Chapter Nineteen

“Is he dead?

“For Christ’s sake, Wing. He’s not dead. His eyes are wide open. He’s breathing.”

Trace blinked two faces into focus. Protective goggles perched atop each head. Flecks of sawdust decorated their hair. Mad and Wing stared down at him in concerned fascination, goggle imprints around their eyes.

“Wha…” He cleared his creaky throat and tried again. “What happened?”

“Unclear,” Mad replied. “Someone called my name—I thought it was you—and we killed the saws and came over to find you conked out right here. Your turn. What happened? Branch get you?”

He raised his head, slightly, and frowned, trying to recall. “No, I don’t think so. Last thing I remember, I had to take a leak, and then…” Uh-oh. He’d had another visit from Shay, complete with conversation this time.

Someone called from below, and Wing bellowed, “Up here! Something’s wrong with Trace.”

That brought the sounds of many feet racing through the underbrush. Great. The whole gang would soon be hovering, looking at him like something on a microscope slide. Not sure he was ready for it, but unwilling to be the thing on a slide, he pushed himself into a sitting position. A dizzying wave washed over him, and he must have looked like shit because Mad said, “Whoa, there,” and put hands up like he was ready to grab hold if he had to.

“Take it slow,” Wing suggested, as Jorg, Lenna, Tom, Annie and Rose broke through the trees and formed a semi-circle around him.

“I’m okay.”

Rose elbowed her way to the front row. “What happened?”

“I—”

Wing took over. “We found him lying here, kinda…” He rolled his eyeballs back in his head and let his mouth go slack in an impressive zombie impression.

Rose held her hand up in the victory sign directly in front of his face. “How many fingers?”

Because he’d go cross-eyed trying to bring it into focus, he took her hand and moved it back half a foot. “Four, and one thumb. Same as always.”

“Ha. Ha. Good to know your smart-ass isn’t broken,” she deadpanned. “Not so sure about your hard head.” She reached out and began palpating his skull.

He leaned away. “I’m fine. I just…”

She wouldn’t be evaded. “No bumps,” she told the rest of the group, as if he was an inanimate object. “No bruises. I say no blow to the head.”

Wing crouched closer and looked at him with wide eyes. “Did you see a light kind of hovering the air? A fire in the sky? Do you remember a feeling of weightlessness, or any kind of probe?”

He scrubbed both hands over his face and prayed for patience. “I was not abducted by aliens.”

“It can happen, like that—” Wing snapped his fingers. “They have powers over time and space. You’re gone for a minute or two, our time, but up there in the mothership, they do a full workup, their time, before they spit you back out where they found you.”

“Did they have three tutte?” Jorg asked. “The ones that got to Hans Henderschott did. Says Hans.”

Annie crouched down by his arm and gave him her green-eyed version of the assessing stare he was starting to hate. “You don’t know how you lost consciousness?”

I had a paranormal encounter with my dead brother, and it momentarily broke my brain. He’d rather cop to extraterrestrial abduction. “I don’t know. But I know it wasn’t aliens,” he quickly added when Wing opened his mouth to say something.

“Sometimes they wipe the mind,” Wing whispered, and moved his hand like an eraser in front of his forehead. Jorg nodded.

Annie offered him a gentle smile that didn’t fully disguise her worry. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t abduction by time-warping, three-titted aliens,” she said. “They’d never give you back if they managed to get you aboard. But I think we should take him to Dr. Devan.”

“No, really, that’s not—”

It was like he hadn’t spoken. Somehow, between Wing and Mad, he was on his feet, down the hill, and in the passenger seat of Lenna and Tom’s minivan before he could dig his heels in. Lenna took the wheel. Mad, Wing, and Tom piled in the back. “You call Dr. Devan,” Rose instructed Tom. “I will call Isabelle and tell her to meet us there.”

Shit. “No, Rose. Don’t do that.”

She said something in Tlingit that might have meant, loosely translated, “Blockhead,” and retreated to her Captivity Inn 4x4, where Annie and Jorg already waited. Lenna started the van, pulled out of the gravel parking lot, and he immediately realized the moving scenery did nothing for his equilibrium. He closed his eyes, rested his head against the seatback, and accepted the inevitability of the next hour—hopefully no more. Circumstances had slipped out of his control.

Maybe when Izzy showed up, she could spring him from the clutches of his well-meaning friends. Then he could spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped up in her, slowly—or quickly—fucking the residue of whatever the hell had happened in the woods completely out of his mind.

…

Izzy hurried into Captivity Medical Clinic and made a hard left through the small, empty waiting room occupied only by the staring eyes from a wall mural of Indigenous totem poles. She bypassed the vacant check-in window at the reception desk and followed the sound of voices through a narrow door, past the also vacant check-out side of the reception desk, to a curtain-partitioned room with a narrow, central corridor. The curtain to the first treatment area was pulled back to reveal Annie, Rose, Wing, Mad, a middle-aged couple she didn’t recognize, and a tall, pretty woman wearing a white coat and glasses, with short, blond hair pulled back into a smooth ponytail. The doctor, Izzy deduced, since she also had a stethoscope slung around her neck.

She skidded to a stop, and all eyes turned to her. “Hey, hi,” she said, a little out of breath, and then lost it again when the crowd parted to reveal Trace propped up in, basically, a hospital bed. She didn’t remember moving, but must have, because in the next instant she was at his side. He looked uncharacteristically pale, but otherwise… She scanned his face, his body, and felt relief loosen her clenched stomach. Otherwise, he looked unhurt. All Rose could tell her was that Trace had fallen in the woods, likely passed out, and she should meet them at the clinic.

Going on unchecked impulse, she smoothed his hair off his forehead and gently kissed his lips. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now.” He took a handful of the front of her sweater and pulled her in for a longer, deeper kiss.

When her sense of decency finally coaxed her to end the kiss, she risked a self-conscious glance around the room and nervously licked her freshly kissed lips. “What happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” the doctor said, and offered a calm smile. “I’m Dr. Devan. You must be Isabelle?”

“Yes. Sorry. Nice to meet you.”

“You, as well. The rest of the crew here”—she gestured to the group—“were just about to fill me in, and then I’m going to ask everyone to step out to the waiting room while I make sure Trace is good to go.”

“I’m good,” he insisted. “I just—”

Pounding footsteps cut him off, and then Bridget flew through the door and came to a stop at the curtain. Her pallor made Trace look hale and hearty. He sat up quickly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m fine, Bridge.”

She stayed where she was, breathing heavy, then bent, braced her palms on her thighs and drew in slower, deeper breaths. When she looked up again, twin flags of red rode high on her cheeks. “What the fuck happened? I just landed and Lilah called and told me you’d blacked out while clearing the trail and were on your way here.”

“I’m going to find out what happened,” Dr. Devan said as she gently pushed Trace back, so he reclined in the bed, “but for now, why don’t you sit?” She snagged a wheeled stool from a corner of the “room” and put it in motion. Annie intercepted and rolled it over to Bridget, who sat heavily. “I’ll get you some water,” Annie murmured, rubbed Bridget’s shoulder, and slipped beyond the curtain.

“Okay. Who found him first?” Dr. Devan asked.

Mad raised his hand. Then Wing.

She pointed at Mad. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I—”

Wing thumped him on the shoulder.

“Sorry. We were sawing trees a ways up the trail when I—we—heard Trace call out. We rushed down, saw him laid out on the forest floor, not moving, eyes open but half-mast, if you know what I mean. I called his name and kind of…uh…slapped his face.” He glanced at Trace. “Sorry. I guess I freaked out for a second. Anyway,” he addressed the room, “nothing from Sleeping Beauty, so, then Wing’s like, ‘Is he dead?’ and I said, ‘For fuck’s sake, he’s not dead—’”

“Christ’s sake,” Wing corrected. “You said Christ’s sake.”

“For Christ’s fucking sake, that’s not an important deal,” Mad retorted, “and only a numbskull would mention it.”

“How soon after you tried to rouse him did he regain consciousness?” Dr. Devan asked.

“Immediately,” Mad replied. “His eyes sort of snapped back online, and he asked us what happened. We still don’t know, but—”

“No bumps on the head,” Rose interrupted. “He carried on a conversation, as much as he ever does.”

The group mumbled their agreement. Annie returned with water for Bridget and added, “His pupils were responsive, best I could tell.”

The doctor nodded.

Izzy sensed no urgent concern coming off the woman and relaxed a little more. She squeezed Trace’s hand. He squeezed hers back, then threaded their fingers together and drew her closer until she rested a hip on the bed. Dr. Devan directed her attention to Trace. “What were you doing right before things get fuzzy?”

Trace rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, and looked up from beneath his eyelashes, like a sheepish kid. “Well, doc. I was watering the trees, I guess you could say.”

“Ah. And before that?”

“Cutting wood. Listening to these guys give me shit about—”

“I am not doctor,” Jorg interrupted, raising a finger, “but I am thinking I know what happened.”

The doctor’s eyebrows shot up behind her glasses. “Really?”

“Yah. See, Trace is a man in his prime. Strong. Young. We were speaking of his lovely lady here”—he gestured at Izzy—“and his great hurry this morning to drop Lenna and Tom at their house, so he could find lovely lady and have…a nice reunion.”

The doctor frowned. “I don’t see how that leads to him passing out.”

“Yah.” Jorg nodded. “He is thinking of lovely Isabelle and all blood is leaving his head and flowing to his—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Trace muttered. “That is not what happened,” he said to Jorg. To the doctor, he went on, “That has never happened.”

“All righty.” Dr. Devan brought her hands together. “Thanks to all of you for sharing your observations. As we’ve reached the point of medical speculation, I think it’s time I ask you all to step out and let me put my education to use.”

Izzy stood as everyone else filed out and started to relinquish his hand. “I’ll wait and drive you home.”

“Actually, Trace, if you don’t mind, I’d like Isabelle to stay for a moment?”

He glanced at her. “Fine by me.”

“How can I help?” she asked.

The doctor closed the drape, turned, and smiled. “Jorg definitely isn’t a doctor, but just to rule things out, has Trace ever appeared lightheaded or disoriented during sex?”

“Oh.” Her cheeks got hot thinking about their one and only in-person sexcapade. Even so, while she didn’t possess the depth of experience the doctor no doubt assumed, she felt pretty confident in her reply. “Um, no. I’ve not seen that happen.”

“Did I not just mention it’s never happened?” Trace asked, clearly exasperated.

The doctor’s smile remained placid. “Patients aren’t always upfront about certain symptoms.” She shrugged. “I wanted a second opinion. Now I have it. Let’s see what else I can rule out.”

Izzy sat beside Trace while the doctor took his pulse, listened to his heart and lungs, shined a penlight in his eyes, and asked him questions about how much sleep he’d gotten lately, how recently he’d eaten, hydration, and how long he’d been chopping wood and doing other physical labor before he’d passed out. Conclusion? He’d created a perfect storm comprised of fatigue, low blood sugar, and dehydration.

They walked out to the waiting room with doctor’s orders to go home, consume at least two thousand nutritionally dense calories, drink plenty of water, and rest. Stay out of the cockpit for forty-eight hours and contact her ASAP if he experienced any more episodes of dizziness or fainting. Everyone gave a collective sigh of relief. Jorg patted Trace on the shoulder on his way out of the clinic, and said in a low voice, “I have different pills for you. Fix you right up, yah.”

“What’s he talking about?” she whispered to Trace.

“Don’t ask.”

On the sidewalk in front of the clinic, Bridget hugged him. “I’m glad you’re okay, you big lug.” Then she stepped back and punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow,” Trace grunted. “Why?”

“You scared me. Don’t do it again.” To Izzy, she asked, “Are you going to take him home?”

“I thought I would, unless…” Was she stepping on toes? Would Bridget want to take her brother home and look after him, without his “girlfriend” hanging around?

“Nope.” She took another step away. Then another. “No unlesses. He’s all yours. I just wanted to make sure because I’m not going to be home for a while.” Pushing her hands into her coat pockets, she grinned, executed a long-legged turn, and headed down the street. “Not for a looooong while. You kids have fun, y’hear?”