Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (20 page)

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m listening. And I don’t care about the cameras. I want to know every detail.”

“We thought you weren’t going to make it.” The corners of his mouth twitched downward. “The infection in your leg got to your heart. It’s a miracle you’re alive.” He leaned over and gently touched his lips to hers.

At that moment, the door to the room opened and Dr. Hortense Gray entered. “Hello, Daphne. How are you feeling?”

“I want to know what’s going on. Where’s my family?”

“Brock, would you leave us, please?”

Daphne glared at her. “No. Brock stays.”

Daphne couldn’t believe it when Brock kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’ll be waiting right outside that door.”

Heat flamed through Daphne’s body as Brock left the room. “What’s going on? Where’s my family?”

“You were quite ill.” The doctor crossed her arms at her chest and looked down at Daphne, not with kindness, exactly, but not with malice, either. “When Marty brought you in, you were running a fever of 105 degrees. A bacterial infection had developed in your leg and had spread throughout your blood system. You should have taken your medicine. It was prescribed for a reason.”

“I don’t need a lecture from you,” Daphne said. “What you’re doing here is…”

“Saving lives,” the doctor said calmly. “Including yours.”

“We nearly died out there,” Daphne demanded. “I almost drowned.”

“I didn’t push you off the boat. I didn’t make you and your family attempt to leave the island in the middle of the night. You all did that on your own.”

Daphne studied the doctor’s face. “So you’re admitting you don’t control everything that goes on around here,” Daphne said, testing her.

“Oh, I control plenty,” Hortense replied. “More than you know. However, in order for my therapy to work, I must leave some choices open to my patients. This allows for a degree of unpredictability. It keeps things alive. It keeps
people
alive.”

“Not everyone.” Daphne lay back on her pillow, exhausted.

Hortense Gray’s face turned bright pink.

So Greg hadn’t been lying about the kid who had died. If he had, Dr. Gray wouldn’t look like a melting
popsicle.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but no doctor is able to save everyone,” Hortense said, recovering. She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “We’ve been feeding you antibiotics through your IV for two weeks. I kept you asleep because I knew you would run, which would further endanger your life.”

“You’ve endangered my life the whole time I’ve been here. Why would you care?”

“That’s not true, Daphne.”

“And you’ve kept me asleep for two whole weeks?”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have run?”

Daphne bit her lip. Of course she would have run.

“Your infection has been eradicated, which is why you’ve been allowed to awaken. But you should stay here until you’re able to eat solid food and use the restroom on your own, just to be sure your systems are back to normal and there are no further complications from your treatment.”

“I want to see my family,” Daphne insisted.

The doctor smiled. “I’m afraid that’s impossible at the moment.”

Daphne narrowed her eyes as her heart picked up speed. “Why?”

“Your parents and brother are in therapy together and have been for several days.” The doctor folded her arms across her chest once more. “They are deep inside an elaborate exercise tailored specifically for Joey on another part of the island.”

Daphne couldn’t breathe. Her brother didn’t have the strength for this kind of therapy. He was too weak-minded, too vulnerable. Didn’t the doctor understand he was schizophrenic? And her father’s leg couldn’t be healed by now. How could he be involved in an exercise?

When she could finally speak, she said, “What have you done with them?”

The doctor’s smile widened. “Your parents volunteered. I didn’t force them into anything they didn’t want to do.”

Daphne’s mouth gaped. What if Hortense had manipulated her parents the same way she had manipulated Emma? Had the doctor threatened to let Daphne die if her parents refused to cooperate?

“Your brother has made remarkable progress in the two weeks he’s been here. And don’t worry. Your family will be back on this side of the island by this time tomorrow, and they are as anxious as you for a reunion.”

Daphne couldn’t speak.

“There’s someone else who’s been anxious to see you,” the doctor added. She opened the door, and in walked Cam. “I’ll leave you two alone for a while so you can catch up.” Dr. Gray left the room.

Daphne glared at Cam, finding no words to say to him as a million different thoughts mixed together in her head.

He sat on the chair beside her bed. “How do you feel, Daph?”

“Angry.
Betrayed. Used. Abused.”

“Your poor skin.” He gently peeled away some of the flakes on her arm.

She wanted to stop him, but it felt too good.

“Come closer,” she whispered.

He leaned over her—their faces inches apart.

“Greg told me the truth about this place,” she whispered. “He wants off the island. Blink if you do, too.”

Cam broke into a grin. “Whatever he told you was part of the exercise. He loves it here. We all do.”

She frowned as she scrutinized his features for signs of duplicity. Was he acting for the cameras, or telling her the truth?

In a low voice, he said, “Not everyone who volunteers gets to stay, Daph. It’s a privilege.”

“But…”

“Do you realize I haven’t wanted a hit in over a year? A year and two days, to be exact.” He grinned again. “It’s a frickin’ miracle.”

“If you’re cured, why do you stay?” she whispered.

“To help others,” he whispered back. “It gives me a high like nothing else.”

“Look at me,” she whispered. “Do I look helped? My skin’s peeling off. I’ve got scabs all over my body. My arm’s in a cast, for crying out loud. I nearly drowned out there. How can you call this help?”

He moved even closer, taking her left hand in his, careful of the IV port. Was he going to kiss her? He continued to peel away her dead skin. “Don’t you remember that night in the bathroom?” Tears moistened his eyes. “If Dr. Gray hadn’t realized what you were up to and sent someone to wake me up, God, Daph...”

Daphne swallowed against her tightened throat.

“That was a hell of a night,” he continued.

“Don’t you know what I’ve been through?” Daphne whispered. “Don’t you know what my family and Brock and Giovanni and I just endured? Anyone of us could have died.” Then she asked, “Where is Giovanni, anyway?”

Cam sat back in the chair. “Your dad took him to the police. They checked him in to a youth hostel in Ventura.”

“A youth hostel?”

“Yeah. He called his foster parents. They spoke with Dr. Gray, who’s trying to get him back, to finish his treatment.”

“God, I hope not.” Then her head jolted up. “They spoke to her by telephone?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But Giovanni needs this place. He reminds me of me—of how I was when I first came here.”

She groaned. “You’re so brainwashed. You can’t even see what’s right before your eyes.”

He peeled off a long sheet of her dead skin, and she practically cooed.

“You’re the blind one,” he said, “if you can’t see what this place has already done for you and your family.”

She closed her eyes, so tired. So exhausted.

“And you wouldn’t believe Joey,” Cam added. “He’s like his old self, before the accident with your grandpa.”

She opened her eyes and stared at Cam. “How is that possible?”

“Dr. Gray’s a
frickin’ genius, that’s how.”

Just then, the door opened, and Brock walked in.

“Dr. Gray said I could come back in,” he said.

Cam got up from the chair.
“Of course. I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about.” He crossed the room, but stopped at the door. “I’ll see you later, Daph.”

As soon as Cam was gone, Daphne glared at Brock. “How could you let this happen to my
family! How could you?”

Chapter Seventeen: Footage

A nurse came in right behind Brock with a tray of food—chicken noodle soup, a roll, and chocolate pudding. Daphne’s mouth watered at the sight of it, but once the nurse had left, Daphne demanded that Brock explain himself.

“You won’t understand,” he said.

“Nuh-uh,” she said with a mouth fill of roll. “You’re not getting away with that. Talk.”

“The catamaran circled back to tell us you had jumped and they’d called the coastguard,” Brock said. “Then they took your dad and Giovanni to Ventura, where an ambulance met them and took them to a hospital.”

“Thank God.”

“Everyone searched the island and the surrounding sea for you. I went out with Captain Jim, and we covered the area south of the island. He seemed to think the current would take you there. The coastguard had several boats out, too. They found your life vest.”

Daphne’s bowl was still half full, but suddenly her stomach ached at the thought of what she’d put everyone through. Brock’s face had paled with his story. She dropped her spoon on the tray and lay back on the bed.

“You should have told me about Joey,” she said. “I never would have gotten on that boat.”

Brock frowned. “That’s exactly why I didn’t. I don’t know what your father was thinking.”

“At least he told me the truth.”

“It never crossed his mind you’d jump,” Brock said.

“So what happened with the police? Why didn’t they shut this place down?”

“The only thing your parents cared about was finding you, and they needed all the help they could get—including Dr. Gray and her staff,” Brock explained. “Then, once you showed up half dead, your parents wanted to do anything it took to save you. They didn’t want to risk waiting until they could get you to the mainland. The police asked a few questions and left.”

“So if I hadn’t jumped…”

“It wasn’t your fault. We shouldn’t have listened to Greg.”

“So you’re saying Greg’s warning wasn’t part of the exercise?”

“Dr. Gray specifically said her son is rebelling against her and we shouldn’t listen to him. He’s just mad at her because she doesn’t want him with Emma. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t listened to him.”

Had Brock been brainwashed, too? He sounded like he meant what he said. A lot could happen in two weeks. “Brock, wake up. Quit talking like this. You sound like one of the
Calibans.”

“One of the what?”

“That’s my new name for the regulars,” she said.

“I don’t get it.”

“Dr. Gray had me read
The Tempest
. Have you read it?”

He shook his head.

“She wanted me to see her like Prospero. That’s this guy who frees a spirit from a tree, and in return gets use of the spirit’s powers on the island, where Prospero and his daughter have landed after an attempt on their lives.”

“Where do the
Calibans come in?”

She peeled at the dead skin on her good arm as she explained Shakespeare’s play. “The spirit had been trapped in the tree by a witch, and the witch had a son named
Caliban. He tried to force himself on Prospero’s daughter, so Prospero made him his slave.”

“Are you saying the regulars are Dr. Gray’s slaves?”

“Yeah. But instead of using the powers of a spirit to keep them here, she uses psychological manipulation.”

“If you saw Joey, you might be speaking to a different tune,” Brock said.

“You really think she’s helped Joey?”

“I know it. I don’t know if it’s the new meds, or this beautiful island, or her therapy, or a combination, but he’s much more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him.”

Brock hadn’t known Joey before the illness took him, so she couldn’t ask if he seemed like his old self. Plus, she didn’t want to get her hopes up too high. “I can’t wait to see him.”

“You will.” He planted a soft kiss on her lips.

She smiled up at him. Pushing her now empty tray out of his way, he leaned in and took her in his arms.

“I must look awful,” she whispered against his mouth.

“Beautiful,” he whispered back. He ran his hand over her new hair growth. “Beautiful as ever.”

“I want to go home,” she said.

“It won’t be long now.” He stood up and gazed down at her. “I know you hate this place, but I can’t. I’m too grateful to have you back.”

She sighed but said nothing. Not knowing what to say, she allowed herself to be held by Brock. He climbed up beside her on the bed and lay beside her, cuddling her. He ran his fingers through her new hair growth, his fingernails brushing against her itchy scalp. It felt heavenly.