That seemed not only like a lifetime ago, but like a different life. Maybe it was.
When he got back to the room, Alex knocked with his special signal to let Jax know it was him. When he opened the door, he saw her sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed staring at the TV. There was a talk show on.
"What are you doing?" he asked as he set the plastic bags on the small table.
Jax looked rather alarmed. "I saw one of these things where they held us. I was drugged so I couldn"t pay much attention to it. But they have one here as well, just like at the crazy house. I saw a b.u.t.ton that said "on," so I pushed it." She pointed. "These pictures appeared."
Alex thought that having a TV in a "crazy house" was rather appropriate.
The host on the TV was fawning over an actress who thought she was brilliant because she happened to have been born beautiful and read lines written by other people. It amazed Alex what qualified a person for being worthy of adulation.
"Why are you watching this?"
Jax looked up again. He could see that she was so sleepy that she could hardly keep her eyes open.
"This is something like watching this world through mirrors." She gestured to the TV. "I wanted you to see this."
"I"ve seen TV before." Alex switched it off. "You mean to say that this is what it looks like when you saw me through the mirrors in my studio?"
She made a face as she considered. "Not exactly, not this clear, but in some ways it looks much the same. I was astounded when I saw this."
Her gaze drifted away. "It . . . reminded me of home."
Alex understood then. "Oh."
He took off his jacket and for the first time, because they were finally in the light, saw that his shirtsleeve was completely caked with dried blood.
Jax patted the bed beside her. "Come sit."
She used her knife to cut the sleeve away from the rest of his shirt. Once he had his shirt off, she cut the length of the remaining sleeve and helped him pull it away from his skin. On his way to the bathroom to wash the wound, he set the security latch on the door.
As sleepy as she looked, Jax followed him into the bathroom and helped him undo the bandage she had put around the wound. Her concern for him seemed to have given her a second wind as she worked. She washed the blood off his arm and then, being as careful as she could, she cleaned the wound while he held his arm over the sink. Washing it made the pain flare up, and made it start bleeding again. He winced against the pain.
When Alex really saw the cut for the first time, he cursed under his breath. He wondered if maybe he really should go to an emergency room. He quickly decided against it.
"Here," he said, "put this antibiotic in the cut."
"Did you get the needle and thread?" she asked as she drizzled the brown liquid in the wound. It stung like mad.
"I got something better," he said as he opened a package of superglue, getting it ready.
"What could be better?" she asked as she dabbed his arm dry with a towel after it stopped bleeding.
"Just hold it closed and I"ll show you."
She used both hands to do as he asked, carefully aligning the sides of the wound. With two fingers, Alex pressed the top layer of the cut tight together. With his thumb and third finger he squeezed the tube of superglue, spreading it generously down the length of the cut. He went back over the places where it hadn"t closed completely and added more glue on top of the cut.
"What are you doing?" Jax asked in astonishment.
"Superglue."
"Superglue?" It sounded like an exotic foreign word when she said it.
"Yes, good old superglue. Bonds skin instantly. They use it in surgery now."
He waited a few minutes just to be sure, then took his fingers away. The deep wound stayed tightly closed.
"See? Easier than st.i.tches."
She gently tested it with a finger. "I think you"re a big baby and are afraid to have me st.i.tch your arm."
"Just wrap it with that gauze, will you, please?"
Jax smiled at his annoyance and wound the gauze snugly around the arm, not trusting the glue to hold. After that, he had her wrap it with the tan stretch bandage. When she had finished, he moved the arm, testing it. The bandaging wasn"t too tight, but it was tight enough to coc.o.o.n the wound and protect it. He thought that it ought to heal fine, wrapped as it was.
Seeing her eyes keep closing, he helped her out to the other room. He turned down the bed for her and got an extra pillow out of the tiny closet to add to the two thin pillows on the bed.
She sat on the end of the bed and pulled off a boot. "Did you see? They have a bathing tub in there. A real bathing tub."
Alex smiled at her amazement. "In the morning we"ll flip a coin to see who goes first."
She looked at him out of one eye. "Didn"t your mother ever teach you "ladies first"?"
"I guess that our worlds share some important things."
When she saw his smile fade, she said, "Sorry."
Alex nodded. "I know. Me too. I wish . . . well, I"m just glad that she was there to help us when she did. If not for her, I think they might have had us."
Jax nodded as she put her leg up onto her knee to pull off her other boot. "Wake me at dawn."
"I need you well, Jax. You need rest now or you"re going to end up worse off. We"re safe here for the time being."
She stared into his eyes a moment. "I know, but we need . . . we need . . ." She squinted as she tried to think. "Something . . ."
"We need your mind working or we"re sunk, that"s what we need. You"re the one who figured out what they want."
"The gateway," she mumbled as her eyes started to close. Her hand had stopped with the boot only half off. She looked too exhausted to complete the task.
Alex pulled her boot the rest of the way off, then helped her lie down. He pulled the covers up over her. "I paid for two nights so that we wouldn"t have to worry about checkout time in the morning. I hung the "Do not disturb" sign on the doork.n.o.b. We can get up and leave whenever we want. You need to rest."
"But . . ."
He knelt beside the bed, gazing into her half-closed brown eyes. "I need you, Jax. I need you well and alert. You need rest. Do this for me?"
She reached out and cupped the side of his face. "Thank you, Alex-for everything. You need sleep, too."
"I know. I think we"ll be safe here. Sleep and get strong for me."
"I don"t want to stop looking at you," she whispered. "I"m so relieved that you"re safe. I was so afraid for you. . . ."
Alex smoothed her hair back as he smiled at her.
And then he leaned in and gently kissed her. Her lips felt better than he had ever imagined. Her hand came around to lightly hold the back of his head for a moment as she returned the gentle kiss. It was a simple act of quiet joy, saying more than words ever could have how relieved they were to have each other safe.
As he got up to get into the other bed, she softly called his name. He turned back and knelt again beside her bed.
"What is it?"
"Alex . . . I was so afraid there, at that place."
"I know. I was terrified for you."
"I thought I was going to die alone, like so many others Vendis has gotten his hands on. I thought my life was at its end." Her eyes welled up with tears. "I was so afraid. It hurt so much and I was so afraid. I"m so far from home. I don"t know if I will ever see home again. I feel so alone."
Alex gently squeezed her hand. "I know."
When he started to get up, she pulled him back down by his hand. "Alex, would you lie close to me so that I don"t feel alone tonight? Just lie by me so that I"m not alone?"
Alex smiled. "Sure."
He kicked off his shoes, turned off the light, and lay down on his back beside her. He pulled the bedspread up over them both. Jax nestled close to him.
"Hold me? Please? Just hold me?"
Alex didn"t say anything, fearing to test his voice. He would have given anything, paid any price, just to hold her.
As he slipped his arm around her, she laid her head on his shoulder. With his other hand he gently smoothed her hair.
If she noticed how fast his heart was beating, she didn"t say so. Alex kissed the top of her head. "Sleep well."
Her breathing slowed and evened out almost immediately. She was asleep in mere moments.
Alex stared at the ceiling in the near darkness, not wanting to go to sleep lest he miss a moment of the simple bliss of holding her in his arms.
But he didn"t last long before he drifted off, the whole time thinking of the precious woman so close to him, safe, for the moment.
WITH A FINGER, ALEX OPENED the curtains just a crack to peek out, looking for anything out of place. It was a heavily overcast, gray day, but it wasn"t raining. The Cherokee was parked right outside their room. He didn"t see anyone out in the parking lot who looked suspicious. He reminded himself that Dr. Hoffmann, the nurses, and the orderlies at Mother of Roses had never looked suspicious to him.
They didn"t all look like pirates.
Alex felt wide awake, truly awake, for the first time in what seemed like days and days. He was foggy on exactly how many days it had been, but he knew that the whole ordeal at Mother of Roses hadn"t been more than a few days. Some of the things that had happened didn"t seem real. The reality of how many people had died-how many people he had killed-was hard to wrap his mind around. It felt like he was coming out of a long, dark dream filled with endless terror.
He felt a profound empathy for his mother"s years of being lost in that living limbo. He was saddened that she had never been able to escape that private, lonely h.e.l.l, that she never had a chance to live her life. He was heartbroken and angry that people from another world had come here and done that to her-stolen her life-and in the end had murdered her.
The worst part of that entire nightmare, though, had been seeing Jax hanging helpless in the shower at Mother of Roses, seeing her struggle to breathe, fearing what horrific torture they would subject her to, dreading that she would eventually suffocate as she hung there all alone, like so many others that Vendis had had in his clutches.
Now, after twelve hours of sleep, the drugs had largely worn off. He had escaped the nightmare, some of it, anyway. Jax, too, for the most part looked like she was almost back to normal. He had no words for how relieved he was to see her eyes so bright and alive again. She was sore and bruised, but she was alive. That was what mattered.
He heard the tub finish draining, and in a few minutes she came out dressed in fresh jeans and a red top. The color looked stunning with her blond hair, even if her hair wasn"t dry. She rubbed it with a towel, drying it as best she could.
He gestured to the little refrigerator under the counter. "You want something to eat?"
"No, not now. I"d rather get going and then eat."
She went back to toweling her hair dry.
"You could use the hair dryer and have it dry a lot quicker."
She gave him a blank look. "The what?"
Alex smiled. "Here, let me show you."
He took her into the bathroom and lifted the hair dryer off its rack. He turned it on high and played it over her hair a moment before turning it off.
"See?"
"That"s amazing," she said, taking it from his hand and looking it over. "I can do a similar thing with magic, but magic doesn"t work here. I didn"t realize you would have technology to match it." She handed the hair dryer back. "Do it some more."
Alex switched it back on and directed the warm air around on her hair. She turned her back to him and let him work at blowing her long fall of wavy blond hair dry. When he had finished, she turned back around and looked him over.
"How come you look clean?"
"I took a shower while you were still asleep."
"Oh," she said, going back out into the main room. "I thought that we agreed that ladies go first."
Alex smiled. "I win any way I can, even if I have to break the rules."
She gave him a meaningful smile. "I"m glad you do."
"How do you feel?"
"Like a new woman."
"Well, you look as beautiful as ever."
She smiled. "So do you."
"If you"re feeling better, then I"d like some answers," Alex said, turning serious. "Before we were ambushed and the lights went out, my mother said that they asked her all the time about the gateway. When you heard that word-gateway-you said that you had figured it out, that you knew what they wanted."
She nodded. "They want the gateway."
Alex rolled his eyes. "I got that much of it. But I don"t know what it means."
"Well," she said as she started folding her dirty clothes and packing them into the duffel bag they"d bought back at the outlet mall, "do you remember when I told you about how I tried to take the painting you gave me back to my world to show to people?"