White Lies Read online

  “Can you hear me?” she whispered shakily, her eyes locked on him. “Or do you somehow sense my touch? Is that what it is? Can you feel it when I touch your arm? You must be scared and confused, because you don’t know what happened and you’re trying to reach out, but you can’t seem to make anything work. You’re going to be all right, I promise you, but it’s going to take time.”

  THE VOICE. SOMETHING in it drew him, despite the pain that waited to claw him whenever he left the darkness. He feared the pain, but he wanted the warmth of the voice more. He wanted to be closer to it…to her. At some point too dim for him to remember or even comprehend, he had realized it was a woman’s voice. It held tenderness and the only hint of security in the black swirling emptiness of his mind and world. He knew very little, but he knew that voice; some primal instinct in him recognized it and yearned for it, giving him the strength to fight the pain and the darkness. He wanted her to know he was there.

  HIS ARM TWITCHED, the movement somehow too slow to be an involuntary spasm of cramped muscles. This time Jay didn’t jerk her hand away. Instead she rubbed her fingertips over his skin, while her eyes fastened on his face.

  “Steve? Did you mean to jerk your arm? Can you do it again?”

  ODD. SOME OF the words made sense. Others made no sense at all. But she was there, closer, the voice clearer. He could see only darkness, as if the world had never been, but she was much nearer now. Pain racked his body, great waves of it that made sweat bead on his skin, but he didn’t want to let go after getting this far, didn’t want to fall back down into the black void.

  His arm? Yes. She wanted him to move his arm. He didn’t know if he could. It hurt so damned bad he didn’t know if he could hold on, if he could try anymore. Would she go away if he didn’t move his arm? He couldn’t bear being left alone again, where everything was so cold and dark and empty, not after getting this close to her warmth.

  He tried to scream, and couldn’t. The pain was incredible, tearing him apart like a wild animal with fangs and claws, ripping at him.

  He moved his arm.

  THE MOVEMENT WAS barely there, a twitch so light she would have missed it if her hand hadn’t been on his arm. He had broken out in a sweat, his chest and shoulders glistening under the bright fluorescent lights. Her heart was pounding as she leaned closer to him, her gaze riveted on his lips.

  “Steve, can you hear me? It’s Jay. You can’t talk because you have a tube in your throat. But I’m right here. I won’t leave you.”

  Slowly his bruised lips parted, as if he were trying to form words that refused to take shape. Jay hung over him, breathing suspended, her chest aching, as he struggled to force his lips and tongue through the motions of speech. She felt the force of both his desperation and dogged determination as, against all logic, he fought pain and drugs to be able to say one word. It was as if he couldn’t give up, no matter what it cost him. Something in him wouldn’t let him give up.

  Again he tried, his swollen, discolored lips moving in agonized deliberation. His tongue moved, doing its part to shape the word that would remain soundless:

  “Hurt.”

  The pain in her chest became acute, and abruptly she gulped in deep breaths of air. She didn’t feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. Gently she patted his arm. “I’ll be right back. They’ll give you something so you won’t hurt any longer. I’m only leaving you for a minute, and I promise I’ll be back.”

  She flew to the door and jerked it open, stumbling into the hall. She must have been there a lot longer than it seemed, because the third shift had gone home and the first shift was back on duty. Frank and Major Lunning were standing at the nurses’ station, talking in low, urgent voices that didn’t carry; both men looked up as she ran toward them, and a sort of disbelieving horror filled Frank’s eyes.

  “He’s awake!” she choked. “He said that he hurts. Please, you have to give him something—”

  They bolted past her, practically shoving her to the side. Frank said, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” in a voice so hard she wasn’t certain it was his.

  But it had to be, even though the words didn’t make any sense. What wasn’t supposed to happen? Steve wasn’t supposed to wake up? Had they lied to her? Had they expected him to die after all? No, that couldn’t be it, or Frank wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to get her to stay.

  Nurses were scurrying into Steve’s room, but when Jay tried to enter she was firmly escorted back into the hallway. She stood outside, listening to the muted furor of voices inside, chewing on her bottom lip and wiping the slow-welling tears from her cheeks. She should be in there. Steve needed her.

  Inside the room, Frank watched as Major Lunning swiftly checked Steve’s vital signs and brain-wave activity. “No doubt about it,” the major confirmed absently as he worked. “He’s coming out of it.”

  “He’s on barbiturates, for God’s sake!” Frank protested. “How can he come out of it until you lessen the dosage?”

  “He’s fighting it off. He’s got one hell of a constitution, and that woman out there in the hall has a strong effect on him. Adrenaline is a powerful stimulant. Enough of it, and people perform superhuman feats of strength and endurance. His blood pressure is up and his cardiac output has increased, all signs of adrenaline stimulation.”

  “Are you going to increase the dosage?”

  “No. The coma was to keep his brain from swelling and causing more damage. I was almost ready to begin bringing him out of it anyway. He’s just moved up the timetable a little. We’ll have to keep him on drugs for the pain, but he won’t be in a coma. He’ll be able to wake up.”

  “Jay thought he said that he hurt. Can he feel pain, as drugged as he is?”

  “If he was conscious enough to communicate, he was conscious enough to feel pain.”

  “Can he understand what we’re saying?”

  “It’s possible. I’d say he definitely hears us. Understanding is something else entirely.”

  “How long will it be before we can question him?”

  Major Lunning gave him a severe look. “Not until the swelling in his face and throat subside enough for me to remove the trach tube. I’d say another week. And don’t expect him to be a fount of information. He may never remember what happened to him, and even if he eventually does, it could be months in the future.”

  “Is there any danger that he might reveal some classified information to Jay?” Frank didn’t want to say too much. Major Lunning knew that Steve was a very important patient, but he didn’t know any of the details.

  “It isn’t likely. He’ll be too dazed and confused, maybe even delirious, and at any rate, he still isn’t able to talk. I promise you, you’ll be the first to see him when we take the trach tube out.”

  Frank stared at the still form on the bed; he had been unconscious for so long, it was hard to accept that he could hear or feel, that he had even made an attempt to communicate. But knowing what he knew about the man, Frank realized he should have been prepared for something like this. The man never gave up, never stopped fighting, even when the odds were so strong against him that anyone else would have walked away, and because of that he had survived in many instances when others wouldn’t, just as he had this time. Most people never saw past the easy grin to that enormous, fearsome determination.

  “What’s the likelihood of permanent brain damage?” he asked quietly, remembering that Steve could hear, and there was no way of telling how much he could understand.

  Major Lunning sighed. “I don’t know. He received excellent, immediate care, and that counts for a lot. It may be so minimal that you won’t be able to tell the difference, but I wouldn’t put my money on anything right now. I simply can’t tell. The fact that he woke up and responded to Ms. Granger is totally out of the expected range. He leapfrogged over several stages of recovery. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Normally the stages are stupor, where it would take vigorous stimulation to rouse him at all, then delirium a