Page 128 of Homebound
She was inside the prison.
Gemma kept very still. Her skull felt like a pressurized cooker whose contents were too much for its size. But the pressure mounted and mounted until she thought her head would simply explode off her shoulders, until nausea rose suddenly and sharply, scalding the back of her throat. She rolled over to spew the remnants of her canned breakfast before she choked on them, felt the bile leave her mouth, and slumped into unconsciousness.
The next time she came to, clarity didn’t immediately accompany the consciousness. She lay there, disoriented, as random images from her past swirled lazily through her pounding head in technicolor. Her life on The Islands. Foy. The McKinleys. Her wall calendar. She missed the calendar and the measured flow of days as she meticulously crossed each one out. Each day started and ended without fail. Reassuring.
With a great deal of effort, Gemma cracked an eyelid open. It was pitch dark, but the night must still be young for the chill had only begun penetrating thick stone walls. The place would be freezing by morning.
She tried to sit up and fainted again.
???
“Time to wake up. Do you hear? Hey, you. Do you hear me? Wake up.”
Gemma came awake slowly, shaking. No, not shaking but being shaken by the shoulder. The movement upset her head, and the vicious stabs behind her eyelids made her moan.
“She’s coming around, sir. What’s her name?”
“Gemma. Her name is Gemma,” said the cultured voice that had featured prominently in her nightmares, whenever she’d happened to have one.
“You, Gemma. Wake up! Get on with it, now. People are waiting to talk to you.” The guard gave her shoulder another yank nearly succeeding in sending her back to oblivion.
“That bump on her head looks painful,” said the same cultured voice. “Bring her some water.”
There was a slight pause followed by a sound of retreating steps, and another voice, from a different set of nightmares, said, “My nurses have treated her sufficiently well, Dr. Delano. She doesn’t lack medical care.”
OO and Dr. Delano, together, standing over her bed at the prison. If she were forced to come up with a definition of hell on earth, this would be it.
“Sure,” Delano conceded in a tone that clearly telegraphed his low opinion about the quality of medical care at the prison. Gemma was with him on that account. She couldn't remember receiving any care at all despite OO’s smooth assurances. “But I need her coherent as well as alive.”
“That’s interesting. You need this woman? Are you sure you aren’t making a mistake?”
Delano said coldly, “She’s important for my mission.”
Gemma felt OO’s gaze on her prostrate form laid out on the narrow cot and wondered if he was ogling the mounds of her breasts beneath her clothes.
“She’s a pretty little thing, I agree…” OO’s voice faded into an insinuating silence. Yep, he was definitely checking out her breasts. “But has too high of an opinion of herself. May turn out to be more trouble than she’s worth.”
“My interest in this woman is purely pragmatic,” faint indignation laced Dr. Delano’s words. “She’s a bait. A means to catch the Rix alien.”
“Our Rix alien? The one that escaped?” OO sounded astonished and alarmed.
“Yes, that one.”
“You aren’t planning on luring him back here, are you?” Now OO was very alarmed, no doubt remembering all the body bags they had to haul after Simon’s escape.
“I am. Is the security here in question?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. I have my people watching the perimeter. And your armed guards are on standby at the doors. Once he’s in, you’ll go on full lockdown. It’ll take mere minutes to have him contained.”
The water arrived by way of a foot-stomping guard. Without warning, Gemma was unceremoniously grabbed by the hair and pulled into a sitting position. She cried out and opened her sensitive eyes, working to make them focus. The walls bowed and buckled as vertigo took her on a wild ride.
“Here. Drink.” A tin cup appeared in front of her face, pressed hard against her lips, and tilted. Gemma had no choice but to gulp the foul-tasting water.
“Feeling better?” The impatient question came from Dr. Delano.
In response, Gemma retched noisily, emptying her stomach of the water she’d just drunk on the doctor’s shoes.
