A Glimmer of Hope (The Avalon Chronicles #1)(32)
“So, they didn’t believe me after all? They think I’m crazy?”
“Not at all. They said it’d mean they’d take extra precautions. Tommy said he’s seen an ogre before.”
Layla wasn’t sure she’d heard her friend right. “You serious?”
Chloe nodded. “From talking to both of them, I’d say they’ve seen their fair share of weird shit. I get the impression they’re trustworthy. I know you’ve been through a lot, but these people want to help.”
Chloe stayed with Layla for several hours, until Harry arrived and wanted to know what had happened, and how he could help. It took several minutes to get him to accept that Layla was actually okay and that her shoulder was more sore than actually painful. The latter of which was something she found a little odd as she hadn’t been given any painkillers apart from the odd paracetamol from a young nurse who’d stopped by a few hours before.
Eventually her friends had to leave, and Layla switched the TV back on, settling in for a long night alone. Chloe’s bag had contained grapes, several bottles of water, and two massive bars of chocolate that got eaten by the three friends long before they’d left. There was also a pair of jeans, some underwear, and a few t-shirts, all of which Layla was exceedingly thankful for.
She wasn’t sure exactly how much she believed Tommy and Diana’s story. They were clearly security of some kind, but who had hired them, and why? How did they know where she was? Were they another part of Elias’s plan? The answer was a resounding no. If they had been, Layla doubted they’d have allowed her to have Chloe and Harry in the room. As for the other answers, maybe the police had brought them in. She assumed that the hospital had contacted the police, who had contacted Tommy. Maybe Tommy and Diana did this sort of thing all the time, traveling the country and defeating monsters, like a UK version of Supernatural.
She’d mentioned the ogre, but why keep the blood elves and spirit scrolls to herself? To be honest, she wasn’t even certain what the scrolls really were. Spirits inside a scroll giving her power? Maybe she’d had some kind of psychotic breakdown and used that as a way to justify what she’d done to escape. As for the blood elves, she had been going to mention it, until she saw Chloe’s fearful reaction to the ogre. Layla wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to add to that fear.
After a few minutes, Layla climbed out of bed and walked over to the mirror in the en suite bathroom. Although the bathroom was more functional than anything she’d seen in a hotel or house, she didn’t have to share, and she was grateful for that. She unfastened the hospital gown and pulled it aside, revealing a white dressing on her shoulder. It was three inches square and secured in place with tape. She knew she should leave it, but she wanted to see how bad the injury looked, so she picked at the tape and slowly pulled one section of it free, causing a lot less pain than she’d been expecting. She removed the adjacent piece of tape and took a deep breath before pulling the dressing aside so she could see the wound.
A second later she tore the whole dressing off, dropping it into the sink as she stared at the complete lack of a bullet wound.
She’d been shot. She remembered being shot. Although she hadn’t been in her body at the time, the memory of it was still there. As was the memory of her killing the second blood elf. She paused. She’d killed two people on her way out of the compound. She pushed the thought aside for the moment to deal with the fact that her bullet hole no longer existed. In its place was some tender scar tissue, but even that didn’t look too bad.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asked herself in the mirror. For a second she half expected a monster to appear in the mirror beside her, but that didn’t happen. More memories from the night before flashed into her head: her in a Victorian carriage, the cage in the center of the glade. The creature inside it.
“I need answers. I need to know what’s happening to me.”
You’re becoming something more than human, a voice that she recognized as belonging to Rosa said inside her head. Please don’t do the “You’re not real, this is all a dream” thing. I did it, and it was annoying.
Layla knew it wasn’t a dream; no one could have dreams where they actually got shot, not unless they were in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
We need to talk. Face to face. You need to learn who you are, and what has happened to you.
“And how do I go about doing that?”
For now, sleeping will lower the barriers between us. It takes a few days before we can appear easily to you when you’re awake.
“You knocked me out.”
I promise I will explain everything when you see me. I swear to you, I did what I needed to do to keep you alive.
She didn’t know why, but she somehow knew that Rosa was telling the truth. She walked back into her hospital room and checked the time. It was only eight, but she wanted to know what was happening, what had happened. There really were spirits in her mind. It wasn’t a psychotic breakdown, it wasn’t some dream; it was real. She had power that she hadn’t had before she’d accepted the scroll. She needed to learn how to use it, and talking to the spirits seemed like the best way.
Layla climbed into bed, and after initially tossing and turning, fell into a deep sleep.
12
Elias was over halfway to America by the time the call came in telling him of Layla’s escape. He’d wanted the pilots to turn the private jet around immediately, but had been told doing so would make them crash in the middle of the ocean. Instead of continuing with any threats, he admitted that stopping in New York and refueling was the better option. But he hadn’t been happy about it.