Rosabelle 39
Rosabelle
I feel the metal under my body first.
The cold slab is a relief beneath my fevered skin, but my head feels cooler now, my temperature falling by degrees. I’m pinned down by gravity. My limbs are concrete. My heartbeat, however, is somehow still too fast.
I can hear it on the monitor.
I sense the glaring lights overhead, my starched hospital gown, the coarse sheet pulled over me. The many wires attached to my limbs.
I can’t yet open my eyes.
My throat feels raw. My skin is tender. Memories crash into me out of order, in fragments of sound and sensation. So much screaming.
I have no idea how long I’ve been here. I have no idea where I am.
I’m surprised I’m not dead.
I test out my limbs, stiff muscles protesting as I try to animate. I curl the fingers of my right hand into a loose fist, assessing for pain, when I suddenly feel the texture of resistance. I search myself blindly under the sheet only to discover a bandage wrapped around my bad arm.
Memory delivers me the sound of a voice, unprompted—
Her arm is bleeding
I try to open my eyes and the effort is nearly too great. I push up off the table and force my eyes open only to fall back on my elbows, the metal thudding, murmuring under my weight.
I’m dizzy.
I have no idea what happened.
I appear to be the same; miraculously alive; my limbs intact; my skin still stretched over bone. I pry apart my chapped lips, run my tongue along my teeth, then the seam of my mouth. The air tastes cold and a little chemical. I blink slowly.
I’m so tired.
I’m wondering how long I’ve been lying on a piece of metal when I finally see him.
James.
An electric charge restarts my heart.
The monitor spikes.
I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to control the rush of feeling I experience at the sight of his face. I force myself upright, my breaths coming in faster now. I have to fight to calm down, to quiet the machines.
He’s sleeping.
His broad body is folded into a hard metal chair, a soft blanket pulled over him, the article collapsing across his chest. There’s a mug of coffee and a pager resting on the low steel table beside him.
I wonder how long I’ve been gone; how much time he might’ve spent here, in this strange place.
I am not in a hospital.
This is not a bed.
I try to look around, taking in the complex architecture and design. There’s a sea of worktables and expansive wall units showcasing sophisticated tools and weaponry—
“Rosabelle?”
I stiffen at the sound of his raw, drowsy voice. James pushes up from his chair, the soft blanket releasing from his body to the floor.
He looks pale and hollowed out. His dark hair is messy. His blue eyes are bright but his cotton shirt is a little rumpled, still hugging the contours of his powerful body. He looks soft and warm. Still absurdly gorgeous.
The heart monitor is screaming.
He approaches me slowly, as if I’m a hallucination.
“Hi,” I whisper, heat pricking my eyes.
Ten years, no tears, and now, all the time.
The sound of my voice seems to break something in him. He crosses the room in quick strides and reaches for me, taking my face in his hands on a hard exhale.
“You’re really awake,” he says.
He presses his forehead to mine, then runs his hands down my body as if to check that I’m real, and I draw a sharp breath at the unexpected feel of him. Even in my compromised, disoriented state a hot flush moves through my body, surprising me.
I blink up at him, my head going soft.
James looks like he’s in pain. He draws his knuckles lightly down my cheek and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
“Sleepyhead,” he says, his voice rough. He searches my face and I try to smile at him, but he only looks more anguished.
“Do you—do you remember me?” he says. “Do you know my name?”
“What?” I blink, clearing the haze from my eyes. “Of course I remember you.”
His body unclenches.
He backs away from me without warning, only to drag both hands down his face in visible relief.
“Why would you ask me that?” I feel the prick of panic. “Why wouldn’t I remember you?”
He shakes his head. His voice is tight. “Baby, you—Your fever was so high. Everyone said that if you ever woke up you’d have—you’d have permanent brain damage.”
“What?” I’m suddenly wide awake.
“You really don’t feel any different?” He sounds tortured. “Your head feels fine?”
“I’m really okay,” I tell him, even as fear sharpens inside me. “I feel fine. Just tired.”
He shakes his head again, dumbstruck. “No one is going to believe me. We still don’t even understand what happened.”
A sinister feeling raises goose bumps along my skin.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he’s saying. “That you’re still you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
Slowly, I close my hand around my bandaged arm.
“Look, I’ll be right back, okay?” He starts moving away. “I want to get you out of here but I don’t know how to unhook you from these machines, and I have to tell Warner—I need to get everyone to come back—”
“James, wait—”
He comes to a halt. “Yeah?”
“How long have I been here?”
His body tenses, the light leaving his eyes. “It’s been about twenty-four hours,” he says.
“Twenty-four hours?” I echo.
“Yeah.”
“I had that fever for twenty-four hours?”
“Yeah,” he says again. He swallows. “No one thought you’d survive.”
Panic is rising inside of me like a bellwether.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” he says quietly. Anxiously. “Don’t fall asleep. Not yet. Let me take you home first. Don’t—don’t disappear. Please.”
“I won’t,” I whisper.
I watch him as he backs away, then picks up into a run, bolting from the room. In his absence I lower my eyes to my bandaged arm. It hasn’t trembled once, not even a little, since I opened my eyes.
A sudden wave of exhaustion crashes over me.
I give up the effort to remain upright, lowering myself to the slab again. My body is aching. My eyes are tired and burning. I let them fall closed.
Something is definitely wrong.
I’m trying to solve this new puzzle, but my mind and body are fatigued. I allow myself to drift in the darkness behind my eyes, my head swimming. I don’t know what I’m going to do about James. I have no idea how I’m going to get myself out of this mess. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.
I remember everything.
My plans haven’t changed. My priorities are the same. I don’t know what’s been happening in my absence, or whether there’ve been any developments with Sebastian—
I gasp.
Only then do I notice, deep in the dark behind my eyes, the steady blue pulse.
Like a cursor flashing, a familiar, sinister light strobes in the dark. I try to look closer and it clarifies instinctively, magnifying words into sharp focus. I stiffen.
A single message glows softly behind my eyes.
INSTALL ATION COMPLETE
I sit up in a panic, my eyes flying open.
My heart is suddenly hammering. Monitors are blaring in agitation. My head swings as I try to right myself, my equilibrium off. I catch myself badly against the metal table and the sound echoes, reverberating in my head, through the room.
The din is deafening now.
The machines monitoring my vitals are screaming in alarm, lights flashing all around me. Fear unfurls down my back. I close my eyes and I see the message again.
I gasp, forcing my eyes back open.
I blink, trying to clear the words, but the response is intuitive. It disappears the moment I generate the thought.
This only sends me into a greater panic.
“No,” I whisper. “No—no, no—”
I hear the footfalls in the near distance, a swarm of bodies rushing toward me. Lab coats and combat boots. Snatches of carried conversation.
“—going on? Who set off the alarms?”
“I thought you said she was doing fine—”
My heart won’t stop hammering. I’m tearing desperately at the bandage on my arm now, trying in vain to rip off the gauze. I’m trying to convince myself I’m hallucinating. That I’m still dreaming.
I close my eyes again.
WELCOME, Unfinished Profile
“NO,” I scream, my eyes flying open.
“—the hell is happening—”
“Rosabelle?”
James.
I finally manage to rip partway through the gauze, then close my eyes again in escalating panic.
Three new prompts materialize.
BEGIN SETUP
RETURN TO MENU
SYSTEM SETTINGS
“No,” I cry desperately. “No—”
“Rosabelle?”
I tear through more of the gauze just as I’m swarmed by a mass of bodies, the discordant chaos of sounds echoing through my head. I’m not paying attention to any of it.
I’m staring at my arm.
Where there was once a permanent scar, there’s now fresh damage, an error of skin shaped like an imperfect diamond. Through this altered skin a network of fine, intricate veins are perfectly visible. It looks almost like circuitry.
Bright.
Pulsing.
“Rosabelle—”
Electric blue.