Page 7 of Collapse

Danny shook her head. “No. She always says hello if she’s here. I would have remembered.”

I nodded and paid for my coffee before heading outside. Okay. There was nothing to it. I had to seek out the people of her Community. I decided to start with Gerard. I had no wish of being thrown through the air again, if I could help it. Annalise would be the second place to go to. I got the car key out of my pocket, looking at the blue Beetle. Driving it made me feel like I was sitting in the back seat, the thing was so tiny. It couldn’t be helped, though. I took another sip of the coffee and headed for the car as a sound stopped me. What was that? I turned around as a cat meowed a second time. It was hungry, no doubt. It sat on a short brick wall outside the diner entrance, looking inside. There was something about the animal though that made me stop in my tracks. It sat there all royally on its haunches, front paws primly placed in front of it. Black as night, though easy to see on account of the lights all around. And three white spots on its chest.

It clicked into place for me then. A bag thrown at me with food that didn’t come from only one dish. It was for two. A cat which didn’t act like it was supposed to in our normal world.

I shook my head at the insanity and smiled at the cat.

“Hello, Misty.”

Six

“There’sblood on the inside of your jacket.” Tegan lifted it from the back of one of her chairs. “Are you hurt, Maggie?”

I looked up from where I was sitting on the couch, resting my forehead on my hands. I had to think about the question for a second.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, which I regretted immediately. “No more than you’ve already seen.” She’d checked me over when Alan had brought me to her door a couple of hours ago. Besides bruises, scrapes, and an exhausting headache, I wasn’t wounded.

“Let me have a look,” she commanded, completely disregarding what I had said. There really was nothing I was hiding, but before I could react she was already pulling my T-shirt up, exposing and checking my lower back. As I had tried telling her, there wasn't a scratch.

“You scared me there for a second.” She let go of me.

“Well, I don't know if this is any better, but that blood is not mine.”

“It's marginally better.” Her bright red hair had fallen forward as she bent to check on me, and she pulled it back, fastening it with an elastic band. It was such a modern way to do your hair it looked almost wrong on her. She was missing a bow or something. Her clothes were simple as well. Jeans and a black T-shirt with a big ass skull and crossbones on it. I guessed there was no Instagramming today. She made some extra money that way. People liked her style.

“Listen,” she said. “I’ve checked you over. You don't seem like you're concussed, which is a good thing. I’d be happy if you went to see Dr. Morris, though.”

I didn’t want to bother Dr. Morris now. I was sure she had enough to deal with after this day. I had told Tegan about Thomás, but not about the part in the hospice.

“You have some scrapes and bruises, and I think you were knocked around a little bit. Seriously...when was the last time you slept?”

I had to think about that, too. The last time I’d slept? It had to have been almost a couple of days by now. No wonder I was feeling exhausted. And I had been knocked about. I’d been knockedout,even. Waking up in that wreck of a car. Staring right at a dead Thomás. Pale as they come, never waking up again, staring back at me with blank eyes. I had been shocked mostly, not quite myself. I didn't remember much of it. I had a vague picture in my head of getting out of the car. The beach, hailing Alan the mechanic, and that was about it.

“You're damn lucky Alan was there,” Tegan said when I finished telling her. “If he hadn't been out fishing, you would probably still be on that beach.”

I nodded, not willing to argue, especially since she was right. Alan had brought me into town in his boat and walked me to Tegan’s from the harbor.

“Anyway, she added, “I’ll get you something for the pain.”

I sat still waiting for her, listening to her rummaging for painkillers in her medicine cabinet in the bathroom. What the hell was I going to do now? With Thomás dead, how was I going to find Andrea? I knew I shouldn't have pulled at the steering wheel, but he had been about to trap me. In retrospect, I knew that it wouldn't have lasted forever. They needed me. I was, after all, the tool they wanted. But the thought of him trapping me like that had made my instincts take over. And so, I had pulled at the wheel. Despite knowing that was a bad idea. I looked down myself. Dressed in new jeans and a dark T-shirt now. I had been lucky getting out of that car with no more than a few scrapes. The bruises after my altercations with both Larkin and Thomás were visible under my clothes by this point, and my body felt stiff and tender. Still…why had Thomás been killed? We’d been in the same crash after all. Maybe he had been too weak to brace himself against the impact? He had been clutching at his chest the whole way from the hospice.

It didn't take long before Tegan came back and handed me a couple of aspirin, and an even shorter time before she handed me a glass of water. I downed the pills quickly, hoping they would do something for my headache. I didn't feel particularly good, but at least I was conscious.

“Can you stand?” Tegan asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, not really wanting to. She led me over to the kitchen and made me sit down on one of the counter stools.

“I’d like to take your stitches out now.”

“What stitches?” I asked.

“Here,” she said and touched my right temple. It made me remember the day of Andrea's kidnapping. I had forgotten about the wound I had sustained right above my temple that day. Tegan had stitched me up afterward. It must have been a week now.

“Do you have to?” I asked, knowing I sounded like a child.

“Yes,” she said, inspecting the stitches, gently moving my hair so she could see. “It's healed nicely. It's time to take them out. And I want to do it before you disappear on me for a week or two.”

“Really?”

---