6

"No! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! How could you do this to me?"

What had she done? The shock of the slap had triggered her ability. The sharp sting reminded Hannah of her helplessness when Miranda had hit her.

Her proof of control shattered into millions of red blood cells. She wanted to scream, but who could hear her from inside the boy's lungs?

You're just pissed because the Committee was right. You don't have control. If you go out there with a temper tantrum, you'll only prove you're not mature enough to handle your own power. Don't give them yet another excuse to cage you.

Her rage burned too hot for her own words to cool down. She needed to swim off her anger, so she headed for the anterior spinal artery and surfed upward. Was the kid sick? Dying? Was he an Alt? She'd have to check his brain to find out.

She plowed through layers of gray matter until she reached the area where the interthalamic adhesion was supposed to be. It wasn't there, which wasn't unusual in a normal human. Not everyone had one, but if this child had been an alternative human, a thin black thread would have crossed the midline of the adhesion. Somehow the black thread tied alternative humans to their Alt power. Scott had one. Scott's brother Nik had one, as had Joe Austin.

Her heart skipped a beat. Pressure. She remembered so much pressure as she sucked air and liquid into Joe's skull. The visceral pain had blinded her as Joe's brain exploded under her touch and rocked her for the second time. She didn't want to think about Joe or how she had killed him. Not here. Not while she operated inside a child.

You killed him.

She surfed faster, as if she could outrun her own thoughts. What she wouldn't give to take it all back.

This is life and death. You can't take it back.

Her attack on Joe wasn't like disabling Miranda's mercenaries. She would heal the mercs if they'd let her, but she couldn't resurrect the dead.

She shoved Joe to the back of her mind and focused on bloodsurfing around the boy's brain. Something didn't look right. There were scars along the meninges. The brain itself didn't appear to fit inside the skull, a hair to too close to the bone in some places. The brain wasn't swollen, though.

She traveled back along the spine. What the hell is that?

The spine bulged just at the point where the medulla oblongata ended and the spinal cord began. She surfed closer to examine the damage. It appeared as if someone had sliced through the spine and all its interconnecting tissues, then spliced them back together again. Despite the detail of the splice, the job itself looked sloppy, as if the surgeon couldn't quite get a clean stitch. The swollen nerve tissues pressed against bone. The signals along the spinal cord operated at a rate slower than normal, bumping over the uneven growth along the newly healed wounds.

Why, though? What was wrong with the boy that had required such an operation? Who could perform such an operation? She'd read as much as she could about medicine and surgery while she had been on the run from Miranda. None of the medical textbooks discussed a condition that would require a surgeon to cut through the spine to heal someone.

On the other hand, she knew nothing of this boy. If she'd been given a chance to examine him from the outside before his mother slapped her, she would have known what she was supposed to look for.

Oh, there was her anger again, distracting her, damn it. She surfed faster. Scars aside, all of the boy's systems functioned within normal parameters, if a bit erratic here and there. The drugs in his system appeared to keep his immune system at bay. Fixing the damage wouldn't take long.

I demand you examine my child.

Hannah stopped dead in the middle of the boy's aortic arch. What was she doing? The mother of this boy didn't want her to fix what was wrong. She had asked for Hannah to look at the damage and report back. Like the Oversight Committee, the mother wanted a witness, not a healer.

Hannah floated closer to the aortic wall, confused. What was she supposed to do now? Why didn't she know? She knew every part of the human body, better than any doctor, but she couldn't identify the purpose behind the scars.

She needed to know.

When Miranda forced you to heal her prisoners, you ignored the causes of their injuries in order to protect yourself. When you healed Scott, you used brute force to heal his body before he died, and ignored the consequences of what you were doing. He hadn't wanted to you to regrow his missing ear. He never wanted you to fix his broken Alt powers. You thought you were so smart. You thought because you'd memorized human anatomy you knew everything, but you're not as smart as you think you are. You heal without considering what your patient really wants.

Frustration further stymied her instinct to heal. The temptation to smooth the scarring, to re-image the boy’s immune system nagged at her. Except it wasn't just frustration, it was fear. Fear of what she didn't understand paralyzed her.

She'd never not healed anyone before, so she floated further down the descending aorta until she could skip along the upper true ribs and insert herself next to the boy's heart — which beat with a strong, steady rhythm despite the signal lag.

What should she do next? She couldn't answer her own questions, so she floated back out of the boy and into her own body, leaving him exactly as he was.

For the first time in her life, Hannah had failed to heal her patient.

Scott shoved himself to the front of the crowd. How dare anyone force Hannah to use her power without her consent? He knew better than anyone how much Hannah needed her freedom. After spending her life being manipulated and abused by a heartless killer, Hannah deserved to have a say over when and where she used her Alt ability.

His white-hot rage made him reach out to tackle the woman, but a strong pair of arms clamped around his shoulders and yanked him back.

"Let her finish," a sharp, deep voice admonished him.

Scott shook off the arms. McNamara backed off, but repeated his warning. "Let her finish."

Scott glanced back at Hannah, still a barely-there outline of her body visible. Of course. No one knew what would happen to Hannah if they touched her shadow while she surfed. McNamara had prevented Scott from making a bad situation worse by blundering into the commotion blind with rage. Scott had been a cop. He should have known better. He should have assessed the scene, then acted. Scott nodded his thanks to McNamara, who retreated.

A minute passed, then another. No one moved. Catherine remained frozen in place. She looked at Scott, then the child — a boy, to all outward appearances — then back to Scott. Pulling one hand from the boy's back, she gestured. Don't interfere.

Scott obeyed, but he did pull his phone out of his pocket. Without even looking at the screen he tapped the code to alert Thomas. His company had built the security system for the hospital, and his team would have already alerted him, but he didn't know Scott was here.

Hannah reemerged after a third minute. She yanked her hand from under the other woman's gloves before she stepped away from Catherine and the child.

"Did you see?" The woman ignored her son as she shouted. "You saw what those butchers did?"

Scott watched Hannah, looking for signs of distress, a signal or a blink, anything to indicate she needed him. Hannah didn't respond to the woman's question. She just stood there with an odd expression.

Catherine leaned forward to hand the boy back. "What you did here today was dangerous — "

The woman shoved the boy back into Catherine's arms. "I don't want him. He's not my son. He's someone else's child. I demand the return of my child." She whirled on the doctors standing behind Scott. "You! You allowed this to happen. You said the transplant would save his life, but you stole him away from me instead. I want him back. I demand you give my son back to me!"

Scott wouldn't risk turning around to see who the woman was pointing at. Behind him, he could hear some murmurs and shuffling, but nothing that identified the culprit. The woman's hysteria built and the boy started to wake in Catherine's arms. Hannah appeared too fixed upon the boy to pay attention to the danger. Scott took another step forward. Someone needed to get the situation under control.

"Ma'am. I want to help you, but you have to calm down first."

The woman's breath hitched as he approached, slower this time.

"What is your name?"

"Betty Chung," she said after a moment.

"My name is Scott. Can you tell me what happened? Can you explain why you forced Hannah to bloodsurf through your son?"

"I know who you are." Ms. Chung took a half step away from Hannah. Good. The farther he drew the woman away from Hannah, the better.

"Everyone knows who you are. You love the Blood Surfer. Tell her to prove it. Make her tell them," she pointed at the doctors, "this isn't my son. Make them bring my child back to me."

This time Scott glanced around to see if she pointed to anyone in particular. He noticed McNamara had slipped away in the confusion, but no one responded to the accusation. The doctors looked as confused as Scott.

"This is not the boy I gave birth to." Ms. Chung moved closer to Scott, putting more distance between herself and Hannah. "This isn't my Jimmy."

Scott forced a small smile. "Well, it's nice to know the reporters got one thing right. I do love Hannah — but, Ms. Chung, I can't order her to do what you want. I can't force her to break the law."

"I've already broken the law. The law she created." Ms. Chung spat at Catherine's feet.

Catherine didn't react beyond tightening her hold on the boy, who'd started to squirm.

"Jimmy was an Alt," Ms. Chung continued. "He could create auditory hallucinations."

Catherine shrugged in the corner of his vision. He guessed that the boy's power hadn't been proven yet. Maybe he could throw sound or maybe it was just a fanciful tale created by a wishful parent. Sometimes proving a child had Alt powers wasn't as straightforward as normal people, especially parents, wished.

"Jimmy was full of life." Ms. Chung's voice broke. "He smiled and laughed and loved to run and jump. This one is a lifeless lump. He doesn't do anything. Doesn't like the same foods, doesn't laugh, doesn't recognize our dogs, doesn’t even play with his toys. He's not my son. I want my Jimmy back."

Oh hell, Chung's eyes filled with ugly tears. His sympathy broke his anger. He reached out to comfort her, aware that his gloves didn't offer much. Hannah, at least, remained still and close to Catherine. "Ms. Chung, Hannah can't help you. She's not a doctor. She can heal people, but there's still a lot she needs to learn."

The doors at the far end of the corridor opened with a squeak of hinges. Hospital security slipped through followed by several police officers, called in by either Thomas's team or McNamara. Ms. Chung saw them at the same time Scott did. He'd managed another step forward. The young mother was within easy reach if she tried to attack Hannah again.

Instead of fighting, though, Ms. Chung's shoulder's slumped, resigned, knowing she was about to be arrested. It didn't matter what Ms. Chung thought. Her pain touched a sensitive core of Scott's own need to connect with his mother. He and Catherine had made tentative steps toward repairing their relationship. Seeing a woman who would sacrifice everything for her child, no matter how screwed up her beliefs were, rattled the cage where Scott had buried most of his pain.

He reached out to touch Ms. Chung's shoulder, but instead she grabbed his gloved hand. "Promise me you'll find him. Find my Jimmy. Don't let him remain lost forever."

Scott squeezed the poor woman's hand back. He had once told Hannah that he never made promises he couldn't keep, so he scrambled to find a way to not hurt Ms. Chung any further, knowing Hannah could hear everything. "I promise to look for him."

Ms. Chung sniffed and released Scott so the police could pull her arms behind her back. He winced at the sound of the 'cuffs clicking tight around her wrists, his fingers flexing with the ghost of the 'cuffs that had once hobbled him.

The police officers not burdened with escorting their prisoner dispersed to start gathering witness information. More people entered the corridor; some wore civilian clothes with hospital IDs around their necks. Catherine shifted the boy from one arm to another as she talked to them.

Hannah stayed by Catherine's side, but she watched Jimmy. She was looking for something, her eyes roaming the boy's upper body.

Scott's focus on Hannah distracted him from the police officer who approached him.

"Cory Blackwood?" It wasn't a question, just the necessary confirmation before she took his statement.

"Scott Grey." That's what it said on his driver's license. He didn't recognize the officer as one of the cops who handled him when he'd been called in for interrogation, but he could see the wary look in the woman's eyes. She knew who he was, no matter what name he used.

"Can you tell me what you saw?" The office pulled out a small tablet to take notes.

Scott kept his answer simple, sticking to just what he had seen. He didn't tell her about the promise he had made, or about Hannah's odd behavior.

"I guess we already know how to contact you if we have any further questions." The officer slipped her tablet into her pocket and moved on to the next witness.

Scott said nothing. If they didn't have his direct phone number, they knew they could get a message to him through his parents or T-CASS. He prayed they didn't call him downtown to give a formal statement. The thought of returning to the station where he'd been turned over to Miranda Dane made him sick to his stomach.

He swallowed back the bile in his throat and walked over to Hannah, but she didn't seem to notice. So long as Catherine was nearby, whoever lingered around from the Oversight Committee couldn't do anything about their proximity to one another, since they weren't touching.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine." Her expression grew darker, her frown more pronounced. "But Ms. Chung might not be wrong."

"About what?"

Hannah bit her lip in that adorable way she had when she was deep in thought. Scott shoved his hands back into his back pockets, tempted to rub her shoulders and release her tension.

"I don't know. I saw something inside. I can't explain it. I need to — "

Without warning, Hannah stepped around Scott, searching for someone in the thinning crowd of doctors.

"Where's Doctor McNamara?"

Scott looked around himself, but McNamara hadn't reappeared. "I don't know. He disappeared during the altercation. I think he's the one who called security."

Hannah growled, another cute habit he'd come to love even though it meant she was frustrated. She reached into her front pocket. Scott realized she was looking for her phone, but it would have dropped on the floor when she surfed, along with the flowers he'd given her. The flowers lay next to his mother's foot.

She picked the flowers up and found the phone underneath, looking none the worse for wear. Snippets of Catherine's conversation drifted toward him. It sounded as if she were waiting on Social Services to pick up Jimmy.

Hannah clutched the flowers close with one hand while she started texting. While she worked, Johnson approached and handed Hannah her hated gloves. "You'll be scheduled for training shortly."

Hannah didn't even look at the man. She flipped screens, sending a text message instead.

"I'll take those." Scott reached for the gloves.

"You'll do nothing of the sort." Johnson pulled the gloves away from Scott's open hand. "She will take them and she will put them on and not take them off again until we tell her she may do so. You will leave the hospital, or I will have security escort you out."

With her hands full of flowers and phone, Hannah would have to put both down in order to put on the gloves. The easiest thing to do would be to hand both to Scott, but it would only exacerbate the tension if there was a chance that she and Scott would touch.

"Can I be of assistance?"

McNamara appeared. Whatever Hannah had planned to do about the gloves became moot when McNamara reached around her to take the gloves from Johnson with a motion so smooth, Johnson didn't have a chance to fight.

"I require a consultation with Ms. Quinn. I'll see that she puts her gloves on when we are finished."

"We can't permit you to have contact with her. She had no control." At least the other doctor turned his ire on McNamara, and not on Hannah.

"She has sufficient control around me." McNamara held out a hand to Hannah. Hannah gave him the flowers and took the gloves from his hands, her phone going back into her pocket. "I've already had contact with her. What happened this morning was an anomaly — "

"An anomaly we can't ignore." The doctor argued back, taking a step closer to McNamara, his shorter stature not interfering with his outrage. "You're not on the Committee. You can't override our decisions without a court order. This whole demonstration would never had happened if you hadn't insisted your caseload should take priority over safety."

Scott wanted to punch both of them, for acting as if neither he nor Hannah were standing right there. He could tell Hannah felt the same, as she jammed on her gloves, her cheeks red.

"See. All done." She wiggled her fingers, to prove her point.

Her compliance meant little to the two doctors, who stood toe-to-toe now, their pissing match catching the attention of everyone else — including Catherine, who shushed hospital security with a simple wave of her hand.

"If you tried giving Ms. Quinn a little respect for what she has accomplished instead of tearing her down, you might find her more willing to comply with your ridiculous standards."

Whatever McNamara would have said next became moot once Catherine joined them.

"Gentleman, whatever the problem is, bring it to a close. You're creating a disruption." Ms. Chung's son, still snug in Catherine's arms, blinked but otherwise didn't react.

"With all due respect, Captain — "

"I understand your objections, Doctor Johnson, but Hannah has her gloves on. Cory has his gloves on. He's moved out of my home. There's only so much you can do in the name of safety. We took a chance and it worked. Dr. McNamara is cured and Ms. Chung has been arrested. I will make arrangements for Hannah's training as soon as I'm able." She juggled Jimmy from one arm to the other as the boy yawned and stretched. This time she addressed only Dr. Johnson. "The Committee will have to be satisfied with our efforts. Anything else and you risk losing them forever. We don't want that."

His mother had thrown down the gauntlet. There wouldn't be a Committee if not for her, and she had just challenged her own creation. No one wanted to lose Hannah to another city. No one wanted to let her go. They wanted to control her. They'd tried to cage her, but they had failed.

They'd have to get through him first if they tried again.

"I'll be calling another meeting about this." Johnson didn't try to couch his words as anything other than a threat.

"I understand." Catherine sounded more tired than anything else.

Stymied, Johnson stomped away. No sooner had the doctor gone out of earshot than Catherine rounded on Scott.

"It's time for you to leave."

Scott hated it when his mother was right, but even he knew his presence in the hospital would only make things worse for Hannah.

"I'll call you tonight." It was the best he could offer.

"I'll find a nice vase for the flowers." Hannah reached over to take them back from McNamara.

Scott smiled, but turned away before he could say anything else. Catherine watched them both. She wouldn't leave until he did.

"Scott."

He turned back to look at Hannah.

"You'll keep your promise to Ms. Chung, won't you?"

He'd made a promise to look for the "real" Jimmy. Whatever Hannah had seen inside the boy had her spooked. "Of course."

He would keep his promise to Ms. Chung, but first he needed a plan. He wasn't a detective, but he knew someone who was.