Persistence of Vision

  Chapter 33: Meetings and Plans

  Maggie woke on her back staring at a blank ceiling with a profound sense of confusion. She had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten there. She couldn’t remember what had happened the last time she’d been awake.

  She turned her head, finding that her muscles were stiff, but it felt good to move them. She felt like she’d been sleeping for days.

  It looked like she was in Medical back at Interchron, but she couldn’t think why or how she’d gotten here. Two men sat on stools on either side of the door. One looked vaguely familiar; she thought she might have met him when she first arrived. The other one she’d never seen before.

  Maggie raised her head, and the pain that lanced through her skull brought horrifying memories of the island—Colin, the Traveler, fear of rape, worse fear of Marcus and Nat being killed, David’s ring. Clay! How was Clay?

  With a groan, she pulled herself into a sitting position. Every muscle in her body creaked. The two men by the door jumped to their feet.

  They exchanged glances. Then the familiar one stepped halfway out the door. Maggie could hear the murmur of his voice as he spoke with someone in the outer room. Then Marcus appeared.

  Concern was etched in the lines of his face, which she could swear were more pronounced than before they’d left for the island. He strode across the room and took her hand.

  “How are you, Maggie?”

  He’d said those exact words several times over the last few months, always when she’d been hurt or upset. There was something so comforting about them that she smiled, despite the pain in her head.

  “I’m…confused. Are we back at Interchron?”

  He nodded.

  “How…did we get back?”

  “The same way we went away from it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Five days.”

  Maggie gasped.

  Marcus put his hands on either side of her face and looked down intently into her eyes. They seemed sadder than she remembered. “What do you remember?”

  “We were captured…Colin…then the ring.”

  He nodded. “You pulled so much energy through that ring, you nearly killed us all.”

  “I did?”

  “David pulled it off you, and you passed out.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Marcus didn’t answer for a long time. He looked down into her face, searching it.

  “Maggie, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  The sweeping sadness had returned full force. She could see unshed tears in the corners of his eyes, and behind them a deep-seeded grief lay waiting, barely controlled.

  His hands covered hers, thumbs stroking her palms absently. He looked down at them, but she reached up and tilted his chin up, forcing him to look into her face.

  “Marcus, what is it?”

  “Clay.”

  Maggie sighed. She’d been hoping Marcus would tell her that Clay had pulled through; that Marcus had healed him somehow. She remembered the void when Clay was struck as well as anything else, though. She supposed she’d known from that moment on the island that he was gone.

  “What happened to him,” she asked through quivering lips.

  “He took a hit to the head, to the brain. He’s not dead, but he won’t be waking up either.”

  Marcus’s gloom immediately infected Maggie, crashing over her like a tide. Clay, who’d always been so kind to her, so sweet, so quiet; whose wife was expecting a baby; who had his whole life in front of him—gone, just like that.

  She hung her head, and tears slid down her cheeks and fell on both their hands. Marcus, feeling them, pulled her into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

  After a few minutes, she turned her head, laying it on his shoulder. The two men, whoever they were, were gone. She wasn’t sure when they’d left, but she and Marcus were alone. Casting her mind out, she could feel others nearby but not close enough to hear their conversation or their grief.

  Pulling back, she wiped her face then his. “Where is everyone else?”

  “Around. We’ve been letting everyone mourn for Clay. The team…we haven’t talked about what happened on the island. At all. We’ve been waiting…”

  He trailed off, and Maggie knew with conviction that this talk the team would have would not be pleasant. Not only was there sadness—and no doubt bitterness—about Clay, but there would be anger over things they didn’t understand and hadn’t anticipated, mistakes that were made. And then there was David.

  “Do you feel like walking around a bit?”

  Maggie nodded. “I’m kind of stiff, but the more I walk, the better I’ll feel.”

  “We should take you to Doc and then get you something to eat.”

  Maggie let him pull her to her feet.