Page 44 of Lone Spy

God, what a way to put it. My hand wanders up to my throat where Martin's fingers are bruised into my skin. I'll need to wear a scarf. Fashion saves the day. A rueful laugh gets caught in my throat and forms a lump.

The police will be here in the morning to interview me. “You have nothing to worry about. You’re the victim here,” Temperance said.

“What about Elliot Kendricks?” I asked about the MI5 agent who came to see me after the queen collapsed.

Something flickered behind Temperance’s eyes—something I couldn’t quite read. “He won’t be involved in this investigation.”

I blink away the memories, staring down at the hospital’s small sculpture garden below. Most pieces are just shadows in the slowly brightening dawn but a modern, abstract, twisting metal monolith at its center is lit from below, the stark light creating dark shadows. Strength isn't always a straight line…

Lloyd will be here before the police with new clothing, including that much-needed scarf. But right now I'm watching the darkened garden turn to gray as the sun rises.

I still haven’t slept. My eyes are sandpapery, but my brain is firing in all directions at once.

A sudden, intense urge to see Ash swells inside me. Did he know what Linda had planned? How much contact does he have with her? Does he know what the compass holds…held…whatever the tense is, I want the answer. I want to see him. Need to see him. Now.

My socked feet are quiet on the linoleum floor, the sticky underside grippy on the smooth surface. I ease open the heavy door and pad my way down the fluorescent-lit hall. Temperance told me Ash was on the same floor. A VIP wing for people like us—who need privacy and have the money to pay for it.

“Get some sleep, trust me, Ash is fine. The concussion was minor. He'll be released tomorrow.”

Omar was taken to a different private hospital, removed from the shattered restaurant before I even woke up from the blast. He's also fine. No one was killed. Omar’s female assistant—the stunning woman who greeted Ash and me when we got off the elevator—is in intensive care but expected to survive.

I didn't ask Temperance any more questions about the explosion and who might have caused it. Didn't insist on speaking with Ash. Didn't want Temperance to know how screwed up in the head I am about the giant I can't seem to trust or not trust. The man who makes me feel like I'm caught in an electric grid with him. The one I threatened to kill.

I wanted to murder Martin. I wanted it so bad. And that’s fucking me up too. I’m just fucked up.

I check the name on each room's door, getting closer to the nurses’ station. Voices slow me. I don't want them to see me. A man says something and a woman laughs. Pressing myself against the wall and out of view, I slide closer. There are more rooms further down the hall, but I have to get past the desk first.

"No," the woman says. "Not now."

The man says something I can't understand. Clothing rustles. The woman giggles. "Just a minute then," she says.

They appear, holding hands, and she leads the way, hurrying down the hall. If they turned back, they'd see me pressed up against the wall in my gowns looking like a mental hospital escapee. But the two only have eyes for each other as she unlocks a door and they disappear inside.

I break into a jog to cross the space exposed to the desk and the elevators. My peripheral vision snags on a tray of surgical instruments—each one sealed in its own sterile wrapping. I slow, stop. Turn. There are scalpels sitting right there, the deadly weapons’ shine dulled by the blue film of plastic over them.

I don't think, just scoop up two of the knives, and continue down the hall past the closet with its muted moans, checking the name on each door as I go.

Ash Fraser.

I press my face against the door’s glass window like a child at the candy store. It is dark except where dawn blue inches across the floor from the exterior window. The bed is mostly out of view, hidden behind a privacy curtain, except for large, blanket-covered feet pressed against the footboard.

The feet don't stir as I ease the door open. Closing it behind me, I stand with my back pressed to the cool surface. What am I doing here? Staring at Ash’s feet. Holding two scalpels.

Even as I ask the question, I slowly pull their wrapping off, the sound loud in the quiet of the darkened room. But the feet don't twitch. Sunlight breaks across the sky, adding a hue of orange to the pale blue—warming the light of this sterile place.

I drop the discarded wrappers and close the space between us. As I pass the curtain, Ash comes into view. He dwarfs the bed, turning it into something delicate. Something almost comic if it weren't for the machines over the headboard. The buttons of light. The steady mountain range of his heartbeat.

I should just go. Why am I here?

Because I need to know.

What?

I can barely remember, my thoughts fuzzed by the sight of him. By the exhaustion. By the intensity and yet distance of the night’s events. It's like I'm floating outside my body as it drifts up next to him.

Ash's head is shaved—pale in the faded light of dawn. Thick stubble darkens his jaw. A bruise blooms on Ash's left cheekbone. Black lashes fan over gray circles under his eyes. He looks beat up. Tired.

I watch myself lean close, gripping a deadly blade—so like the one I used on Martin. Like the one I wanted to draw across his throat with enough violence to make sure he stayed down. I craved to kill him. And that's the most frightening thing about all of this mess.

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