Page 14 of White Rabbit
“My brother will take care of your doctor’s discharge orders then relay them to me,” Valariy told me.
“Your brother?”
“He is a private practice physician who used to work in emergency medicine surgeon. He knows your Dr. Mason and the management of the hospital. Nothing to concern yourself with right now. Rest while we travel home.” He pressed my head to his chest. His solid heartbeat a soothing, steady rhythm beneath my ear. He was calm and unworried, so maybe, I didn’t need to worry.
You’d think after the past two years, I’d have a better sense of self preservation but right now, I couldn’t bring myself to dredge up an iota. A choice I’d probably regret later, but apathy overtook that concern, too. Was that due to my brain injury, exhaustion, or something else?
“Why am I so tired?” I whispered through the fog surrounding me. Rather than being lost in the nothingness, I’d shifted to sleepwalking—awake but not quite there. I sensed it, but couldn’t fight through it.
“Dr, Mason tells me it is natural. You will be better soon. I’ve ensured you will have the best of care.”
“Okay,” I murmured. My brow furrowed as another thought occurred to me. “Valariy?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you…? Maybe, I was dreaming. Never mind. Forget it. I was dreaming, and it’s silly.”
“What is it,Moya kokhána?Tell me,” he asked, stroking my hair. I really liked when he did that. Gentle caresses had been absent from my life for so long. From even before the incident that had stripped me of my nursing degree.
“Moya kokhána?” he prompted when I got lost in the feeling of his hand smoothing over my head and down my back. What was I going to say?
“Oh, I… I dreamed you told Dr. Mason that I’m your wife.” I waited for him to laugh. He didn’t.
Instead, he made a small humming sound that sounded like understanding. “You were not dreaming?”
“What? But why would you say that to him?”
“Because you are.”
I pulled back to stare at him.
“What?”What?My thoughts spirals as I grasped for reality, feeling like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. None of this made sense. Maybe, I wasn’t truly awake. Maybe, I was actually asleep in a chair like Alice inThrough the Looking Glass.
But what was with the Wonderland thoughts? I’d been reading the books before Rad attacked me, since they were the only ones in the apartment fort some reason. Maybe, it was just on my mind.
And if I was Alice? Who was Valariy? The White Rabbit? The Mad Hatter? He made about as much sense to me as the latter.
I shook my head to push away my silly thoughts. “I’m…we’re…not married.”
“You are,” he countered, pulling me back against his warm, rock-solid chest. His lips pressed to the top of my head. “We are.”
“But…how? And you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough. Let us not talk of this now. We have a lifetime for such discussions. And we are here.”
“Here?” I asked, almost afraid to look and find I was at the building where Rad’s apartment was located on the fourth floor or back at the Rusty Spike.
“Home.”
Already?
The door opened beside us and Valariy climbed out, still holding me and strode down the sidewalk as fat snowflakes swirleddown around us and the cold tried to get through his embrace to nip at me.
Rather than snuggle into his warmth, I peered around to get a lay of the new place I’d entered. Not Rad’s and not the Rusty Spike. We weren’t in the city, and only shadowy landscape surrounded us while Valariy carried me to a lit-up, sprawling English country-style stone mansion that looked to be three or four stories high and reminded me of something I’d once seen on a British period drama. I barely had a chance to take in the facade of the massive house before he was carrying me inside, one of his men shooting ahead of us to open one of the ornate double doors.
“My gosh,” I whispered when we stepped into the bright foyer that had to be two-stories high and just as large as one would expect from the expansive exterior.
“Welcome home,Moya kokhána.”
