time and-“
“He’s here,” Courtney said.
Mark nodded. “I know,” he said soberly. “Bobby wrote that Saint Dane knew you were seeing a new guy.”
“The new guywasSaint Dane,” Courtney said.
“Yeah, I figured,” Mark said. “He’s gone. Nobody can find him.”
“You got journals?” Courtney asked.
Mark smiled. He was prepared for this question too. “Bobby was on Zadaa. It’s over. They saved the territory. You can read about it when you’re feeling better. Things are looking real good.”
“Yeah, real good,” Courtney said. “Except that Saint Dane is here.”
“Right,” Mark said, deflated. “That.”
The two sat there for a moment, the only sound coming from the steady beep of the heart monitor.
“Mark,” Courtney said. “If I don’t get better-“
“Don’t say that! You’re gonna be okay.”
“Call Tom Dorney,” Courtney said. “He can be an acolyte with you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I won’t be alone, I’ll be with you,” Mark said. He was desperately trying to hold back tears.
“Yeah, maybe,” Courtney said. She took a difficult breath and then said, “But if I make it out of here-“
“You will.”
“Okay, when I get out of here, I want you to know, I’m done hiding and feeling sorry for myself.” She drew another tired breath and said in a clear voice, “Mark, I want that bastard.”
Mark looked right into Courtney’s eyes. She may have been hurting and weak, but her eyes told the real story. The fire was there. She wasn’t going down without a fight. Mark took her right hand and squeezed it.
“Me too” was all he said.
An hour later Mark and Andy were watching TV in their room at the Derby Falls Motor Lodge. It was a cheesy room with two beds that smelled like disinfectant, but they were comfortable. Andy was busy with the remote control, trying to figure out how to get the in-room movies for free. Mark’s mind was elsewhere. He hadn’t said much since they left the hospital. There was so much on his mind, most of which he couldn’t share with Andy. He decided to focus on Courtney, and her health. At least everyone was on the same page there.
Andy gave up and flicked off the TV with the remote. He sat up and started putting on his sneakers. “I’m going out for a smoke.”
Mark watched him for a second, then said, “This is weird.”
“Gee, you think?” Andy said sarcastically.
“I don’t mean Courtney,” Mark said. “I’m talking about you and me. Let’s be honest. We hate each other.”
Andy struggled with his shoe, then said, “I don’t hate you, Dimond. We’re just on different frequencies.”
“Yeah, well, I hated you,” Mark said with a smile.
Andy smiled too and said, “I don’t blame you. But hey, things happen for a reason, right?”
“I don’t know what else to say but…thank you,” Mark said sincerely. “If it weren’t for you, Courtney might be…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. “You’re an okay guy.”
Andy nodded. “Yeah, whatever.” He stood and walked for the door. “You know,” he said. “Maybe something good will come out of this.”
“How do you figure that?” Mark asked.
“Bad things sometimes bring people together,” Andy said. “You and I, we’re pretty different. But when it comes to some things, like Sci-Clops, we click.”
“True,” Mark said.
“And we didn’t kill each other on this trip. Not yet, anyway.” Mark chuckled.
Andy continued, “Maybe we should think about working together on something.”
“Like what?” Mark asked, surprised.
“I don’t know. We both got our own projects going-you got the code thing and I’m working on the plastic steel. Maybe there’s a way to, like, combine them. You know, two heads are better than one and all that.”
Mark nodded thoughtfully.
‘Think about it,” Andy said, opening the door. “I’ll be right back.”
Andy closed the door behind him. Mark chuckled again to himself. As if he didn’t already have enough to deal with. Never in a million years did he ever think that he and Andy Mitchell would become friends. The idea of actually working together on something was an even bigger stretch. Yet for Mark, neither seemed out of the question. Andy wasn’t the guy he’d thought he was. There was more going on there. Mark wasn’t a psychologist. He had no idea why some people became bullies and others victims. So much of what Andy had done to him over the years, all the torture, seemed so trivial now. There were bigger things to worry about. Way bigger things.
With all that Mark and Courtney and Bobby had been going through over the last few years, the one thing that helped keep Mark sane was Sci-Clops. It got his mind off the troubles of Halla, and let him relax and have fun. He didn’t want to give that up. He needed it. The idea of working together with Andy Mitchell on a project-the brilliant Andy Mitchell, not the bully Andy Mitchell-suddenly sounded like it would be a whole lot of fun. Mark lay back on the bed, put his hands behind his head, and smiled.
Life, he thought, was full of so many strange surprises.
Courtney Chetwynde lay alone in her hospital bed. She was a fighter, and now she was fighting for her life. After Mark and Andy left the hospital, after her parents had said good night, after the nurses had changed shifts, she had taken a turn for the worse. Her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low. Her heartbeat slowed. The nurses feared that the internal bleeding had begun again. After a quick deliberation, the nurses decided to call in the doctors. If Courtney was going to survive, she would have to go back into surgery. Fast. The little hospital of Derby Falls wasn’t used to handling this much excitement. The nurses scrambled to find the doctors, contact the Chetwyndes at their motel, and prepare the operating room. It was the night shift. Fewer people were on duty, which meant everyone had more to do. It wasn’t chaos, but it was close. A patient was dying.
In all the frenzy nobody noticed that a young man with blond hair had entered the intensive care wing. He strolled casually down the corridor as the nurses hurried about, trying not to bump into one another. They were too busy to ask who he was. They didn’t care. They had a patient to save. The young man walked calmly past the nurses’ station toward the end of the corridor and stepped into Courtney’s room.
Courtney was alone, and asleep. She had been given the first stage of anesthesia to prepare her for surgery. The guy walked up to the bed and looked down on the broken girl. He glanced at the vital signs monitor. She was barely alive. The guy reached out and gently put his hand on Courtney’s chest. He pressed his flat palm over her heart firmly. All his attention was focused on Courtney. He closed his eyes. The only sound in the room was the steady, slowbeep… beep… beepof the heart monitor. Outside in the corridor nurses raced around furiously, trying to cover all the bases while fearing it was already too late.
The young man took a deep breath and exhaled. His entire focus was on Courtney. Slowly, ever so slowly, the weakbeep…beep…beepof the heart monitor, grew stronger. Courtney’s blood pressure increased. The young man didn’t take his hand away. He stayed focused. Courtney’s breathing grew deeper. Vital oxygen was getting to her blood.
In a few minutes the doctors would arrive. They would find that Courtney’s vital signs had not only stabilized, but improved. She would not need surgery. The nurses would be at a loss as to what had happened. They would have to scramble to explain why they turned the hospital upside down and got so many doctors out of bed for nothing. The Chetwyndes would arrive and be shaken by the ordeal, but grateful that Courtney was doing so much better.
None of that would happen for a while, though. The young man needed to finish his work first. He glanced once more at the monitors to see Courtney had turned the corner. She was going to live. With a satisfied smile he took his hand off her chest and folded his arms.
“Like I told you,” the young man said, “I give, and I take away.”
He heard a nurse out in the corridor yell, “Last room on the right! Hurry!”
The young man glanced at the door. Soon the entire emergency staff of Derby Falls Hospital would descend on the room to discover their patient had made a miraculous recovery. The young man glanced back to Courtney and chuckled. “I’ve been working such a long time to get this far, you didn’t think I’d let you slip away so easily.
