Etched in Bone (48 page)

No shields. No mind. No Dante.

Pulse pounding, a cold sweat beading her forehead, Heather closed her eyes and focused on their bond. Ripped and tore through the cotton shrouding her mind, finally unburying the light that was Dante’s presence.

Relief flooded through Heather in a heated rush, but quickly cooled as she realized that something was very wrong—instead of burning bright and steady as usual, Dante’s flame was guttering, a dim and ghostly flicker.

Fear closed cold fingers around her heart. She was losing him.

She had a feeling—no, more than that—a realization that Dante was not only badly hurt, he might actually be dying—or close to it.

I feel like I’m running outta time.

I refuse to lose you.

But she was.

“No, no, no,” she whispered. “Hold on, Baptiste.” She tried funneling energy into their bond, but the cotton surrounding her mind soaked it up instead.

But she kept trying, pouring everything she had into their bond, or trying to, anyway.
Hold on, Baptiste. Hold on, please. Don’t leave me.

“Pumpkin.”

With that one word, the morning’s events—
was it still the same day?
—rushed back into Heather’s mind, sieving through the cotton.

You’re lying to yourself, Pumpkin, you’ve chosen nothing. That’s just what Prejean or Baptiste or whatever name the blood-sucking bastard goes by, wants you to think. But I’m going to put an end to that.

Get out of here, Annie! Find Jack . . .

Heather opened her eyes.

James Wallace stood in the doorway of her room, his care-worn face concerned, his eyes hidden behind the reflections glimmering on the lenses of his glasses.

In that moment, she knew she would never call him Dad again.

“What have you done to Dante?” she asked, her voice tight. “And Annie? Where’s Annie?”

Regret flickered across James’s face. He shook his head. “I was forced to leave your sister behind. But I plan to go back for her. As for Prejean, what was done to him was nothing that he didn’t deserve,” James replied, walking into the room, the warm scent of his aftershave preceding him. “But he’s no longer your concern, Pumpkin. He never will be again.”

“Go to hell, you sonuvabitch,” Heather snarled. “Where is he?”

“You need to focus on your own life, Heather. You need to reclaim it. And once we’ve freed you of that damned bloodsucker’s influence, once we’ve scrubbed the taint of his touch off you, you’ll be my daughter again, the brilliant FBI agent.”

Heather stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

A nurse in blue scrubs padded into the room behind James, carrying an IV bag, which she started to connect to the stand positioned beside the bed.

“You’ll feel much better once the drugs start to work,” the nurse assured Heather. “It’ll make the therapy easier, as well.”

“Welcome to the Strickland Deprogramming Institute,” James Wallace said, his lips parting in a warm and reassuring smile.

“Keep away from me,” Heather warned the nurse. “I’m here against my will. You need to release me and let me up right now.”

“Oh, honey,” the nurse chuckled good-naturedly. “That’s what they all say.”

“Let me up and I won’t file any criminal charges against the institute,” Heather said, yanking at her restraints and keeping a wary eye on the nurse, flinching away whenever she approached. “Or you,” she added.

“That’s all right, honey. I know you don’t mean it.”

“Let me up!” Heather screamed, jerking against her restraints in an adrenaline-pumped frenzy of motion, slamming them against the bed rails.
Tunk-tunk-tunk
.
Tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk
.

She screamed until she was hoarse and wrenched at her restraints until she fell back, exhausted and panting, her heart drumming against her ribs.

And, in the end, a beefy orderly with a pleasant smile whisked into the room and held her down while the nurse threaded the IV into the vein on the back of Heather’s hand and spun open the dial.

As Heather’s vision tunneled down, her father’s smiling face was the last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her.

50
HOME

B
ATON
R
OUGE
T
HE
D
OUCET
-B
AINBRIDGE
S
ANITARIUM
March 30

P
AIN ICICLED
D
ANTE’S MIND
, prickled thorns of frost behind his eyes, his temples, shivved his heart with ice. He shivered, chills wracking his body, spasming his muscles. He coughed, and fresh pain ripped through his chest.

He slivered open his eyes. Light needled into them and he snapped them shut again. But he’d seen enough to know that he lay sprawled on an institution-style mattress in a white padded room, his hands cuffed behind his back.

A room that looked
beaucoup
familiar.

Wasps droned. Crawled sluggishly beneath his frozen skin. His pulse throbbed at his temples. Each breath slivered ice into his heart.

He struggled to remember before Sleep. Struggled to remember his name.

Dante, yeah? Dante . . .

A woman’s voice, low and warm, whispered through his memory.
Baptiste
.

His eyes flew open again and he ignored the pain.

Heather.

Annie’s frantic words raced through his memory,
Heather’s in trouble.

But pain exploded through Dante’s head as the sending reverberated through his skull, unsent, drumming additional hurt through his aching mind. “Shit.” He squeezed his eyes shut again.

He couldn’t send, his mind felt as through endless shards of glass impaled it and every thought was snagged and shredded like stray threads on the sharp points.

Dante tried to shove the pain below and focus, but the pain shoved back, stealing his breath with its intensity.

Consciousness spun away.

Dreams of Heather brought him back, her rainstorm scent of lilac and sage deep in his lungs. In that quiet moment, Dante felt her presence in his mind, but it was distant, foggy, as though her end of their bond was sandwiched in an institution-style mattress just like the one he was lying on.

Slivering his eyes open again and wincing in the light, Dante looked down at himself. Panic pulsed through him, amped his heartbeat. Not only was he wearing blue scrubs and paper slippers, but draped across the foot of the mattress, a straitjacket waited, buckles glinting, back open, an open invitation for his arms.

Dante’s mouth dried.

Forcing his gaze away from the straitjacket, he struggled up into a sitting position. Black specks poked holes in his vision. Dizziness spun him around like a child on a merry-go-round. “Fuck.”

Dante lifted his head, shaking his hair back from his face, then froze. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

A little girl with long red hair and blue eyes watched him through a window, her freckled face worried. She wore the purple Winnie-the-Pooh sweater he’d given her.
Dante-angel
, she mouthed through the window. She pressed her palms flat against the glass.

The past slipped around Dante like a straitjacket and strapped him in tight.

Just you and me, princess. Forever and ever . . .

The intercom speakers crackled, then a man’s voice said, “Welcome back, S. We’ve missed you.”

Table of Contents

page 4

Table of Contents

page 4

Table of Contents

page 4