Page 54 of Inception

17. THE HUNTINGTON INQUIRY

I woke up alone in an unfamiliar room with a blinding headache and a raw throat that begged for liquids. The room was sizable, dated with ornately carved ceilings and Victorian furniture, and there was a quiet fire burning, coloring the room with a dancing pallet of gold and orange. I had no idea where I was, or how long I had been here, and with the curtains drawn as they were, I wasn’t even sure if it was day or night anymore.

I let my legs drop over the daybed and tried to stand up, realizing fairly quickly that I was in no shape to attempt that twice. I sat back down and took in a few steadying breaths as I tried to piece together exactly what had happened to me.

As quickly as the picture appeared, so did the tremors and the petrifying fear I felt when Dominic fixed me to his body and nearly drained me to death. The surge of overwhelming emotions were telling me one thing—to get out of this place. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure where ‘this place’ was.

Before I could chart my exit, the door creaked open and Gabriel appeared holding a glass in his hand. The sight of his face, and those kind, unearthly eyes, immediately helped quell some of the rising panic in me, though I couldn’t help but wonder if his brother was also lurking somewhere nearby.

He took a few steps towards me, then stopped suddenly as though something had just stepped out in front of him. “May I?” he asked. He wasaskingmy permission to approach me.

I nodded, but scooted back on the daybed just the same.

“How are you feeling?” he asked in a soothing voice as he pulled out a chair and sat down in front of me, holding out the glass of orange juice for me. “Are you dizzy or nauseated?”

I stared down at the juice, my throat burning for a taste of it like the arid desert ached for a touch of the rain, though I was unsure if I could trust him.

What if he drugged it? What if Dominic convinced him to “indulge” in me after all and they laced the juice with some kind of poison to knock me out? What if this whole thing was a trap?

But if that were the case, wouldn’t they also be poisoning themselves if they then drank my blood?

“Would you prefer a bottle of water?” he asked, lowering the glass. I could only imagine what my face looked like as I debated whether or not I could take the drink.

This is ridiculous, I scolded myself. If he wanted to harm me, he would have done it while I was out cold and defenseless.

I shook my head and took the glass from him, nearly downing the entire contents in one swallow. “Thank you,” I said, my voice still raspy from the drought. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A few hours. You look a lot better though,” he remarked, examining my face. “Most of your color seems to have returned.”

“I can’t stop shaking.”

“It’s normal,” he assured me, rising from his chair. He moved to the corner armoire and produced a quilt from it. “You lost quite a bit of blood, and you’re probably still feeling the after-effects from the shock,” he continued as he opened the quilt in front of me and then draped it around my shoulders before taking his seat again.

I tightened the blanket around myself. “Thank you for tonight…for being there. You saved my life.”

“You should thank your sister. I was only doing what she asked me to do.”

“My sister? You know Tessa?”

He tipped his head. “She asked me to look in on you while I was in town. I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“You came soon enough,” I remarked, afraid to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t shown up at all.

“How much do you remember?” he asked, his tone contrite.

“Everything.”

He looked saddened by this. I wasn’t sure if his sympathy was for me, or for his brother.

“You must have questions.”

That was the understatement of the year. “I don’t even know where to start,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Start wherever you’re comfortable.”

“I don’t understand how this happened. All this time...He never tried to...I mean, the other ones, they always...” I shook my head, frustrated with my inability to formulate a sentence. “He just seemed sohuman.”

“But he isn’t. Neither of us are.”

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