Page 609 of Flirting with Darkness

But she had been understanding with his confusion that time.

Both of them had been understanding.

The brown-eyed doctor had seemed as sympathetic to his terror as his wife. She noted immediately that the experience was new to him. She even said, “Ah, you’ve probably never had at emm-are-eye before,” (or perhaps she meant the letters, M-R-I?) right before she launched into an explanation to him of some process of magnets and other scientific wizardry that went completely over his head.

In the end, he understood what the machine would do. She said it would give her an accurate painting of his body’s insides, even the inside of his head. She claimed this machine could peer into Ghost’s skull, show her if anything was broken.

Ghost tried very hard to pretend all of this was normal.

He pretended relief along with Nat and Rachel when Rachel proclaimed his brain “normal” after the loud and clanking machine looked at his head.

Rachel still cautioned Nat that he might be in some attitude of “shock” and that she should bring him back in if he seemed overly “out of it” or “confused” in a few hours.

Ghost did his best to pretend to agree.

He tried to act normal.

He tried to understand what normal meant to them here.

But when Nat disappeared into the strange metal box with the black wheels on the street, he had to fight his damnedest not to refuse to go in there after her.

With an effort and a steeling of his will, he climbed into the leather seat. He gripped the cushions tightly when the vehicle took off, then careened with terrifying speed down the road, surrounded by many, many other such vehicles.

Again, as with all the other odd things Ghost had encountered, Nat ignored all of this entirely.

She chattered away to him, something about an object they had to bid on at an auction downtown, something the other Ghost apparently had a keen interest in acquiring. His wife had agreed to purchase it for him if he didn’t make it back from his job in time.

Presumably, the other Ghost hadn’t gotten back in time.

Nat, of course, didn’t know this.

She thought the two of them should go together now.

“We’ll keep the suit,” she told him, fingering the collar of his coat. “Damn. It looks good on you, husband. But we’ll have to wear it in the privacy of our own home. Anyway, you must be hotter than hell in this.”

“It is warm, yes,” he admitted to her.

She smiled. “I can tell you were back in your own time,” she told him. “Your accent comes back. Like…reallyback. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it this strong though. Where were you for the past few days, Laz? Why weren’t you in California?”

He hesitated.

For some reason, maybe just to see what she would say, he told her the truth.

“In Russia,” he said, blunt.

She immediately frowned.

“What? Why?” she asked.

When he didn’t answer immediately, her voice sharpened.

“Why would you risk that, Ghost? What if you ran into him?”

He pressed his lips together, then asked it anyway.

“Ran into who?” he asked.

She smacked him in the chest, and he jumped, violently.

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