Page 80 of Dark Chains: First Link
Around the corner, the corridor widened into a common area, with chairs arranged against the wall, a small table with magazines on top of it, and a door labeled with a sign he couldn't read from this angle. Beyond, the corridor continued to an elevator.
An elevator. That was important.
The elevator doors were stainless steel, and the scanner beside them had only two arrows. Up and down. No floor numbers.
He knew that the building above the underground complex was a high-rise, and Areana resided in the penthouse, but perhaps this elevator only traveled one floor up and one down, and there was another elevator that went all the way to where his mate was living in luxury while he was stuck in a clinic without windows.
Gertrude wheeled him to the common area and parked the chair near the table. "We'll rest here for a minute. Don't want to overdo it on your first outing."
"I'm sitting in a chair. How is that overdoing anything?"
"Sitting upright after months in bed puts stress on your cardiovascular system. Your blood pressure needs time to adjust."
He wanted to argue that his cardiovascular system was immortal and didn't need adjusting, but the slight lightheadedness he'd been ignoring since she'd put him in the chair suggested that she knew what she was talking about.
31
NAVUH
The elevator announced its arrival with a chime, the doors slid open, and Areana stepped out.
Had Gertrude known that his mate was on her way, and was that the real reason for parking him in this spot?
If the nurse's goal was to stimulate him, the underwhelming outing to the drab corridor had done very little in that regard, but adding Areana's arrival did the trick. Even though his body wasn't capable of a proper response, his mind still obliged.
His mate looked like the goddess she was, but with a modern twist. She was wearing a cream-colored blouse and dark slacks, the contemporary clothing suiting her beautifully. Her blond hair was swept back in a stylish updo, and she also carried a small handbag that he hadn't seen before. Someone had been taking her shopping or bringing her things.
Her eyes widened.
"You're up and about," she said. "That's wonderful." She walked over to him in quick, graceful strides and bent to kiss his forehead. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"The wheelchair arrived last night," Gertrude said. "And we are taking it on a test drive. I had a feeling you'd be coming and wanted to surprise you."
So, he'd been right. The nurse had planned this.
Areana crouched beside the chair and took his hand. Her fingers were warm, and the scent of her, the real scent beneath the new perfume she'd started wearing, was the same as it had been for five thousand years. Sweet and clean and uniquely hers.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Like a monkey in a zoo."
She smiled, and the smile held both tenderness and the kind of patient amusement that she'd perfected over millennia of managing him. "You're being dramatic."
"I am sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital gown with a blanket spread over my legs to preserve what little is left of my dignity."
"It's progress." She squeezed his hand. "Yesterday you were in bed. Today you're in the corridor. Tomorrow, who knows?"
Tomorrow he would be in bed again, and then he would visit the corridor again, and the day after that, perhaps a different corridor, and the days would accumulate into weeks and the weeks into months and the months into a lifetime of captivity that stretched ahead of him like the featureless ceiling of his room.
Areana straightened and positioned herself beside the wheelchair. The Guardian adjusted his position to accommodate the new formation, and Gertrude resumed pushing.
They moved down the corridor at a pace that Navuh found insulting, past the common area and toward another section. The corridor branched here, one path continuing straight and the other veering to the left. Gertrude took the left branch.
"There's another open area down here," she said. "More space than the corridor."
He didn't respond. He was too busy measuring. The left branch was six meters long before it opened into a wider space. The air was a little different here, less stale, as if the ventilation worked harder in this section. He could hear the hum of larger machinery somewhere above or below.
He filed this away too, even though the exercise was futile.
