Chapter Eleven
I woke up in an uncomfortable bed. The first thing I noticed was that the blanket covering my legs was extremely stiff and scratchy. The second was that my left arm was uncomfortably sore, though less painful than before. I opened my eyes fully. It was night time and I was in a hospital room. My left arm was bound tightly and in a sling. Looking at it made the events at the Kerise factory come rushing back and I felt terrified.
Looking around the room, I saw Owen dozing in a chair by the bed. I didn't feel like getting up so I stretched out my leg and nudged him with my foot, calling his name as I did so. He jerked awake and almost fell out of the chair. Then he saw that it was my doing and a look of relief came over his face.
He leaned over, resting his elbows on the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.
"I'm better than before, I think," I answered. "What happened?"
He told me that after Alex gave the order to kill me, Colin, who had been lurking around the area all along, cast a spell, creating a diversion to help us get away. The two men decided to bring me to the hospital after I fainted. I had a very badly dislocated shoulder but was lucky that the injury stopped short of requiring surgery. The doctors managed to manoeuvre it back into place and immobilised it with a sling. They decided to keep me hospitalised overnight as I was drifting in and out of consciousness, and they had also given me morphine to help with the pain.
"And Alex? What happened to him? Did Colin manage to stop him?" I asked.
Owen's face was grim. "No. He got away. I have worse news. Colin found out that there was no miracle drug being produced and no mind-control scheme. It was a trap all along. And we walked right into it. Now we have no clue about what he's planning next. Colin's mad as hell over this and worry about you. And I must say, I am too. Worried, that is. I'm sorry. You were right that all this was like a bad movie plot and bound to fail."
He sounded so dejected that I felt sorry for him. I sat up – the morphine must have still been working for I felt little pain – and took his hand. "We'll figure it out. I'm sure we will."
Owen lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. "I hope so, love." He then got up and sat on the bed next to me. "I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last few hours and there's something I need to tell you."
"Go on," I prompted.
"Danae, I almost lost you today," he said. "Watching Alex hurt you and being unable to do anything made me feel more helpless and afraid than I have been in a long time now. I was wondering why I felt this way. I've been with other people before in the same situation as we were in but I had never felt like that. I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, of a world which didn't have you in it."
"Owen, I'm here and I'm fine," I said. I had a feeling I knew where he was going with this and was in equal parts excited and nervous.
"I know. But, it got me to thinking about why this was the case. What made you so different to me? And I think I know. Danae, I think I love you. And you have no idea how much this is killing me right now."
"What's wrong with being in love?" I asked, not understanding why he was so conflicted.
"Danae, I'm immortal. Even if you share my love, we can't ever be together. It's not fair to you and I can't go through it again. My heart can't take it."
"Again?"
"I've loved before. Many times. But everyone I loved grew old and died. And they all say the same thing. 'Don't forget me', 'Remember me'. But I can't. I'm left behind to try and forget and move on. Except that it hurts every time. It never stops hurting," he said. He paused, raising his hand and gently caressed my cheek. "Danae, you are so precious to me but I'm afraid to love you. I can't give you one lifetime."
"Owen, we can work through this. I'm sure we can," I said. I wanted more than anything to comfort him and make him feel alright again. Most of all, I realised, I wanted him to love me.
That did not cheer him up. "No, we can't. I won't let you be burdened with my dilemma. I just needed to tell you and I needed for you to listen." His tone of voice suddenly changed and he looked straight into my eyes, his chocolate brown eyes so full of sadness and determination. "And now, I need you to forget all this," he said. My mind grew hazy again and I sank back into unconsciousness.
When I woke up, it was morning. Owen was in the chair by my side, rocking on the back two legs and humming something off-key. "Good morning, love," he said cheerfully. "How are we feeling today?"
I had a nagging feeling like I was forgetting something important from a dream. But the more I tried to remember, the more it slipped away. My shoulder ached and felt sore and I told him so.
"That'll probably be the morphine wearing off," he suggested. "Anyway, yesterday, the doctors said you could be discharged after breakfast, as long as you aren't showing any nausea or fever. Which you aren't, right? You had a good long sleep so your body should have had time to recover."
"I feel fine. No nausea and no fever," I assured him. He smiled. The hospital breakfast tray came in shortly afterwards. Oatmeal and some scrambled eggs with toast and tea. Everything tasted terrible. At first, Owen thought it was just the after-effect of the medications that were wreaking havoc on my taste buds. But after one bite of the food, he agreed with me and promised to take me out for a real breakfast after I was discharged.
That could not have happened soon enough. The doctors found no reason to keep me and signed the papers to let me out. Within the hour, Owen and I were seated in a café with plates of delicious pancakes and fried sausages and eggs. I was starving. It was his treat.
"Don't forget to chew, love," Owen teased as he watched me shovel food one-handed into my mouth.
"Hey, I'm starving," I informed him. "I've been unconscious for a long time. The last meal I had was lunch yesterday. I figured that out while waiting for that nurse to sort out the discharge papers." He just smiled indulgently.
The TV was on in the café and tuned in to the news. The announcer was just reading out a report on the world nuclear peace treaty. It was a landmark treaty that had recently been hammered out between the world nuclear powers. Under the treaty, all nuclear weapons would be decommissioned and sent to a dumpsite in the remote Russian Far East. There, they would be safely buried and left to break down, never again to be used as a threat in war. The world had decided to turn its back on nuclear weaponry forever.
The leading nuclear powers – Britain, the United States, Russia, France and China – had disarmed a long time ago. The smaller nuclear powers – India, Pakistan and Israel – were in the midst of completing the transfer of their nuclear arsenal. Today's news announced that North Korea and Iran had just begun the transfer process. It was being hailed as the end of the nuclear age and the final end to the Cold War. The International Atomic Energy Agency was throwing a celebratory party.
"Isn't that wonderful?" I asked, indicating the TV. "Maybe that Age of Aquarius thing is really going to happen. No more threats of nuclear war."
Owen was frowning. "It is. But it doesn't seem right. North Korea and Iran especially; they spent so long fighting for nuclear weapons, and even denying that they had any. Why would they just give it up when nothing is offered in return? Makes no sense."
"Maybe they've seen the light and decided to repent," I suggested. "Stranger things have happened. Myanmar suddenly turning into a democracy, for example. I've never understood that."
He gave me a queer look. "That is true," he said thoughtfully. "I'd never stopped to think about how strange that was." He went quiet, deep in thought.
When I had finished, Owen brought me home. He was preoccupied the entire journey. When we got back to Hackney and home, he handed me the pain medications the pharmacy had dispensed, told me to make sure I got plenty of rest and left without even trying to get an invitation to stay. It was definitely not like him.
But he was the least of my problems. Now fed and full, I took a dose of medicine and went to bed. It was difficult finding a comfortable spot with one arm immobilised but the meds knocked me out very quickly.
It was lunchtime when I woke up and I was feeling hungry again. A quick check in the fridge revealed that there was absolutely nothing in the house. I groaned. I did not relish the thought of going grocery shopping one-armed. However, since it had to be done, I grit my teeth and headed out to the nearby Tesco.
As it was the middle of a weekday, there were relatively few people in the shop. I ran into one or two people I knew from around the neighbourhood who asked what happened to my arm – but did not offer to help me with my groceries. That was the kind of neighbourhood I lived in. I loaded up on soup, cereal and bread. I also bought various types of berries and a carton of milk so I could make myself a smoothie. I had dumped them all into a trolley and was planning to just push the trolley back home and return it the next time I popped by Tesco.
As I made my way to the checkout counter, I heard someone calling me from behind. Thinking it was another nosy neighbour, I turned with a resigned sigh. But instead, I saw an old schoolmate – Bella Whitlock. She was dressed in a suitably fashionable dress to suggest an office worker but casually enough to suggest that she was not one of those who were required to look completely polished.
"Bella! What are you doing here?" I asked in surprise. I had lost contact with her since our school days. She was the pretty popular girl; I was the weird one who lurked in corners. The last time I saw her, she and her cronies had dumped a bucket of water and glitter over me. It took me days to get clean.
"I was working a job in the area and came in to get some nibbles," Bella replied. "What about you? You're the last person I expected to see here. What happened to your arm?"
"I dislocated it," I said. "Anyway, I live around here and popped in to stock up on groceries. What kind of job are you in?"
"I'm a reporter now," Bella told me. "It's really exciting. I'm part of the team covering the nuclear treaty. Did you hear about it in the news?"
"Of course I did," I said. "That's really something. How did it all happen? Wasn't the nuclear energy commission wrangling with all those countries for years with no consensus on anything?"
"I know, isn't it odd?" Bella agreed. "But it wasn't the IAEA that hammered out the treaty. They're just the public face. There's another organisation behind that did all the legwork and somehow managed to convince even the North Koreans and Iranians to come on board. Mind you, this is no mean feat, considering that just six months ago, Iran was staunchly denying that it had any form of nuclear weaponry."
I suddenly blessed Bella for her love of showing off. She was a mine of information now. "So what's this shadow organisation then? The UN?"
Bella laughed. "Please! The UN is such a lame duck, pathetic excuse of an organisation. Wouldn't be able to dream up a nuclear treaty like this even if it smacked them in the face. And if it were them, they would not hesitate to take the credit. They wouldn't be hiding and pretending they had no hand it."
"Not the UN? There aren't many other international bodies with the influence over world affairs. Don't tell me it's Nato."
Bella suddenly looked a little worried. "I don't know if I should even be telling you all this. I was told to keep it under wraps. The organisation didn't want the publicity so there's a blanket ban in the media on their name."
"I'm not in the media. Come on. You can tell me. It's a good thing anyway, not as if you're spreading a scandal or libel."
"Ok, I'll tell you. But you must promise not to tell another media agency. It'll be my head on the chopping block if it gets traced back to me," Bella warned. I assured her again that I was not going to talk to any other media outlet and blab. "The organisation – you must have heard of them; they're everywhere – is Eceline."