A few weeks ago…
Jenlauer tightened a leather strap around his leg and tucked a knife into the pocket it formed. Tollin was a few feet away, dipping some of his arrows into a small tub of clear liquid.
"Rinilia, have you got the changelings?" Jenlauer called. The lectoblix had yet to emerge from her bedroom. Jenlauer assumed that she was taking a little bit to enjoy her new youth before getting to work.
There was a loud thumping, as if a zombie wearing concrete shoes was descending a flight of stairs, and Rinilia emerged into the doorway, a scowl on her face. She looked much more healthy than the last time they had seen her, although considerably less awake. Her blonde hair was a bit longer, but quite messy and sticking straight up in some places. There were lines under her eyes from sleeplessness. Last night it would have been a compliment to call her thirty, yet now she could pass for nineteen.
"What are you two doing up?" she asked disdainfully.
Jenlauer let go of the leather strap he had just tightened. "Um, aren't we doing the thing today? Getting the kids and stuff?"
Rinilia's scowl deepened and she shook her head. "No need. I've decided we're not going to do it."
"But the meteor shower's this week," Tollin argued. "We've been planning this for months and if we're—"
"We're not doing it anymore!" Rinilia exclaimed. She leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms across her chest. "I don't want to do it anymore."
After a moment, they decided she was not going to say anything else. Tollin took off the quiver on his back and Jenlauer tossed his tetralanse to the ground. They stood in silence for a minute. Rinilia yawned and brushed a lock of hair out of her face.
"So how was he?" Jenlauer asked, his tone betraying that he wasn't really interested in the answer.
"Who?"
"The guy you drained last night," Tollin clarified. "What was his name? Tyler?"
"Oh." Rinilia licked her lips and closed her eyes. "Very nice. Jenlauer, you'll have to go clean him up soon, before it starts to smell."
Jenlauer groaned. "Again? You know, Tor—"
An elbow in the side from Tollin and a sharp glance from Rinilia cautioned Jenlauer not to mention Torina.
"—other lectoblixes usually leave some life in their victims instead of killing them all the way," he finished.
"And meanwhile, my bedroom is beginning to resemble fourteenth-century Europe in terms of odor," Rinilia quipped, gesturing toward the hallway.
"What?"
"The Black Plague, you idiot! Have you never taken a history class?"
"Sorry," Tollin replied. "We weren't actually there."
Rinilia's eyes widened in fury and she shot a dangerous glare at the dwarf. "Don't. Even. Start. Jenlauer, just go clean it up already."
Jenlauer resisted a sigh and walked out.
"So now what?" he called, pausing halfway up the stairs. "If we're not gonna do the thing—"
"You really have to ask me what to do with your life?" Rinilia scoffed back. "How old are you, fifteen? I'm not your mother. Go become a doctor, write a novel, whatever."
Jenlauer considered her words. "Well, I've got that medical degree still hanging around from a few years ago. I'd hate to let it go to waste."
XIXIXIX
Beep.
Beep.
"…he has been confirmed to be both deaf and mute due to knife wounds on his ears and throat, though it is unclear whether they are self-inflicted…"
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"…there are no eyewitness accounts of the actual shooting; however, several patrons of the nearby Dairy Queen reported to have come out at the sound of the gunshot…"
Alexis opened her eyes. The beeping was coming from a small monitor beside her bed, measuring her heart rate; and the talking was from a little television in front of her. She sniffed, and immediately recognized the tell-tale odor that seemed like a mix between a clean public bathroom and a science lab where students were dissecting animals. She was in the hospital.
There was the sound of a door opening, drawing Alexis' attention away from the newscast, which had finished recounting her story and was now showing a commercial for toilet cleaner. She turned to see who was entering, accidentally sending pain shooting through her body. She grimaced and laid her fingers on the thin fabric of the hospital gown over the origin of the pain, a spot just above and a little to the right of her heart.
The man coming into the room crossed over to the monitor by Alexis and turned a dial on the side of it, silencing the beeping. He was tall with short brown hair, dressed in blue scrubs. His name tag, which was hanging on a black lanyard around his neck, read WAYNE PRICE.
"No need for that," he said. He turned, picked up a clipboard from a table by Alexis' bed, and clicked a pen hanging beside his name tag on the lanyard. "How are you feeling?"
Alexis stuck out her tongue.
"Any pain?"
She nodded and pointed to the spot that hurt the most—the spot where the strange boy had shot her.
The nurse scribbled something onto his clipboard. "How much does it hurt, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?"
"Twelve," Alexis croaked. "But only when I move."
The nurse smiled slightly and set down. "Well then, just stay still. Another nurse will be back in a little bit with a painkiller. There's a remote by your bed if you want to change the channel." He gestured toward the television. "I don't know about you, but I'm not personally a fan of 'Antiques Roadshow'."
Alexis grabbed the remote, careful not to move too much, and started flipping through channels as the nurse started walking away, but then she noticed something. "Wait, I know you."
He stopped. "So did your friend, apparently." He turned around. "Is there seriously an alternate timeline where I actually went ahead and kidnapped her?"
"Wait, you did that, too?" Alexis replied. "I was just gonna say you're one of the guys who came to help us at Wyrmroost. Officer Kent's son. And the gas station lady's brother. You're one of the bad guys too? How come you're all those things at once? And since when are you a nurse, too? One at this hospital? I thought you lived in Illinois. Or were you just there cus the other dudes were there too? I mean, the bad guys. Wait, if you're the bad guy, why'd you help us? And why are you helping me now? Is this some sort of trap? Omigosh, it's a trap!"
She started to get up to try to escape or at least warn someone, but the pain in her chest forced her to lie back down and settle for glaring at the nurse, who had jumped up to keep her down.
"Settle down," he tried to say. "It's not a trap, and I'm not one of the bad guys. At least, not anymore."
Alexis narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure?"
He smiled. "Yes, I'm sure, but I don't blame you for being careful. Your friend was actually kicking me. Speaking of your friend, you should be really grateful she was close by when the incident happened. You probably wouldn't have survived if she hadn't immediately started healing you."
Alexis resisted a smile, struggling to keep an upset countenance. Her eyes moved to the name tag on his lanyard. "Why does your name tag say Wayne? I thought you had like some weird name like Joe-lour or something."
"Jenlauer. But here, I'm just Wayne. Or Nurse Wayne, if you like."
"Why can't I just call you Jenlauer?"
His smile widened. "Spell it. Then I'll let you use it." He started to head toward the door. "I'll get right back to you with that painkiller."
Alexis pursed her lips and kept a cautious eye on the door as Jenlauer—or rather, Wayne—exited. After the door closed and his footsteps receded down the hallway, Alexis relaxed and picked the remote back up. With any luck, she'd be out of here before he ever got a chance to spring his trap.
XIXIXIX
Courtney Lin rubbed her lips together, smacked them, capped her lip gloss, and admired her reflection. She tried out a few sexy faces, puckering her now-sparkly lips and placing her index finger against her cheek.
"Mm, mm," she hummed, grabbing the curling iron off the counter. Her long black hair was still straight as a rod, but that would soon be rectified. "From normal blah to ooh-la-la. Watch out, Bradley Hutchinson."
"Hurry up in there!" hollered her older brother, Eric, from outside the bathroom door.
"I'll hurry up when I wanna hurry up, dipface!" Courtney yelled back. She turned back to the mirror and continued curling her hair. "So what if he's already got a girlfriend? Didn't anyone ever tell him long-distance relationships never work? Besides, I bet she's just some ditzy blonde."
"Well, you're half right," her reflection replied. "I mean, she is blonde."
Courtney blinked hard and stepped back a little in surprise. "Did you just—"
Her reflection reached out one tan, slender arm and placed in on Courtney's forehead. Courtney's eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped to the ground, dropping the curling iron.
She popped back up and gasped, her black hair flipping back as she did so. She licked her lips, wrinkled her nose, and stood up.
"You're gonna make us all late!" Eric yelled, pounding on the bathroom door.
"One moment!" Aisha shouted in Courtney's voice. She grinned. "Let's see—age fourteen, Asian, five-foot-three, one hundred twenty-one pounds, and just the right amount of curvy." She smirked and picked the curling iron back up. "Watch out, Bradley Hutchinson, indeed. Killing you again will be a delight."