Page 61 of Hide or Die

TWENTY-THREE

Leona

AFTER AN UNKNOWN amountof time spent huddled in the freezing jail cell, I slipped into an odd, dreamlike state that was confusing, but tolerable. Distantly, I was reminded of nature programs I’d watched with my family in childhood, where a gazelle or zebra lay peaceful and blank-eyed on the savanna as the lion ate them alive.

Why don’t they scream and fight?I’d asked my father, who’d gone on to explain about adrenaline, endorphin loops, and psychological dissociation. He’d finished by saying that we couldn’t really know what went on in an animal’s head, but that in the end, nature protected its own by whatever means necessary.

I wondered if the dying gazelles dreamed of an unlikely rescue by a towering gazelle goddess who picked them up and led them to safety with gentle hands, smelling of jasmine and sandalwood and worry.

In my dream, I was in a car, two voices murmuring nonsense in the background. My entire body was numb with cold, but then warm fingers brushed my cheek and hot air blew against my skin, making me shiver as feeling began to return to my limbs. The dream kept changing, the car interior shifting from dark leather to tan vinyl to gray velour. An arm brushed against mine, and I breathed in the illusion of a comforting alpha scent.

Maybe I could just stay like this through all of it—let the trial and the pain and my impending death float unimportantly in the background while I remained in an ever-moving, ever-changing car with a stoic, half-seen alpha at my side, escorting me to the afterlife... if there even was one.

The gray-velour vehicle rattled along a gravel drive, and eventually came to a stop. The voices said things in the background, and I wondered idly if the car was about to change again. Doors opened and closed. Hands released my seat belt and strong arms scooped me out of the seat. I had a vague impression of trees and birds and sky. Then there was an awkward shuffle as new arms reached for me.

Musk and cardamom tickled my nose. I knew that scent, too, and decided that if this dream was to be the last thing I experienced before the lion devoured me, I was okay with that.

“You got her,” said a deep voice, the sense of the words beginning to penetrate my awareness for the first time since the hallucination had started. “How bad off is she? What did they do to her?”

“It’s just shock,” said the other voice, sounding hoarse and strained. “You’ll need to treat her for shock.”

The world rocked dizzily around me as I was carried through a door, the sky and trees disappearing from sight. I blinked in the low light, gazing up at a handsome, dark-skinned face for a few moments until movement caught my peripheral vision.

“Leo!” Kam appeared from an interior hallway, rushing toward me.

I choked, the air suddenly catching in my throat, and began to struggle weakly against the arms holding me. They set me down, and it was all I could do to stay upright long enough to stagger toward that beautiful vision, even if it wasn’t real.

Arms caught me.

“Kam,” I croaked, burying myself in the tight, illusory embrace. “Oh, god. Is this a dream?”

Kam clutched my body to him, his arms shaking around me.

“I’ll check the perimeter,” muttered a voice from somewhere behind me, and I vaguely registered a door closing.

“Leo,” Kam said into my hair. “Odama. I don’t know exactly what’s going on yet, but you’re safe. It’s not a dream, I promise.”

“Feels like a dream,” I protested weakly, still clinging to him.

“It kind of does, doesn’t it?” he agreed, but the solid, shuddering body pressed against mine didn’t waver in its solidity.

A strong hand closed on my shoulder, the smell of fall spices once more wafting over me. Another figure approached behind Kam, ambergris and evergreen joining the mix.

“Alex says you’re in shock,” said the deep voice from earlier, and my mind tossed up a name to go with it.Flynn.

“Warm bath, food, sleep.” That was cypress-and-ambergris speaking. Another name bubbled up.Jax.

“They’re right,odama,” Kam said. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and fed. We can talk when you’re feeling better.”

He disentangled enough to get a shoulder propped beneath mine, my arm draped around his neck for support. Another strong arm wrapped around me from the other side, and I allowed myself to be led away on legs that felt like a newborn colt’s. We reached a hallway that was too narrow for three people abreast, and after a brief exchange over my head, Flynn picked me up again, cradling my body against his broad chest.

We ascended a set of stairs to the second story. It was a large house, not at all similar to anywhere I’d ever lived or dreamed of living. That was another tally in the ‘not a dream’ column I was using to informally keep score. But honestly, at this point, the mental effort began to feel like too much work. It was real, or it wasn’t. Either way, it was nice. I gave myself over to it, figuring that in the worst-case scenario, a psychotic break was still preferable to facing my fate at the hands of the Committee while in my right mind.

The landing at the top of the stairs had hallways branching off to the left and right. We turned right and Jax opened the second door leading into a bathroom—large and elegant, dominated by a raised platform leading to a massive sunken tub. Jax crossed to the bath and lowered himself carefully into a crouch to turn on the taps, favoring his left side as he did.

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