Dream Runner (6 page)

I’m going in there to do what only I can do for her
. Parker smiled and kept walking.

Chapter 5

Lost in a thick black vortex edged with light, Marlea struggled to reach the edges, to touch the brightness, and was rewarded with the sound of voices. All around her in the shifting morass, echoing and resounding, Marlea couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Trying to sift something recognizable from the steady thrum, it comforted her to know that they were there…just out of reach, but there all the same. Not alone, she wanted to make them know that she heard, and tried to reach out to them.

So heavy…
she mused, feeling herself nearer to the light. Willing herself forward, she was pulled hard, then stuck fast. Trying to see beyond the rising darkness, she wanted to push it aside to make her break. She wanted to run, and was terrified when her feet and legs refused to obey. Mouth stretched wide, she tried to scream. Fear claimed her completely when no sound left her body, and the voices swirled and rushed past her again. There was something wrong, and she knew it as she fell deeper, drowning in the darkness.

Marlea Kellogg tried to find her life for the second time that day. Again, the voices, and again, she saw the light, a bright, thin corona, arching like a cold, new moon, defined the darkness. Opening her mouth, trying to answer the voices around her, Marlea braced herself and scrambled for the light.

The light stretched and mounted in her vision, burning like white fire when she opened her eyes, blinding her, making her close them reflexively. Determined, knowing somehow that her real life lay on the other side of that light, Marlea fought to open her lids and then lay exhausted from the effort.

Something was wrong—
control
, she thought,
why can’t I control this?
Her sore, scratchy eyes moved crazily about the room. White walls and curtains, mixed clumsily with stainless steel, people in white with blue plastic basins and trays, and the whole place smelled like antiseptic.

Where is this?

The room slipped sideways, and Marlea moaned softly.

A pretty brown-skinned woman turned swiftly. She said something. Marlea knew that the woman in the white dress said something. She saw the woman’s lips move, but her voice was a part of the crowding rush. Marlea squeezed her eyes closed, then tried to open them. The effort nearly slid her back into the black tide.

“Lemme see her!”

Okay.
Marlea stretched her eyes wide.
I heard that.

A small woman with spiky black hair pushed past the first woman. Her face was panicked and her blue eyes were wreathed in dark circles. Marlea wondered if she had been in some kind of accident. Gently, the small woman’s pale fingers found Marlea’s. “How you doin’, sweetie?”

Marlea opened her mouth to tell her—at least she thought she did. She tried to speak, and heard nothing. She tried again, and pain slapped hard, traveling from her head to her chest and extremities.
I’m not supposed to be feeling like this!
She wanted to say the words; instead a ragged moan escaped into the air around her. Panic threatened to strangle her, and Marlea sucked hard for breath, feeling the pressure. She wanted to scream, “Help me,” but couldn’t find the way.

“It’s okay, Marlea. For real, it’s okay.”

“Ms. Belcher, if you please.” It was a white-jacketed man this time. His hands went to the little woman’s shoulders and moved her briskly to the side. The woman in the white dress offered a blue tray. Marlea’s eyes opened wider as the man’s hands moved to a tube at her side.

What are you doing?
She hoped she had said the words aloud, but realized she hadn’t when a salty tang invaded her mouth, making her swallow. Feeling the edges of darkness curl over her like a thick and unwanted blanket, Marlea fought to stay where she was.
Libby
, she suddenly remembered, her mind swirling, and her eyes finding the black-haired woman’s. “Libby,” she whispered, and fell into the darkness.

Libby reached for her hand again, and was rewarded with a light squeeze of her fingertips as Marlea succumbed to the drugs the doctor had administered. Releasing Marlea’s fingers, she watched the nurse adjust the bedcovers.

“Ms. Belcher?” The doctor slipped an arm around Libby’s narrow shoulders and ushered her from the room.

The door closed behind them. Pulling away from the doctor, Libby stopped walking and folded her arms around her body. She was suddenly very cold. “So she’s out of the coma now, right?”

“Ms. Belcher,” the doctor said slowly, “we’ve already reviewed the procedure of the medically induced coma with you, and—“

“And it’s time you got off your medical high-horse and talked some common sense to me, Dr. Reynolds.” Libby stretched herself to her full five feet and looked directly into the doctor’s chin. “That’s my friend you’ve got in there, and she doesn’t have an idea in the world about what’s going on. You’re playing God with her life, puttin’ her to sleep for days at a time, waking her up when you feel like it…You need to talk to me!”

“Right, then.” Reynolds swept his teeth with his tongue, and then tucked it into his cheek. “Two days in the coma has pretty much done its job, and she’s healing.”

“Uh-uh. That’s not what I’m talking about,” Libby frowned. “What I want to know is, when are you gonna wake her up and tell her? She deserves to know.”

“And so she will. At this point, that’s the best answer I can give you.” The doctor turned on his heel and walked away from her.

“You arrogant SOB,” Libby muttered, going back into Marlea’s room. “You know you owe her some kind of explanation, and you need to be here to give it to her.”

The nurse murmured something as she quietly left the room. Libby heaved a sigh and went back to the blue, vinyl-covered chair where she had left her stash of magazines. Flopping low in the chair, she watched Marlea’s sleeping form and was grateful for the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

“But one day soon, you’re gonna wake up. Then what?” Libby promised herself that Hal would understand if she spent another night at the hospital. “I’m his wife,” she said softly, hoping Marlea could hear her, “but I’m your friend. I’ll be here when you wake up, Marlea. I’ll be right here.”

Libby had no idea when she had fallen asleep, but she knew it was her name that awakened her. Her eyes moved fast, taking in her surroundings.
Hospital. Oh, yeah. Marlea
. She carefully pushed herself erect in the hard blue wooden-armed vinyl chair and looked across the room.

“Libby?”

Libby held her breath. Marlea’s head moved on the white pillow, then her hand against the stark white sheet, the fingers lifting slowly. “Hey, girl,” Libby whispered, rising slowly. Easing through the shadows, she made her way to the bedside. Marlea’s breathing was shallow and raspy.
She sounds tired
, Libby thought, looking into her friend’s slack face.
It’s like she’s been drained of herself, and this shell is all that’s left of her. I hope it’s enough.
It was willpower alone that kept her from falling to her knees and weeping. “How you doin’?”

“I…” Marlea coughed and then cleared her throat. “Where…what…” She closed her eyes and coughed again. Her eyelids fluttered, settled almost long enough to cue sleep, then fluttered nearly open. “Where…what…”

“I know,” Libby said softly. “You want to know where you are.” Marlea nodded. “What happened.” Marlea nodded again.

Debating whether or not to lie, Libby dropped her eyes and wished for the intervention of a night-stalking nurse. When none showed up, she took Marlea’s fingers between her hands. She felt the cool fingers tense, anticipating. “You’re in the hospital, Marlea. You’re at Grady.”

“Hospital?” Marlea’s head moved against the pillow, her face a study in confusion, as she struggled to stay awake. “Why?”

Oh, Lord, don’t make me have to answer this girl
, Libby prayed, turning her eyes to the ceiling.

“Why?” Marlea whispered along the edge of a yawn.

Libby was still trying to find the right words when she felt Marlea’s fingers slip free of her own. Marlea had succumbed to sleep.

Grateful for the reprieve, temporary as she knew it to be, Libby uttered another prayer on her way back to her vinyl chair.

* * *

It was hard to break free of the seamless black sleep, but hearing the electronic drone around her, Marlea found a way to open her eyes. Without moving her head, she let her eyes travel from left to right. Picking out bright metal and gray-toned monitors stacked on a rack beside the white-sheeted bed where she lay made little sense. Ignoring the strain, her eyes tracked, and her brain struggled to register sterile white walls, a side-pulled curtain above the bed, closed doors, and a wall-mounted television.

This place looks like a hospital. Did Libby say I was in a hospital? Hospital.
The word gave her a strange feeling.
Why would I be in anybody’s hospital? Besides, if I am in a hospital, wouldn’t I remember being brought here? Wouldn’t I know the reason for being here?
Her eyes tracked the white-walled room again.
Wouldn’t I?

Marlea sighed hard and felt a dull, unspecific total-body ache.
Kind of like what you would feel if you were in a car wreck
, she joked to herself.

Car wreck. That’s a good one, but if it’s a joke, why am I in bed? A hospital bed?
She dragged herself up on an elbow, surprised at how tired she was. The white room was draped in shadows and bluish electric light.
Damn, this sure does look like a hospital room.
She tried to remember.
What was it Libby said about a hospital?
Marlea’s fingers probed a tender spot on her head.
When did I hit my head? I don’t remember doing it, but I must have hit it, ’cause even thinking hurts.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.
Damn, this place even smells like a hospital.

Across the room, Libby slept in a blue vinyl-covered chair. She was twisted to one side, her head curled down toward her chest and her knees tucked high. She was snoring lightly, sleeping hard.
If this is a hospital, and Libby is all curled up in a chair, why am I in a hospital bed?

The last thing I remember is driving away from Piedmont Park.
She looked toward the windows. It was dark outside. How could that be? Her sigh was shaky against her dry throat. Something was very wrong; she felt it in the pit of her stomach
. It couldn’t have been close to noon when I left the park, and now it’s dark. How?

This is way too close to
The Twilight Zone
for me
, she finally decided, pushing the covers back. Moving too suddenly was a mistake, her swimming head told her. Fingers still caught in the edges of the crisp sheet, she gave in to a wave of nausea and lowered her head to the pillow behind her. Head on pillow seemed to trigger the lowering of her eyelids.

Two minutes
, Marlea promised herself.
I’m going to keep my eyes closed for two minutes, just until I feel better, then I’ll get to the bottom of this.

And she saw her feet pacing the distance across the cinder track, could feel the cool breeze prickling the thin sheen of sweat along her neck and shoulders.

“Runners, take your mark…”

She approached the start, coiled low, and pressed her heel against the block. Breathing hope, she dropped her head and waited.

“Get set…”

The sound of the gunshot freed her. Long legs working with hydraulic precision, her feet ignored gravity. Marlea felt speed and adrenaline pump through her muscled thighs at 100 meters. At 200 meters, all she could hear was her own breathing. Chasing time, riding the wind, she barely saw the competition. Breath pulled tight through her nose and rushed out past her open lips. Her mouth felt dry, her lips were parched, but her legs felt as though she could run for an eternity.

“…Marlea Kellogg…”

It
seemed she heard her name in the distance. She couldn’t remember the finish line, and her head ached with the effort of trying to hear…

“Ah, you’re awake. I just wanted to check on you before I left for the night.”

“Awake,” she echoed dully.
But I was running. How?
Her weary thoughts tried to balance logic.
The race was a dream.
Her eyes were tired, felt as if they had been filled with sand, and Marlea struggled to open them wider. Focusing on the slender peanut-colored man at the foot of the bed, she swallowed a wave of nausea. Something was wrong. The fast, cold creep of gooseflesh along her arms was a bad sign, and she knew it. “I’m awake.”

“That’s a good sign.” He snapped an expensive-looking pen from his pocket, made fast notes on a chart, then clicked both pen and chart back into place, and headed for the door.

“Hey,” Marlea ignored the shiver that ran through her. “Good signs are fine, but why am I here? Have I been here all day? And who are you?”

An indelicate snort erupted from the chair in the corner, and Libby’s head popped into view. Fully alert, she stared from Marlea to the doctor and back again.

Aware of Libby’s silence, Marlea aimed her questions at the man in the white lab coat with the stethoscope tucked into the pocket. “Your nametag says doctor. Is that for real?”

“Yes.”

Not trusting the indulgent smile and confident voice, Marlea lifted her right hand. “Somebody stuck an IV in me, and I’m lying in a hospital bed. You’ve got the degree, so I’m guessing you can tell me why.”

“I can do that.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Reynolds. Dr. Parker Reynolds. I’m a trauma surgeon, and I was your doctor. There was an accident. You were driving and you had an accident.”

“Accident? No.” Marlea’s full lips thinned. “No, no accident. I would remember if something happened to me.”

Moving closer to the bed, Reynolds reached for her wrist, then hesitated when she pulled free of his grasp. “I don’t know you like that, and I don’t know anything about an accident, either.”

“Ms. Kellogg, I’m not entirely surprised that you have no memory of the accident, but I assure you, it did happen.”