Page 94 of A Light in the Dark
I settled in to wait, hoping everything would be all right at home.
TWENTY-NINE
She’d been told to go hunt berries, hadn’t she?
I chokedout three pounds of silk over a three hour period, and between coughing fits, I directed baleful glares at my boss. Once I finished, Roger took the fibers away, earning a storm of unhappy squeaking over having been robbed of the prize I’d worked hard to create. Before I could try to fly and nag the Hunter for his theft, my boss caught me in his hands, moved me to the middle of the bed, and did something that made my bones burn. It only lasted for a few moments, but rather than squeak, I spat out a volley of vehement curses.
Roger stopped, turn to face me, and raised a brow. “That did not take long at all.”
“It’s easiest to force someone to shapeshift when they’re already in a heightened emotional state. She was infuriated you’d taken her silk away, so I took advantage of that to bounce her back to human. You can’t eviscerate him, Valerie. Can you summon the doctors and nurses so they can doan examination?”
“I can. Please sit tight. I won’t lose any of your silk, and I’ll make sure it’s separated from your first shift silk.”
“Silk thief,” I accused.
The Hunter laughed at me, headed to the door, and used his elbow to let himself out, informing someone in the hallway that they had a human patient to work with.
His announcement brought in several men and women, who kicked everyone else out of the room. The examination started off with a question and answer session before they opted to exclude me from the rest of the tests through sedation.
Apparently, it was easier to determine how badly someone had been injured when the patient wasn’t conscious to slow the process down, ask questions, or otherwise get in the way.
When I woke up, my clothes had been whisked away, I’d been tossed into a hospital gown, and my boss read a book next to my bedside. The lack of an IV pleased me, and I crossed my arms over my chest and sulked.
“You’ll be here for two days,” my boss informed me without looking up. “They found significant internal injuries, mostly in the form of bruising, but you require a transfusion. To keep the whining at a minimum, the donor for your transfusion is on route by car, but he won’t be here for an hour or two. He’ll be bringing a replacement phone for you. With some help from Yolana, he managed to get your project app installed and find the pattern you were using. Fortunately for us all, Yolana remembered which one it was and managed to find a copy to buy.”
“Is Joel the donor?” I asked.
“He is. He’s a universal donor, and while he had a concussion,there’s nothing wrong with his blood supply, he’s not on any medications, and he qualified. Honestly, you don’t need much blood, which is the reason he qualified. It also allows the Hunters to get him monitored here rather than in Stonecreek. That better protects him, especially as the Hunters found sufficient evidence to level official genocide accusations on Stonecreek’s mayor. The evidence was presented to the other city-states, who voted unanimously to move forward with his arrest and trial. Without bail, in maximum security prison. Due to the severity of the accusations, he’ll be held in maximum security in Moonriver until it’s time for his trial—and Moonriver requested law enforcement from another world to make certain everything was done correctly. Unfortunately for the mayor, his aides began singing like canaries at the first sign of pressure. They don’t want to face genocide charges, and theymightget away with just being accessories. They did what their boss told them.”
I could accept staying in a hospital in Moonriver if I had company in the form of my neighbor. I eyed the room, which had a second bed. “He’ll be my roommate?”
“That’s the idea. His concussion was much worse than yours, but you’re a bruise from head to toe, so you both need about the same amount of monitoring. This prevents any mistakes. And if he’s suffering from a minor amount of blood loss, he’ll be more inclined to cooperate with us.”
That I could understand. “What day is it?”
“It’s Friday.”
I sighed at the thought of having lost almost a week of my life. “I know the storm lasted two days, but how long was it before I got dumped?”
“Roughly a day. Then you walked for another day afterthe storm ended, leading up to when you tripped over Coraline. The rest of the time was here eating fruit, sniffing the roses, and undergoing testing.”
“I really can’t judge you luna moths about the roses now,” I admitted. “That was a really good nap.”
“It’s true. Roses induce the best naps. Considering the circumstances, our work isn’t dinging us vacation or sick days for this incident, especially once they learned that the mayor attempted to have you murdered for revealing he was having refugees killed. Madeline has freaked out, and my bosses are making sure she has access to therapy. I think she realized she might have been one of the next people to die.”
“She’d been told to go hunt berries, hadn’t she?”
“That’s correct. She’d been told to by the same aides who had grabbed you and hit Joel. The police came to question her, and she recognized your assailants. A lot of the refugees are being questioned, and a lot of them had gotten the same advice from the same people—and the aides are responsible for the guides who’d given Gabriella such poor instructions.” My boss scowled. “Once Joel is here, I’ll be headed back to Stonecreek. There’s going to be an emergency election for a temporary mayor, and there are more than a few problems.”
“What do you mean? I mean, beyond nobody having a chance to run, showcase their stance, and so on. That’s going to be a problem, but the mayor is only going to be temporary, right?”
“The mayorship for the elected individual will only be a one year period.”
“What are the problems?”
“The main one is that you’re on the ballot.”
My eyes widened. “What did you just say?”
