Chapter Eleven
JAIME
When I woke up, Rudy was hovering around my bed again. (Does the man ever sleep?) The night before, there had been no pain but that morning everything seemed to hurt. Body, bionics – no difference – especially when I tried to do something foolish like breathing. Rudy had been wetting my lips with a moist cloth and when he saw me looking at him, he smiled.
"Hurts when you breathe?" he asked. I nodded, wondering for a split second if he could read minds. Of course he couldn't, but he could read bodies; that was his job, after all. "I'll give you something a little milder this time," he went on, "so you won't feel so groggy. We'll see how you do with that." This time, I didn't make a face; the shot was a blessing.
He puttered a bit, waiting for the shot to take effect, then picked up a glass from beside the bed. "Feel up to trying a little water?" he asked.
That would involve moving (which didn't seem like a great idea) but my throat was parched, so I let him help me sit up just enough. "Easy," he coaxed. "Just a sip or two for now."
The water supply had turned out to be one of my least favorite aspects of Peru, but at that moment it slid down like honey and tasted even better. "You're...really here," I half-whispered. The night before, I wasn't sure if he'd been a jungle-induced hallucination.
"So are Oscar and Steve," he confirmed. "They're in the next room."
"Can I...see them?"
Rudy nodded, his perma-smile still firmly attached. "Of course."
"Rudy," I began as he headed toward the doorway, "is Chris here, too?"
"No, Honey, he's not." He stuck his head into the other room and called to Oscar and Steve.
I know them both well enough that I could tell they'd slept about as poorly as Rudy. Of course, my house only had the one bed, but I hoped they'd at least found the mats and stretched out on the floor. Later, I discovered that they hadn't.
"Where's Chris?" I asked everyone (and no one in particular). They all exchanged a look like they'd been out in the Peruvian sun too long and were either going to pass out or be violently ill. It was starting to bother my chest and throat when I talked, so I just waited patiently. Surely, someone would answer.
Steve and Oscar both moved closer to the bed and my mind was going in all sorts of crazy directions as I watched them obviously struggling for the right words.
"He's...back in Washington, Babe," Oscar said gently.
Well, that told me he wasn't dead, which had been the worst of my fears. Did he meet some government-groupie bimbo and elope? Was he in jail? What the hell was going on? Finally, Steve was able to spit out the rest of the story.
"He's been working with Hansen and Parr," he told me (very quietly).
"He joined the NSB?" I croaked. Between my parched throat and the tightness in my chest, I was feeling remarkably frog-like.
"Not exactly. He's been giving them information....about you."
"Me?"
"He's working to help them find you and bring you back to DC," Steve concluded.
I didn't know what to say about that. I didn't even realize I was crying until I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. (Only one...I think I was too tired to really bawl.) Oscar reached over and brushed it away while Steve held my hand.
"I'm so sorry, Babe," Oscar told me. "There was nothing I could do to stop him."
"A one-way ticket to Timbuktu might've helped," Steve grumbled bitterly.
"Why?" was all I could manage to say. The man I'd fallen in love with – who told me how very much he loved me – was helping the very people who wanted to put me away! While I could see his intentions as good ones when he'd urged me to turn myself in, actually helping the NSB seemed nothing short of cruel.
"I sent him on assignments," Oscar explained, "trying to keep him busy and away from them, but he came back with pages full of lists -"
"Lists?" I didn't quite get it.
"Information," Steve continued. "Things they'd asked me, but I'd told them I didn't know or couldn't remember."
"Like...what?"
"Your habits, your fears, childhood friends, pen pals, places you'd traveled as a child...." Steve's voice trailed off. I knew that was probably only the start of everything Chris had told them, but Steve sensed (and rightly so) that I'd heard enough.
It was hard for me to breathe. It hurt to talk. But there was still one question pressing on my mind:
"Why...?"
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