“Well, Sirus will never call me a ‘witch’ again, I guarantee that,” Meg growled. “That and I had to put a seriously demented alter who called himself the system’s ‘Punisher’ in his place. I’m hoping I scared him enough to stop him from hurting you anymore.”
“Sirus? Punisher? Yeah, things have started to get even more confusing. It’s not just lost time anymore, but now I’m starting to get a glimpse of others in here. I can hear their thoughts and see through their eyes. It’s like I’ve stepped back and I’m watching the events on a TV with really bad reception.” He looked away self-consciously, frowned and tapped his temple. “That’s not normal, is it?”
Meg shook her head slowly. “I wish I knew how to help you. You’d think that because I’m an empath, I’d have a clue.”
“I’m just impressed that you’re not afraid of me, Meg,” Gideon’s face reddened.
Meg helped him maneuver past the sink and toilet so he was facing the spa-like bathtub.
“I don’t scare easily,” she answered simply.
Changing the subject, Gideon nodded toward the overturned bedroom. “You’ve been busy.” He felt in awe of the powder keg of a little girl who was already searching for the needle and thread to mend his leg.
Meg shrugged, “Well, you have been too, whether or not you remember it.” Having found what she needed, she turned her attentions back to Gideon’s injury. In one swift motion, Meg yanked the soldier’s pant leg wide open exposing the wound.
“Some things are still so blurred. Did you do this to me?” Gideon asked with a look of curiosity in his eyes.
“You did this to yourself, soldier.” Meg threaded the needle first, then drenched the site with rubbing alcohol. She couldn’t ignore his hiss of pain from the sting, so she blew softly on the site for a few moments before grabbing the needle.
“Take a deep breath,” she warned before diving into the gaping flesh wound with her two-inch needle and red thread.
After the third stitch, she helped him move to the floor sensing that’s about where he was going to land in a few moments anyway.
He had passed out in a cold sweat from the pain and blood loss by the time Meg was ready to tie her last knot.
She slipped a folded towel under his head and washed her hands just in time to hear a knock at her door.
Chapter 66 Creed’s Lament
She moved with grace, her feet seemingly off the ground. Creed watched her profile, mesmerized by the arc of her strong shoulders dipping gently toward the small of her back. His watchful blue eyes followed the perfect curve at her shapely rear end and down her muscular dancer’s thighs, calves, into the turn of her beautiful ankles and ending at her dainty feet stretched on tiptoe as she moved to the waltz. Each chord wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her around the dance floor like an adamant suitor unwilling to release the girl from its claws.
Her arms were up, grasping the thick shoulder of an invisible partner. Her right hand was raised to the side, fingers lightly curled around the invisible force that pulled her smoothly through the three-quarter, expressive ballad.
She wore a crimson, flowing and delicate gown that seemed to linger in lament through the air behind her long, sweeping flight across the hardwood floor.
In that instant, the shape of her partner became visible. She was in the arms of Senator Arkdone. His hand was pressed firmly into that beautiful, untouchable small of her back. Arkdone watched her profile with obvious hunger as she hung in his arms. A quick glance up at Creed’s pain filled expression had Arkdone laughing. His red-lipped ridicule made his rows of razor-sharp shark teeth visible.
Creed tried to scream his warning to the innocent beauty so far from his reach, but no sound came. He tried to catch her eyes and waved frantically for her attention, but, as the waltz demanded, she turned and swayed with the fluid movements, head tipped away from her partner.
Arkdone, still laughing, spun a rag-doll, obedient Meg so she would be facing the tormented soldier. That’s when Creed saw the painted smile on her face. A harlequin smiling clown face stared back at him through etched diamond eyes. But it wasn’t the painted smile that made Creed roar in a frenzied scream that broke through to his waking life—it was the distorted lines of face paint left in the wake of her blood red, tortured tears.
Creed screamed as he flew from his bed.
His sharp night vision burst into view as he fought to escape the lasting caress of his nightmare. In his sleep, he’d ripped his sweat-soaked, navy bed sheet in two. Instinctively he was standing in the attack position, ready to fight to the death to defend his Meg.
Blinking several times and a good shake to the head helped clear his thoughts.
It was just a dream, he told himself. He stepped back to lean against the wall.
Or is it a truth I still can’t understand?
His heart was still thundering in his chest from the fight his body was desperate to have with that untouchable, scalding nightmare.
Chapter 67 No Moving On