Chapter 2: ONE
I fought my way to consciousness, swimming through the syrup-heavy weight of sleep. The sterile smell of stale disinfectant stung my throat, and I coughed, straining to breathe.
Somewhere outside my range of vision, an alarm began to sound. It ricocheted around my already swimming head. I reached to cover my ears. My hand jolted to a stop, and a lighting burst of pain ripped through my forearm, where an IV shunt took up most of the visible skin. I stared down at it in disbelief. My first instinct was to rip it from my skin, but the layers of tape and bandages made it impossible to get to the needle.
The alarm was a blaring, brain-shattering wail in my ears. Adrenaline spiked through me as I tore at the plastic on my arm. I'd had nightmares similar to this— stuck in a strange place, not knowing how or why I was there.
Except this time, it was real. There would be no waking up from this.
I needed to get out.
Spots swam before my eyes when I stood. I steadied myself on the edge of the bed, trying to alleviate the dull ache in my right thigh that intensified with every movement.
The blue curtains that surrounded my bed flew open. I pushed myself to standing, looking frantically for something to defend myself with. My leg could barely hold my weight— running wasn't an option.
My eyes widened as a nurse stepped forwards, hands up in a calming gesture.
"Hey, Ruth," she said. "Can you sit down for me?"
I shook my head. Before I could take a step, my leg collapsed underneath me. I fell with a sharp cry.
"Oh my god, is she awake?" A male voice asked. The curtains rattled as they were pulled aside again. "Is she okay?" A pair of white shoes stepped into my line of vision. I didn't dare look.
"Yes, Mr. Laine." Another voice, soothing and soft. "Please move, so we can help her."
Someone crouched in front of me, and I looked up into a kind pair of brown eyes. It was a nurse, her dark hair pulled into a low ponytail. "Hey, Ruth." She smiled. "We're going to lift you back onto the bed."
I tears spilled over onto my cheeks. Her face swam in front of me, partly from fear, partly from pain. I recognized the man's voice from somewhere, and it made me uneasy.
"Why am I here?" I whispered, pushing away the hands that were trying to pick me up. Another nurse pressed a gloved thumb to my hand, slowing the flow of blood. Distracted by this, I let the other nurse close enough to grab me.
"Don't touch me!" I shrieked, as she lunged, and caught me around my waist. "Let me go!!"
"Ruth, relax!"
Someone pressed a call button. Footsteps pounded down the linoleum. I screamed as someone held my leg down. A needle jabbed into my thigh. Cool sedative overtook my veins. The room slowed. I relaxed, my body too heavy to hold up.
The nurse looked at the man in the corner of the room. He looked as though he was either about to laugh or punch something. He was watching the orderly who had sedated me like as he restrained my wrists.
"Is that necessary?" he asked, stepping forward jerkily, as though pushed from behind. "Do you need to tie her down?"
The orderly nodded, and cinched the velcro tight around my wrist. "Yes, sir. It's protocol. She's a danger to herself."
I smiled, the drugs slowing my brain down. The nurse patted my knee. I tensed at her touch. "We're going to hook you back up to the IV. It's got painkillers in it, so your leg should feel better in a moment." she said, changing the subject.
"I don't want painkillers!" I protested. The nurse ignored me, and jabbed the straw like needle into my vein, and flushed it. The taste of saline filled my mouth. I held down a gag.
"Give us a buzz if you need anything. We'll be right outside." She closed the curtain behind her
I was alone with the mystery man.
He was in a grey suit, dark hair brushing the collar. Again, I got the feeling I had met him before. He seemed too familiar to be a total stranger. Dark curls of a tattoo peeked from under his white cuffs. It, too, was oddly grooved into my mind. I found myself mentally filling out the rest of the rose design.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He came forward and sat on the edge of my bed. "Your savior. Your benefactor. You can call me Leo." He said grandly, sweeping his arms out. "I found you, all huddled up and covered in blood amongst the rubble."
I stared at him. "You didn't answer my question."
Leo's mouth twisted, as though he were reluctant to answer my question. We sat in stone-cold silence for the space of a breath. My heart hammered in my chest. Adrenaline pushed away the drug-induced fog that had settled over my brain.
Finally, he closed his eyes. "Leo Laine.'
I didn't move. "Like…of Laine, Inc?"
Laine, Inc was the biggest technology conglomerate the country had seen in years. If he was the Leo Laine, CEO, that made him the most powerful man in the province, if not the entire western side of Canada. He moved closer to me. The faint smell of cigars overtook the burning sterility of the room.
"Like of Laine, Inc." He confirmed.
"You came to my school a couple years ago, to give a talk on media surveillance." It explained why I felt like I knew him, at the very least. The painkillers were overtaking my sense again. My eyes began to droop, but I forced myself to stay sitting up. "Can you take these off?" I looked down at the velcro restraints that were biting into my wrists.
"No," he said, resting a hand on my bound wrist. "I don't want you to make another run for it."
I closed my eyes, ignoring him. I didn't want to sleep—I wanted to know what had happened to me, why I was in the hospital. It didn't matter what I wanted, though; the drugs had their own ideas. I slid backwards into the darkness again.
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When I woke again, Leo was standing by the curtains, talking quietly to someone just outside my view.
"Hey," I croaked unevenly.
Leo turned around, eyebrows raised. "No screaming this time?"
I was too tired to scowl at him. My lips stuck together, cracked and dry. "Water," I said, coughing a little on the word. Whoever Leo had been talking to rushed away.
Leo smiled, and sat in the chair next to me, resting his elbows on my bed. Everything about him looked crushed, like he hadn't slept in days.
"Hi," he said. "How are you feeling, really?"
"Like no one will tell me what's going on," I snapped back, although the effect was somewhat lost in the slur of my voice.
Leo pushed a hand through his hair, raking it back from his face. The fluorescent light caught on the thick gold hand around his middle finger. Again, I caught on the rose tattooed on the webbing of his thumb. I had a nagging feeling I'd seen it before, engraved into my subconscious somehow.
A nurse stepped through the curtains with a paper cup filled with water.
"I won't make a run for it," I promised, following her gaze to my wrists. She hesitated, looking to Leo. He nodded, and one-handed, she pulled away the velcro.
My fingers tingled as blood returned to them. Clumsily, I took the cup, trying not to spill as I raised it to my mouth. The water cooled my throat, bringing swift relief to the burning I hadn't even been aware of.
"Please tell me why I'm here," I said, crumpling the cup in my hand. My voice sounded more normal, less like a dried out frog.
Leo dragged a hand down his face. "How much do you remember of the explosion?"
"Nothing. I don't remember there being an explosion at all." I looked around the room, a thought occurring to me, shamefully late.
"If I'm here, where are my parents?" The panic began to resurface. Behind me, a monitor began to chime loudly.
Leo took my good hand in his, and my heart rose into my mouth. "Ruth," he began.
I pulled my hand away, turning my head towards the wall.
"Tell me," My voice was cold. I stared at a dark stain on the opposite wall, counting my breaths to keep the tears at bay.
"We haven't been able to find them in the rubble," Leo said evenly. "There's still dogs and rescue crews working, but after ten days…" he trailed off, the rest of his sentence unspoken. After ten days, the likelihood of finding anyone alive was almost zero. It would take a miracle.
"So I have no one." I kept my face turned away from him. The stain was beginning to look like the comedy and tragedy masks. Leo reached out to touch my hair, but I jerked away.
"You have me," he said, dropping his hand. The leaves of the rose came to rest at the base of his right thumb. His knuckles were bruised, the purple leaking into the black-and-white design. "That will have to be enough for now."
I shut my eyes tightly. I felt him stand, and listened to the metal on metal rattle of the curtains being drawn. The room was empty.
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As vicious as the slash looked, my leg healed quickly. The metal had cut me cleanly, missing the femoral artery by millimetres. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before, but beneath the bandages, the angry red was receding. I kept myself from asking for more painkillers, fighting through the haze of aches. After my first day, and with the memories of the explosion blown out of my head, I didn't want to be dulled any more than I was. The drugs made the world a softer place, but I needed the sharp edges, needed to feel something.
In the space where the memory of my parent's final moments should have been was a hollow darkness. I couldn't remember what they were wearing, what we had eaten for breakfast.
"Repression," the psychiatrist informed me, "is normal after a traumatic event."
"Will I ever remember them?" My voice caught in my throat.
"Every case varies," he said, setting his pen down. "There are things that can trigger repressed memories, things like smells, tastes, sights."
I looked away. "So no."
"We can't know that for sure. Any little thing could trigger the memories."
"There was an explosion," I snapped. "That's pretty hard to recreate."
The nurses were reluctant to release me into Leo's care, but we all knew I didn't have much of a choice. I had nowhere to go, injured and alone as I was. There wasn't much point in arguing, especially not with him.
There were hundreds of people who needed medical care, and the hospital needed all the free beds it could get. Despite how tense our first meeting had been, Leo grew on me. His constant presence at the hospital annoyed me at first, but as I became accustomed to his vagarious gaze, a tenuous friendship formed. I tried to keep him at arm's length— I knew what power could do to people. He was, publicly, a philanthropist, a genius. That didn't mean it could all change behind closed doors.
On the day of my discharge, the ward nurses all gathered to wave us goodbye. The nurses brought a wheelchair to help me down to the waiting car. Despite the long hours of physical therapy, my leg was still too weak to make the trek. Even walking the hallways of the ward left me winded.
"I'm taking you to my condo, for now." Leo said from behind me. "I have an apartment in the city that I stay in when I'm working on big projects. It's much easier than commuting to and from the island, and it's best if we stay near the hospital for a few nights."
"I can't imagine you commuting anywhere. Do you take the ferry in?"
"I wouldn't set foot on those tin buckets if you paid me—"
The door opened, cutting off Leo's reply. A man in glasses stepped in, stiffening when he saw Leo. He had his sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing black lines of ink.
"Laine." He nodded at Leo.
"Sokolov." Leo's voice pitched upwards. "Interesting to run into you here. I thought you were in the office today."
The man adjusted his glasses, and shook his head. "I haven't been to SparrowHawk since…" he trailed off, looking down at me. I studied the polished floor of the elevator.
"Since the accident," he finished.
The elevator stopped with a stomach-lurching drop, and the doors slid open, revealing the ground floor of the hospital.
What had once been an airy, beautiful foyer was now filled with cots. Doctors and nurses wound their way through, attaching IV's, and bandaging wounds. I closed my eyes as we wove our way through, trying to block out the sight.
The car waiting outside had dark windows, to protect from cameras, I suspected. Leo took my hand, and helped me stand. I leaned on the open car door for support, watching the midday traffic rush by us.
"I would have choppered you over, but the traffic in the sky is a lot worse than the traffic on the ground." Leo said, gesturing skywards.
Sure enough, helicopters whirred around the downtown core— news and medics alike. I averted my gaze. My parents were somewhere in that mess. It hardly bore thinking about.
"What was that, in the elevator?" I asked, instead.
"Sokolov and I have quite a bit of history." Leo hooked an arm around my waist, helping me into the leather passenger seat. "He runs SparrowHark Industries, our biggest competitor in Canada."
"So it's a business feud?"
Leo shook his head, sunlight glinting off the gold chain hidden under his collar. "Feuding is not the right word. He's done a lot of things I don't agree with, and it got very personal recently."
The world passed around us in a daze of chrome and glass. Within a few blocks, the buildings hid the worst of the devastation. It was like nothing had happened. People walked down the street, shopping bags in hand, chatting and laughing. Life had gone on, even when I hadn't.
"Why me?" I blurted, without thinking. "Why me, among everyone else?" It had been a thought stuck in the forefront of my mind, ever since I had become aware of what had happened to me. The sight of all the injured people in the foyer had only made me more aware of the oddity of my situation.
"Why not you?" Leo didn't even turn to look at me. "Is there a reason you shouldn't be saved?"
I bit my tongue. There were reasons, maybe even dozens of them, but none I was willing to share.
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