Chapter 47
I wake with a loud gasp. Pain explodes in my head when a blinding white light pierces my eyes, and my pulse quickens with panic. It takes a moment to register that I’m in a hospital bed.
How did I get here?
The last thing I remember was celebrating Mako’s birthday. Dancing with Gray.
And then…nothing.
I try to sit up, but my body feels too heavy, my brain still disoriented.
“Hey,” urges a familiar voice. “Hey, don’t move. Let me help you.”
My mind continues to race, grasping for answers, until slowly, the jumble inside of it starts untangling and clearer memories form. The pressure in my chest. The impossibly, frighteningly fast heartbeat. The wave of dizziness and then—
“Your heart stopped.”
My vision starts to come into focus.
I see Gray’s worried green eyes peering down at me. He’s holding my arm, trying to stop me from sitting up.
“Your heart fucking stopped, Wren.” Anguish thickens his voice, and his face is paler than I’ve ever seen.
“How…” I try to clear the fog. “How am I here?”
“I carried you down after Fiona restarted your heart. We were lucky she was still there. Usually she leaves parties early.” He grips my hand. “We ran some tests, did an echo. Your heart seems good as new.”
“But it stopped?”
“Four minutes,” he says, and his voice cracks. I feel the raw emotion emanating from him. “You were dead for four minutes, just…gone. We weren’t sure if Fiona could fix you.”
Shit.
I blink a few times, trying to make sense of it all.
“I felt dizzy, and my chest was hurting, and…that’s all I remember.”
“Before you lost consciousness, you said the word heartroot. I thought maybe you were just delirious, but…” He gives me a grim look. “You think you were poisoned?”
My heart is racing again. I can’t believe it stopped. I was actually dead.
“Did you run a tox on me?”
“No, just the cardios.”
“Can we run one now? Without anyone knowing?”
His eyes blaze with anger. “You really believe someone tried to kill you?”
“I don’t know. But we should try to find out.”
“I’ll be right back.”
He disappears for several minutes, returning with a small black case and a tablet. He opens the case and removes a disposable testing kit.
“Give me your hand,” he says gruffly.
I hold it out, and he wipes a sterile pad over it, then pricks the pad of my index finger with the test needle and lets several drops of blood fill the slide.
A moment later, he pushes the plastic slide into the test slot, and I hear the soft humming of the machine as it runs the specimen.
At the same time, Gray unlocks the tablet and begins inputting some numbers.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“All specimens are logged in the system, but I’m using an override. That way nobody will know we tested anything.”
“Can anyone see that you used an override?”
“Only the Authority, if they cared to look. But they won’t know what I used it for.”
The device makes another noise. The blue light on the screen turns green, flickering faster, indicating results are being transmitted. It doesn’t take long for them to pop up on Gray’s screen. He scrolls through the data, skipping down to toxicology.
The look on his face confirms what I already knew.
“Heartroot. Smaller traces than I would have thought, though.”
I shake my head. “You don’t need a lot for it to do damage. The tiniest amount can affect your heart, even if it’s just palpitations. Doesn’t require much to stop it entirely.”
“Yeah, I know. We’ve got vials of liquid heartroot here in the medical bay.”
My gaze sharpens. “You do? Why?”
“Method of execution,” he admits. “High crimes are punishable by death, but we allow the prisoner to choose the method. Some prefer a cup of heartroot to a bullet in the skull.”
“So it could’ve come from here?” I glance around the bay, as if expecting someone to jump out at any second.
“Yes, but that’s unlikely. All meds are logged in and locked up. It’d be hard to get anything out of here undetected.” He pauses, and I see the anger creeping into his eyes. “Who would do this to you?”
I inhale slowly. “I don’t know. But I do have enemies here.”
“Enemies is a stretch.”
“Karra—”
“You think KC did this?” he says in disbelief.
“No, I’m just saying. You asked who might do this. Karra is a possibility. Evlynne, maybe.”
“Ev would never. And neither would Karra.”
“Well, someone did.”
He swipes at the screen, a furrow digging into his brow.
“What are you doing?”
“Deleting the results and wiping the testing queue.”
Once he’s done, he sits beside me, then leans forward and presses his lips to mine in a firm kiss. I rest my forehead against his for a moment, running over the implications. Someone tried to poison me tonight. To stop my heart.
“I knew that grange tasted weird,” I murmur. “It was too sweet. But I wasn’t thinking.”
His eyes narrow. “Who got it for you?”
“Nobody. I poured it myself. But I gave the bottle to Luisa when we were dancing.”
“Lu wouldn’t do this. Was she the one who gave it back?”
“I don’t remember.” I rack my brain, trying to recall who handed me the bottle when Gray and I rejoined the group. Something else suddenly occurs to me. “What if I drank from someone else’s bottle?”
He sucks in a breath. “Good point. For all we know, you weren’t even the intended target.”
“Should we tell the Authority?”
“No. I think this stays between us.”
“I agree. I say we keep a watchful eye. Maybe we can somehow use this information against the culprit. Drop a hint or two. Get them to try again.”
He sighs. “You’re proposing using yourself as bait?”
“If we need to.” I shrug. “For now, I just won’t accept any drinks that I haven’t poured myself.”
Gray traces the line of my jaw with his fingertips. “This isn’t happening again,” he says, his tone as deadly as his expression. “If someone tries this shit again, they’ll have to go through me.”
Before I can respond, Fiona’s voice sounds from the doorway. “Wren,” she says. “Good. You’re awake.”
I’m surprised to find genuine concern on her face as she stalks over, her shoes slapping briskly on the floor.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“Totally fine. I heard you’re the one who resuscitated me. Thank you for that.”
She shifts her gaze to the testing kit before frowning at Gray. “You ran a tox?”
“We did, yes,” he says lightly. “Just to be sure there was no foul play involved. Considering Wren isn’t prone to heart issues.
But the bloodwork was clean. Whatever happened tonight, it wasn’t in Wren’s blood.
I deleted the results in case someone did try to hurt her.
I don’t want them thinking we’re asking questions. ”
“The blood was clean…” Fiona seems troubled by that. When Gray and I both nod, she fixes her eyes on me. “No prior heart conditions at all?”
“None. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have some random cardiac episode tonight. Maybe I overdid it on the dancing or did too many stims.” The lie comes out smoothly, and I notice the quick gleam in Gray’s eyes. He approves.
“You were on stims?” Fiona says sharply.
“Yeah,” I fib, because it’s been known to happen, people dropping dead from stim overdoses. “I don’t usually indulge, so maybe my body couldn’t tolerate them?”
“That could be a possibility,” she says. “Yes. Perhaps that’s it.” She makes a tsking sound. “I’m always telling everyone to stay away from that poison.”
I choke down a laugh.
Yeah.
I need to stay away from poison, all right.