“Kit!” The high pitched screech hit me moments before the inhabitant did, her tiny body almost knocking me off my feet as she hug-tackled me in the doorway.
“Luce?” I grabbed her and pulled her away a little to get a good look at her. “What the hell? I thought you were at that fancy rehab in Connecticut that Jonathan set up with your parents? I called there yesterday looking for you, and no one said anything about you leaving!”
“Ah yeah, that's because they don't know I have left.” She grinned at me impishly. Of course she was up to no good. But how was Austin involved in this? I looked over to ask him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he just go?” I looked around the room, a bit confused.
“Oh, he's just being shy.” Lucy laughed and tugged me over to the matching armchairs near her picturesque window.
“Austin? Shy?” I squinted at her. “Are we talking about the same douchebag here?”
My best friend just laughed and shrugged. “Yeah, weirdly, he's not actually as bad as we thought he was.”
Concerned for my friend’s sanity, I looked her over carefully. Maybe she had brain damage. She actually looked pretty good, all things considered. Her left hand was still in a heavy cast, with several metal pins sticking out of the plaster, but other than that, she looked really healthy. Her hair had grown out a bit and was now bright purple, and she had none of her facial piercings in.
“You better start from the top, girl. Right now I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Your hair looks great, by the way.” I winked at her, and she beamed.
“Thanks! Okay, so you know how I had to get all those extra surgeries and shit on my hand?” I nodded. “Okay well, so, the rehab was like a goddamn prison; as you know, they wouldn't let anyone visit or anything, and then there was this whole scandal where they thought someone had broken in but nothing was taken. Turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, but after you got kidnapped, Austin shows up, totally determined that I needed to be moved somewhere safe in case they came for me too. He was, like, legitimately fucking stressing about someone pulling another Dupree, so he found a lookalike Lucy to take my place there and moved me here.”
“Wait a minute. Hold up. Austin?” I clarified, and she nodded. “Austin King. As in, the asshole who has been declaring civil war on me since the moment we met? That Austin?”
“Yes, that Austin.” She giggled. “I think that was all a misunderstanding. Do you know anything about Peyton?”
“Only that I remind him of her; what do you know?” I demanded. The Peyton thing had been bugging me.
She shrugged. “Nothing. Anyway, here I am, and you can visit me all the time! Yay!”
“Sorry, I am still wrapping my head around this act of selflessness. Are you sure it wasn't Caleb pretending to be Austin? It's a surprisingly convincing act when they want it to be.” I glowered a little, and she just rolled her eyes at me.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I have totally finished my surgeries, and once I get these pins taken out of my arm, it's just another few weeks of physical therapy and I should be back to normal!”
“Luce, that's so great. I am happy for you, but I still feel awful that this all happened in the first place…” I chewed the edge of my lip. “So, I think I can heal other people now… if you wanted me to try and heal your arm?”
For a moment, she didn't respond, staring down at her damaged limb. “But that might make me something else, right?” I nodded, and she sighed, looking out the window while she thought it over.
“I think maybe I will just wait and see how the PT goes…” she said tentatively. “Not that there's anything wrong with being, you know, different… It's just…”
“I get it. I just wanted to let you know.” I awkwardly looked around her room. She had every right to decline. It was doubtful I would have made a different choice in her shoes without knowing what might end up happening to me as a side effect of the healing.
“Hey, who are these people?” I asked, getting up to look at a photo sticky-taped to her mirror.
“Oh, those are some of the PTs and patients here. We took that just a couple of days ago when it was Sally's birthday. She’s hot, huh? We had a moment.” She tapped the picture, pointing to a pretty, blond girl.
“Who is that?” I asked, pointing to a darkly handsome man standing behind Lucy. Something about him seemed familiar.
“Oh, that's Finn. He's my trainer. Isn't he gorgeous, too? I’m seriously spoiled for choice here!” She winked, but a shiver of ice ran down my spine.
“Finn? Are you sure? That's Finn?” I tapped on his picture a little more urgently, having realized why he looked so familiar. Although the last time I had seen him he had a scruffy beard and was looking really malnourished.
“Uh yeah, why? Do you know him?” She frowned at me like I was a nutjob.
“Luce, that's the guy from Blood Moon!” I exclaimed in a bit of a panic.
“What guy?” she asked, clearly not getting it.
“The, argh, the guy! You know, the one that punched his fucking fist through a guard’s chest!” I was freaking out now, looking around Lucy's room for a suitcase so I could pack her up and get the hell out of here.
“Okay, woah. Kit. Chill the fuck out, girl,” she said, pushing me back into a chair. “I'm not leaving, so you can stop looking around like you're going to drag me out of here.” Damn best friends and their ability to read your mind.
“Look, he has been my trainer since I got here almost two weeks ago and has never been anything but nice to me. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have already done it, don't you think?” She sounded rational. When had she become so rational? I was used to her being the one freaking out.
“Didn't you say that after he killed those guards, he was polite? Even thanked you?” she reminded me, and I nodded slowly. “Okay, so that kind of sounds like he's a victim of theirs just as much as we were.”
“I see your point…” I agreed slowly. “I don't like it, though. It's too much of a coincidence.”
“Of course it is. But I don't think he's the bad guy in all of this. Look, he's not on shift today, so let’s just calm the fuck down and speak with him next time he's here. Okay?” She gave me a serious look, as if to say I won't be budged on this, Kit.
“Fine,” I said grudgingly. “But you have to call me as soon as you know he's here, and I will come question him.”
“Come question whom?” Austin asked, reappearing in the doorway like magic.
“I'll tell you later,” I lied with no intention of telling Austin anything. Despite Lucy's claims that he wasn't such a bad guy, he had been nothing but nasty to me from day one, and I wasn't the type to forgive and forget easily.
“Whatever, visiting hours are over, and the guys are blowing up my phone. Can we go?” he asked me in a bored voice, but his gaze was shrewd, and I suspected he wasn't going to let it go that easily.