33. Rowan
ROWAN
Iwake with both wrists secured to the sides of a treatment table and Evelyn standing beside a metal cabinet.
The first thing I check is whether I'm bleeding.
I can't reach between my legs, but the white sheet beneath me is clean.
My abdomen hurts only where bruises from the last few days have started making themselves known, and shifting my hips doesn't produce cramping or anything sharp.
My throat hurts from Rahil's arm around my neck.
Swallowing is unpleasant, my injured shoulder aches all the way into my neck, and fatigue sits heavily enough behind my eyes that I have to blink several times before the room stays in focus.
I'm still pregnant. That's the only diagnosis I can make from here.
This room is different from the other two.
White cabinets cover most of one wall, with a stainless-steel sink beneath them and sealed supplies arranged across the counter.
An ultrasound machine is parked near the opposite corner.
A second examination table stands between me and the door, while a rolling supply cart has been pushed against the wall near the foot of my table.
The narrow glass panel in the door gives me a view of the corridor whenever nobody is standing directly outside it. Rahil's shadow crosses the glass while I'm looking, pauses, then moves away again. He's close.
Evelyn opens an upper cabinet and takes out a packet of gauze. "You should stop testing the restraints."
"I'm checking whether your people improved." I turn my right wrist enough to test the cuff without making the movement obvious from the hallway.
"They did." She puts the gauze on the counter. "Rahil had them changed after the estate."
The right restraint has less movement than the one at the house. The left crosses closer to the outer edge of the table and gives me perhaps half an inch if I rotate my hand. I stop pulling before I rub the skin raw.
Evelyn moves a plastic cup toward me and adjusts the straw within reach of my mouth. "Drink."
I look at the sealed lid before using the straw. "Where are we?"
She hesitates while holding the cup. "An island."
The boat. I heard Orell ordering it before I lost consciousness. The trip here exists mostly as disconnected impressions. Motion under me. Cold air once. Voices farther away. Evelyn telling somebody I didn't need another drug because I was already unconscious.
I drink half the water before letting the straw slip away.
Dehydration helps nobody, least of all three babies depending on me to stop making every week of their existence ridiculous.
"How long was I out?" I shift my left hand slightly, testing the restraint again while Evelyn replaces the cup on the tray.
"Several hours. You woke twice during the transfer but didn't stay awake." Evelyn checks a drawer beneath the counter and removes a blood-pressure cuff.
"I wasn't sedated."
"No." She unfolds the cuff without looking at me. "You were exhausted."
That's almost worse. My body simply quit participating.
I watch Evelyn bring the cuff toward the table, but most of my attention stays on the second examination table.
One wheel sits at an angle compared with the other three.
The locking tab is bent outward, exposing a thin piece of metal beneath it, and one side of the assembly has pulled away from the frame.
It may be useless, but it's also the only thing in reach that looks capable of becoming useful.
Evelyn wraps the cuff around my left upper arm. The restraint keeps me from helping, so she works around it with the same careful competence she's used in every clinic meeting for four semesters.
"You don't need to pretend you're treating me." I watch the digital monitor begin inflating the cuff.
"I'm checking whether you need treatment." Evelyn supports the tubing so it doesn't catch against my wrist. "Those aren't the same thing."
The machine gives her a number she apparently dislikes. She repeats it manually, then removes the cuff and carries it back toward the counter. "Erik will come."
I look at her.
She arranges the cuff beside the sink instead of facing me. "Orell left the charter trail on purpose. He expects Erik to find it."
"Then the charter is a trap."
"Yes." Evelyn opens another cabinet and checks the label on a medication package.
I bend my left wrist inward. The table frame gives me very little movement, but shifting my hip toward that side brings the second examination table closer by less than an inch. Not enough. I straighten again before Rahil's shadow returns to the door.
"Does Erik know it's a trap?" I ask.
Evelyn sets the medication back. "He'll know."
The certainty annoys me more than it should. "You have a remarkable amount of faith in a man you helped betray."
"I have faith in the part of him that looks for structure." She shuts the cabinet and finally faces me. "Orell does too. That's why the trail exists."
I shift my left leg over the edge of the treatment table. The restraint on my wrist stops me from moving far, but my foot reaches the base of the second table.
Evelyn notices. "What are you doing?"
"My hip hurts." I move the leg back before she can come closer. "The position isn't helping."
She studies me for another second, then returns to the counter. I wait until Rahil crosses the window again.
He passes again after a while. Then again. He isn't circling only this room. He's walking a section of corridor, checking something else, then returning. The loose wheel lock is perhaps thirty inches from my foot.
"What happens when Erik reaches the dock?" I ask.
Evelyn opens a drawer halfway and looks through syringes and sealed tubing. "Orell expects him to board the charter."
"That wasn't what I asked."
She pauses with one hand on the drawer. "The dock is prepared for him."
I push the toe of my sock against the base of the second examination table and pull. The wheel rolls two inches, but Evelyn doesn't notice.
"How many men?" I keep my foot against the base.
"I don't know."
"You know enough to know the dock is prepared." I pull again while Evelyn closes the drawer. The table moves another inch before one wheel catches.
Evelyn turns toward me. "Knowing Orell arranged an ambush doesn't mean I have his security roster."
I sneer. "That sounds inconvenient after ten years of service."
She stiffens but lets the comment pass. "You're not helping yourself by trying to provoke me."
"I'm not trying very hard."
Rahil's shadow crosses the panel, and I stop moving. He pauses outside longer this time before continuing down the hall.
When he disappears, I hook my sock against the wheel assembly again. The table inches closer.
Evelyn picks up the water and returns to me. "You need more."
"I need to know whether Erik is walking into a shooting gallery."
"You know he is." She holds the straw near my mouth.
I drink because refusing would hurt me, not her. After several swallows, I turn my face away, and Evelyn carries the cup back to the counter. The examination table is now close enough that the bent wheel lock sits near my left ankle.
I turn my foot sideways and catch the metal tab between the edge of my sock and heel. It moves. Not much, but enough. I keep talking. "You said Orell plans to kill both of us."
Evelyn stops with the cup halfway to the counter.
"That's what the island is for, isn't it?" I work my ankle slowly, putting pressure against the bent lock without letting the table rattle. "Erik comes here. Orell gets whatever he thinks Dad left behind, then neither of us leaves."
Evelyn sets the cup down carefully. "Yes."
The word hurts despite everything I already know. I press harder with my heel, and the metal gives a fraction. "You're remarkably calm about dying with us."
"I didn't say I was staying." Evelyn begins reorganizing packages that don't need reorganizing.
I look at her. "You think Orell is letting you leave?"
Her hands stop.
I keep my foot against the lock. "You know Aaron left records, and so did Dad. You know I know exactly what you did. If Orell kills the witnesses he can't control, what category do you think you're in?"
Evelyn resumes moving supplies. "You're trying to make me afraid of him."
"No. You already are."
The wheel lock shifts farther, and the bolt moves against the frame.
Evelyn turns away from me and leans over the counter. "Erik coming here changes the equation."
"For you?"
"For everyone."
I almost laugh. "That sounds like another compromise you can explain later."
She turns back quickly enough that anger finally shows. "You think I don't know what this costs?"
"I think you've spent ten years assigning the cost to other people."
She flinches before she shuts it down. The wheel lock gives another fraction beneath my heel, and I wait for Rahil to pass again.
Evelyn opens a locked drawer near the sink. This one contains medication vials rather than sealed packages. She selects one and checks the label.
My attention sharpens. "What's that?"
"You need to sleep."
I put up a hand. "I've done enough of that involuntarily."
"It's a mild sedative." Evelyn takes a syringe from the drawer and removes the wrapper. "Orell wants you moved into the surgical wing before Erik arrives."
My stomach cramps. "Why?"
She doesn't answer immediately.
I flex my left foot hard against the damaged wheel lock. The metal piece tears free with a soft scrape that disappears under the sound of Evelyn opening the vial. I trap it beneath my sock before it falls.
Evelyn fills the syringe while I bend my knee and drag the metal piece toward me with my heel. The movement pulls painfully through my hip, but I get it onto the edge of the treatment table.
She taps the syringe with one finger while facing the counter, and I catch the metal between the first two fingers of my left hand. It's about four inches long and thin at one end. Good enough.
"Where are you injecting that?" I ask.
"Your arm." Evelyn lays an alcohol pad beside the syringe.
"Which means you need access around the restraint."