Diamond Eyes (55 page)

She frowned, wanting to argue about the blue fog, but resisted the temptation. She wondered what Zhou hoped to achieve with a lie that should be so obvious to everyone in the room. What kind of game was he playing with her life? ‘What do you mean,
brown?’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ Zhou replied. ‘They’re a lovely deep brown — really suits you — but they’re not nearly so special as your crystal-blue eyes were originally.’

‘So where am I?’ she asked. ‘This place smells different to Sandy Creek or Serenity.’

‘You were airlifted to Royal Brisbane Hospital shortly before dawn,’ Garland explained. ‘Safer that way, under the cover of darkness, as if you were a normal emergency patient. You can return to Serenity now, though. Take a taxi, or hitchhike for all I care. You’re no longer my responsibility.’

Never was,
Mira thought.

As Garland’s footsteps took her away, Mira noticed that neither Van Danik nor Zhou wished her goodbye either.

‘How long before you have to leave?’ Mira asked, wishing Garland out of earshot faster so she could ask her most burning questions.

‘Tomorrow,’ Van Danik replied. ‘We’ve still got things at the hotel, and I’m not going anywhere until I get my hog onto a cargo plane.’

Zhou patted her hand. ‘It should take months before Garland realises we’re not making any progress with the eyes I’ve put into cold storage.’

‘So these really are my own eyes?’

‘Yes, but before you get upset, please understand that I couldn’t simply pretend to take out your eyes and stitch up your lids temporarily, as you asked. I took an oath to do no harm. There was also the risk that Garland might have noticed the soft bulge of eyes still behind your lids. So when I had the chance to transfer you to a public hospital, I contacted Matron Sanchez to ask where the donor eyes for your surgery tomorrow were. They were here, safely preserved with everything else I needed.’

‘So why didn’t the general recognise I still had my own eyes?’

‘Do you remember the cosmetic contact lenses I tried to get for you? The ones that would stop you feeling self-conscious in public? Well, we’re in Brisbane now, with twenty-four-hour pharmacies in every suburb.’

‘I’m wearing contact lenses?’ She couldn’t feel any difference through her eyelids.

Zhou chuckled. ‘I’m glad they’re so comfortable. They’re the darkest brown I could find.’

‘But if they’re brown, why can I see blue?’

‘Because novelty-coloured lenses have a small aperture — a small hole in the middle — so you can see clearly through them. Although this particular set also has a small degree of UV protection built in, so I’d expect you to be experiencing a slightly different yester-year than you’re used to.’

‘I am … And they needed surgery to fit?’

‘Heavens, no. You slip them on and off as easily as gloves — almost. But while you were sedated, I took the opportunity to cleanse and tidy up the wounds where your stitches used to be.’

‘And General Garland took the donor eyes I was supposed to get?’

‘Frozen, so they appear more crystalline. Now come on; we need to get you out of here.’

‘Aren’t you going to wait until the general’s gone? I can still hear her down the corridor.’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to wait.’

Four hands encouraged her to shift her legs out from the starchy cotton bedsheets. She noticed warmth returning to Zhou’s fingers.

‘Why the hurry?’ she asked. ‘All I have left now is Serenity, so I’d like to make the most of my last moments off the island — probably forever.’

‘And I thought I was a fatalist,’ Van Danik said, beginning to lift her into a wheelchair.

‘Hey, I’m not crippled! If I have to go, I can walk!’

‘Trust us,’ Van Danik said.

He set her down gently in the chair, then pulled her around so swiftly and into the hall that she had to close her eyes to keep her balance. With her eyes open, he was sweeping her into the soft belly of that heavy rain cloud.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Garland asked, as they overtook her.

‘She’s keen,’ Zhou lied. Mira opened her eyes, forcing a smile and hoping the general wouldn’t think any different.

Without slowing down, the chair swerved left around a sharp corner, then came to an abrupt halt. Doors chimed, the chair rolled forward into a chilly pocket of air, chimes rang again and the floor dropped halfway to the ground.

Mira gripped onto the wheelchair so hard her knuckles felt they might burst from her skin. ‘I think I feel sick.’

‘After-effects of the sedative,’ Zhou told her. ‘You’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘Hey, intensive care is
that
way,’ said Van Danik when the lift doors opened.

‘But the high-dependency unit is this way,’ Zhou said. ‘Leave the navigation to me, Mitch. Hospitals are my home ground.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Visitors, mostly.’

Mira struggled to catch her bearings in the maze of corridors. She couldn’t hear any other traffic, but that was only helpful in suggesting that she probably wasn’t anywhere near a busy ward for children or emergencies — which made sense if they needed to put her in a high-dependency unit for observation.

Somewhere nearby — and drawing closer — she heard a piano playing a serene church hymn and voices that sounded like angels singing.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Down here,’ Zhou said as they turned another corner, ‘to clear up what I fear may be a terrible misunderstanding.’

T
he music, though still faint, grew louder. Flowers spiced the air, along with the smell of leather. Oily leather.

Neville …?

The chair slowed as it neared a ghostly door. She heard a knock, but they rolled her through without pausing, into a small private ward. She could hear someone sniffling, as if they’d been crying.

‘Hello, Mira!’ said Matron Sanchez’s voice. ‘I’m so glad you’re okay!’

‘Likewise,’ said Neville. ‘Serenity isn’t the same without you homing in on my family jewels every day.’

‘It’s a good thing you’re mostly health professionals,’ said another woman whose voice Mira didn’t recognise. ‘There are too many people in here, even for a high-dep ward. Don’t crowd too close, okay?’

‘High-dependence?’ Mira asked. ‘You’re joking. I don’t need that. Just let me out in the fresh air!’

‘Not yet.’ Van Danik moved her chair around. ‘There’s someone here … How is our patient today, Mrs Chiron?’

Mira’s heart sank. ‘Oh, no! Did the colonel hurt you too?’ she asked.

‘Call me Mel,’ Ben’s mother said. ‘And yes, he hurt me in the worst way.’

‘I don’t think she understands,’ Zhou explained.

‘Understand what?’ asked Mira.

Her wheelchair bumped forward and landed her against the familiar stiffness of hospital bedsheets, but not in the place where the ghostly bed stood, and not in the same direction as Mellow’s voice either. Someone shifted Mira’s hand onto an invisible arm that lay deathly still on top of the covers; a thick, muscled arm that smelled almost familiar.

Ben?

Her hand trembled, scarcely daring to hope. She staggered out of the wheelchair, tapping and tugging at the arm as she explored upwards, not getting any response. She tried to sense the colour of energy from the rough skin, but was too shaken to judge anything except that the arm was warm.

She found a neck, and plastic hoses that led to a face; where she shaped her hands around eyes, chin and cheeks until there was no mistake.

‘Ben!’ She clung onto him, overwhelmed by guilt and sorrow for all the times she’d misjudged him, slapped his hand away or doubted his honesty; aching now to make it up to him all at once. ‘I’m so sorry!’

Zhou prised her gently away from him. ‘He’s unconscious, virtually comatose. You must be careful not to knock the tubes that are helping his body to heal.’

Mira stepped back, but kept one hand cupped against Ben’s forehead. ‘How long before he wakes?’

‘His doctors can’t say,’ Mellow sobbed. ‘It’s not so much the bullet wound. He hit his head.’

‘But he was shot in the chest! Near his heart. I felt the blood. Even if you got to him straightaway, how could he survive?’

‘Kitching’s gun must have had laser sights,’ explained Van Danik. ‘His aim was surgical — up between the shoulderblades and out beside the collarbone. Keen to get you without damaging the merchandise, I’d say, because he managed to cut Ben away from you without hitting any major organs or bones.’

‘You said he hit his head?’

Zhou patted her hand. ‘He must have hit the deck pretty hard, Mira. He only stabilised an hour before they shifted him across from intensive care. He might stay this way for a few hours, days or even weeks. Months possibly. It depends on how hard he can fight.’

‘That’s why we’re here,’ Sanchez said. ‘He needs to be stimulated by comforting sounds and people who care for him.’

Mira shook her head. ‘That’s not how you make him fight.’

‘It’s the best way,’ Zhou said, but Mira shook her head more violently.

‘That’s not how you make
Ben
fight! Touching, and voices — that’s how you make
me
fight.’

‘We don’t mean that kind of fight,’ Sanchez replied. ‘His body is already fighting back physically, but we have to appeal to him through his subconscious; the one part of him that can still listen.’

‘Yes! That’s what I’m saying! Ask Neville if you don’t believe me! Neville, what was the fastest way to make me strike out at you?’

‘Getting anywhere near you is risky, lass, but touching you without asking first — that’s number one. I’ve even seen you flinch in your sleep, and I mean sedated.’

‘Yes! You see? It’s reflex for me. I still have to fight it, even when I’ve learned to trust all the people around me. But not Ben. If you want Ben to fight, you have to place someone
else
at risk.’

‘We’re not denying you’ve come a long way,’ Sanchez replied, ‘but —’

‘Not far enough,’ Mira snapped, ‘if I still can’t get you to see things that are unique in their own sense. Look what you’re doing to him — but not with your eyes open. Close them and see properly for yourself! Choir music and flowers? He must think he’s dead already and laid out for his funeral!’

Nobody answered for a long moment, their silence making the hymn and angels sound even louder.

Someone switched off the music.

‘She’s right,’ said Mellow. ‘Even in jail, he was always more worried about how I was coping than himself.’

‘So how do we make him think you’re at risk?’ asked Van Danik.

‘Smoke,’ Mira replied, stroking Ben’s forehead. ‘He told me that nothing had made him more angry than the last time he smelled it.’

‘For the record,’ Zhou said, ‘smoke is all you’d need to panic me awake too, but this is a hospital, Mira. It’s not like we can set fire to anything.’

‘Not for long anyway,’ Mellow said. ‘There are two smoke detectors in here.’

Mira heard something fold or unfold, like the page of a newspaper.

‘I’m serious!’ Zhou insisted. ‘You can’t light that in here! The heart attacks you’d cause … and not only amongst the staff!’

‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ Mellow said. ‘I’m a nurse. I don’t think we’d need flames, though; only smoke. Maybe less than that of a burning cigarette. Ben is worth a thousand times that much risk, isn’t he? Just one little match?’

Footsteps sounded from the direction of the doorway. ‘Match for what?’ asked an authoritative male voice. ‘The courtyard for smokers is at the end of the hall.’

‘Pete!’ Mellow called. ‘Perfect timing as always! This is Mira Chambers. She’s Ben’s friend from —’

‘I know. She was with him when I arrested him at the car wash. What do you need a match for in here? And why all the visitors?’

‘They’re nearly all nursing staff, honey; they don’t count. Besides, these are the two doctors I told you about. They caught the bastard who shot Ben, so there’s no need to play bodyguard anymore. But we
were
just wondering if a little smoke might be just the thing to scare his subconscious and bring him back to us. So can I borrow your cigarette lighter, honey? It won’t take more than two clicks.’

‘Not in here, Melly. I’m surprised you’d ask!’

‘I’ve got matches and a cigar,’ Neville offered. His hand dipped into his pocket, jingling something plastic against metal keys; within Mira’s reach, she noticed.

‘Are you crazy?’ complained the cop. ‘In here? What makes you think it’d work anyway? Half the people who die in house fires never wake up in time to save themselves!’

‘If you’re speaking statistically,’ Van Danik argued, ‘those deaths are usually smokers who are used to the smell. Or they inhale chemical fumes from burning carpet and furniture. Look, there’s a smokers’ courtyard on this floor. Perhaps we could wheel his bed down there briefly? His wound’s covered, the fluid drips are portable and it’s a covered walkway all the way.’

‘Cigarette smoke won’t do it,’ Mira said. ‘Neither will a clean flame. We’d need
real
smoke — something that doesn’t belong here, that his subconscious will recognise is wrong.’

‘Crazy must be catching,’ Pete said. ‘Do I need to get a doc in here for the lot of you? If his subconsciousis listening now, then it already knows your plan is a ruse.’

‘Instinct and reflex are stronger forces than knowledge,’ Mira argued. ‘I know. I have to fight them all the time.’

‘He’s got a point, though,’ Van Danik said. ‘As a nurse here, Mrs Chiron, can you authorise us to move Ben to the smokers’ lounge and make sure everything stays hooked up?’

Mira didn’t hear an answer, so she couldn’t tell if Mellow had shaken her head, nodded or not replied at all.

‘Mitch!’ Zhou complained. ‘Not you too?’

‘Hey, I might not be a doctor of medicine, but isn’t it obvious that the oxygen is confined mainly to those lines? Obviously, the air around him might be a little richer too, but surely not enough that a little cigar smoke would spark an explosion, and certainly not if we move him somewhere that already caters for smoke?’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Zhou said. ‘There’s absolutely no way I could stand by as a doctor while you or anyone else strike a flame near a patient under intensive care — not even if you lit the damn thing in the toilet! This whole place is fitted with smoke detectors.’