic, ordering his people to step down, as the attendants cautiously approached and loaded the stretcher into the ambulance, as Mike waved and shouted that she should call him and let him know they were okay as soon as she could.

A medic built like a freaking china cabinet took seat at Finn’s feet, reattaching a drip in the needle in Finn’s hand, and two police climbed inside with them — a man and a woman, guns pointing down. They sat on either side of the stretcher.

Finn tensed and his hand tightened over hers, threatening to crush it. He muttered something she didn’t catch.

“I’m here,” she repeated. “It’s okay.”

The ambulance doors slammed closed, and it was quiet.

***

Indefinite time passed, marked with potholes that jerked her on the hard bench of the ambulance and made Finn hiss with pain. He was crushing her finger bones in his grip and she didn’t care, as long as he knew she was there.

Besides, the pain kept her awake, alert for any signs of a Gate opening.

Flashes of images went before her eyes —
white landscapes, steep peaks of mountains and swirls of snow
— and she shook Finn. His eyes opened, silvery light in their cores, but his mind was obviously elsewhere.

Somewhere far away.

“Stay with me, Finn.” His hand was cold — or was she burning with fever? — and she clasped it, warming it, stroking a finger over the scars on his knuckles. “You’re safe now.”

The images faded and the strange light in his eyes went out. He blinked and shuddered.

Change his dreams. Affect his memories. Move and talk and touch him in the midst of his nightmares.
How?
Why hadn’t it worked so far? What was she doing wrong?

“You’re shaking,” Finn murmured. “Ella?”

“I’m all right.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry.”

“How’s Norma?” His raspy voice slurred. He sounded as if a wolf had shredded his vocal cords.

“Stable. Mike stayed to watch over her.” She glanced at the shadowed faces of the medic and the two police, then down at Finn’s hand. “Finn... Why can’t I act in your dreams?” The moment she said it, she knew it sounded stupid — it was his dreams, his memories, why should she be able to do anything at all?

“You used to talk to me,” Finn said quietly.

Shock immobilized her. “I did? Then what happened?”

“You stopped talking.” He sounded sad.

What was in the notes Dave gave her? Something about her abilities growing, but also that she’d started fighting them. Had she withdrawn from Finn’s dreams? Could she find her lost abilities again?

Did it all even make any sense, or was she hallucinating with fever?

“I’ll figure this out,” she mumbled, more to reassure herself than anything else. “I’ve done it before; I can do it again.”

Finn was staring at her as if she’d sprouted horns. Well, she was talking to herself. Probably didn’t look quite sane.
Too damn funny
. “You must’ve been shocked when you met me,” she said, a snort escaping her. “I’m such a chatterbox, and in your dreams you thought I was the shy, silent type.”

“Ella,” Finn said, then again, louder, “Ella!”

What?
Oh right, she was chuckling like a loon. “Sorry. It’s just...” Fever, exhaustion, madness, and hanging onto a hope thin as a baby’s wail. Hey, laughing was better than crying, surely.

She drew a breath. She was scaring Finn, dammit.
Way to go
. “It’s the lack of sleep.” Not the fact that she planned to save the world by talking her way into Finn’s dreams, hoping to change his memories and his magic.

Because that sounded plausible and all.

Yeah
.

***

Ella shook Finn awake for what felt like the millionth time when the ambulance finally lurched to a stop. The two police exchanged wary looks and rose from the benches, while the medic fussed with Finn’s drip.

“Where are we?” Ella asked as the doors opened and golden daylight flooded the cramped space.

Nobody answered her.
Typical
.

“Bring them out,” Dave’s voice rang from outside. “Nobody shoots unless I say so, got it?”

Reassuring, though not by much, considering Dave had been the one to put a bullet in Finn’s chest in the first place.

Two attendants came around to pull the stretcher out and, to her relief, the young doctor from the clinic was with them. That hopefully meant Dave hadn’t brought them there — wherever that was — to have them killed or be left to die.

A policeman stepped forward, offering her a hand down and she accepted it gratefully, not too certain of her balance.

Then she stood next to Finn’s stretcher, surrounded by loaded guns, on the side of a deserted road. Rectangular, windowless buildings with heavy doors rose across the road. The light slanted, casting long shadows. Late afternoon. Just how many hours had the bumpy ride taken?

And how far were they from the city? She eyed the buildings again. What on earth was this place? It smelled of military.

“An abandoned base?” she hazarded.

“The less you know the better,” Dave all but growled. He came to stand in front of her, hands shoved in his pockets. He hummed. The sound seemed to come from deep inside his chest. “This is an experiment, just so we’re clear about this. You have a week to fix his magic.” He glanced at Finn who glared right back, hands fisted by his sides where he lay on the stretcher. “We’ll be posted along the perimeter and also inside, close enough you can yell for help. Infrared sensors will tell us if anything passes through a Gate, and the moment an elf or machine crosses, the experiment is over. Understood?”