A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)(40)

Shayla had been right to suggest we return. By the time we’d arrived in the old hotel apartment, Josh had completely blacked out. Whatever he had been experiencing—I could only guess memories—had come at him hard and fast. It had overwhelmed him completely, mentally and physically. Now he wasn’t responding to anything.

We rushed him to one of the beds and laid him down, covering him with blankets. Shayla tried to revive him, but nothing she did worked.

Josh’s breathing was really starting to scare me. One moment it came on heavy and labored, and the next it seemed to stop completely.

But then, after about twenty intense, torturous minutes, he came to. His eyelids lifted open, his irises dazed and glassy at first, but gradually gaining focus.

He sat up in bed so abruptly, his head almost whacked into Shayla’s. She had been bending over him.

His lips parted and he looked from me to the witch, a manic expression on his face. “Lawrence!” he breathed. “Lawrence Conway!”

Shayla and I stared back at him, clueless.

He gripped my arm, a mixture of excitement and urgency in his eyes. “My name. My name is Lawrence Conway! It’s my name!”

Shayla’s and my jaws dropped. Lawrence Conway?

I had never seen him look so excited. So optimistic. I was still recovering from the shock of his blackout, but his enthusiasm was contagious.

I clutched his hand. “What did you see, Jo—Lawrence?”

“I… I was lying somewhere. In one of those buildings, I’m sure. In a white room, with harsh lighting. I was stretched out on the bed. Men in black uniform were gathered around me, some of them wearing surgeons’ masks. They had lots of needles. They injected me in my neck, my abdomen, my ankles and my wrists. The memory was hazy because… I’m pretty sure my mind was hazy at the time. But one of the men spoke to me! He called me Lawrence Conway.”

“Is that all you remembered?” Shayla urged, “Just a vision of you in that room?”

He nodded slowly, narrowing his eyes in recollection. “I’m sure I spent a long period of time lying there… I can’t be sure how long though. For now that’s all I remember… but I have a feeling in my gut that graveyard is key. It’s where my memory started flooding back most vividly. You need to take me back,” he urged.

He tried to move so suddenly off the bed it was as though he’d forgotten that his legs weren’t working. Shayla and I pushed him back down.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Shayla said, settling him back down against the pillows. She glanced out of the window. “It’s dark now. After what you’ve just been through, you should rest. God knows, after that scare I could do with some rest too. We’ll return first thing tomorrow morning, all right? And we’ll see what other memories return to you.”

He looked reluctant, but nodded. It was clear that there was no arguing with Shayla.

The witch left us to go explore the kitchen to see if she could find any long-life food worthy of eating down there while I sat with Josh… Lawrence.

I still hadn’t gotten my head around it. His words were still sinking in.

“Lawrence Conway,” I murmured, staring at him as he rested on the pillows. “Who is that?”

“Wish I knew,” he muttered. He looked agitated, fidgety, like the last thing he wanted to do right now was lie in bed. He propped himself up against the headboard. “But it shows that you were right, Grace,” he said in a softer tone, meeting my eyes. “My memories haven’t gone anywhere. I have them. They’re just… stuck beneath the surface. Tomorrow, when we return, I just know more will return to me. I can hardly wait.”

Shayla returned, carrying three bowls of steaming hot soup on a tray, and two large bottles of water. “Found all this down in the bunker. Canned soup is good for another year.” She chuckled. She handed a bowl to Lawrence and one to me. Lawrence accepted the soup, though hardly ate a spoonful. Even if he had been feeling starved, in his excitement, I doubted he would be able to eat anything.

Shayla cleared away the bowls once we were done with them and then suggested that we all get some sleep. She promised that we would leave early tomorrow—no later than 6 AM—and it was in Lawrence’s interest to sleep. The time would pass more quickly.

Given that the two bedrooms contained a double bed each, we were now faced with the matter of who would sleep where. I quickly volunteered to rest on the sofa, even though Shayla said that she didn’t mind.

Shayla retired to her bedroom with one of the water bottles, leaving Lawrence and me to wind down. I opened up my suitcase that had been resting on Lawrence’s bedside table and unpacked some essentials—pajamas, toothpaste and toothbrushes. I helped Lawrence to the bathroom where I waited while he brushed his teeth with the bottled water. He still appeared to be in quite a daze, but he seemed… genuinely happy. Relieved, in spite of whatever pain his body was still giving him.

As nervous as I still felt about the whole affair—what exactly he might end up discovering about himself—my mood couldn’t help but lift, too. I’d been around this man so intensely and incessantly for so many days in a row, my mind so wired into his needs, his happiness, it came as kind of a shock to realize how much my own happiness had come to depend on his when I was with him. But I guessed, as a caregiver, that could simply be chalked up to me doing my job right. A good caregiver was supposed to be deeply empathetic.