nuts?”
“Then why the hell did you bring me here? Why take me to your grandmother in the first place?”
She looked at him, tears brimming. “I can’t do this, Jack. I can’t watch you die. When they told me you drove off that bridge, I…”
She let the words hang, her fear and vulnerability displayed without filters, telling him everything he needed to know. There was no mystery to solve. There never had been. All this time he’d been too blind or too stupid to see that. It was the same mistake he’d made with Jessie. And Joanne. Too self-absorbed to really see the people around him. To understand how they felt about him.
He focused on her eyes. God, she was beautiful.
Before he could stop himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She fell into it as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment Donovan lost himself completely, feeling his own apprehension melt away.
“I need you here,” he whispered.
Her arms tightened around him.
They stayed that way for a while, Rachel pressing her cheek against his bare chest, stirring something inside him that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Then, tears still clouding her eyes, she pulled away from the embrace. “I swear to God, Jack, if you don’t come back, I’ll kill you.”
When they returned to the exam room, Wong was smoking another cigarette.
“So,” he said. “Everybody on the same page now?”
Donovan shot him a look, then squeezed Rachel’s hand and climbed back onto the table. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Wong dropped his cigarette, stamped it out, then turned to the counter and poured something green into an ornate ceramic cup.
“Drink this,” he said, handing it to Donovan.
“What is it?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know. It’ll help relax you.”
Donovan stared at the liquid and saw what looked like flecks of dark flesh floating in it. He swirled it around a moment, then put the cup to his lips and knocked it back.
The taste was so bitter he nearly gagged. He managed to swallow, the liquid burning a trail down his throat and landing with a thud in his stomach. He instantly felt nauseous, thinking for a moment that he might throw it right back up.
“Jesus,” he said, closing his eyes.
Wong took the cup. “Got a bit of a kick.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Wong set the cup on the counter. “When you’re ready, lie faceup for me.”
Donovan waited for the nausea to subside, then opened his eyes again and saw Rachel staring at him with concern. He gave her a reassuring look, but couldn’t quite fight off the feeling that the room was starting to sway. Grabbing the side of the exam table, he swung his legs around and lay back.
Wong was over at the closet now, pulling it open. “Just so you know: Before I took over the business, I spent two years as a paramedic. If things get hairy, there’s always this…”
He reached in and grabbed hold of a metal cart, rolling it out into the open. It held a bulky, premodern defibrillator. The rubber on the paddles was so worn that patches of steel shone through.
“It’s old,” Wong said. “But it works.”
Rubbing his hands together again, he moved back to the table and stood over Donovan. “Last chance to change your mind.”
Donovan felt his body starting to relax. The medicine kicking in. He glanced at Rachel and could see that she still wasn’t happy with this. But she nodded.
“Do it,” he said.
Wong moved to a dimmer switch on the wall. “This isn’t your first trip, so I won’t bother with any tour information.”
He turned the dimmer, reducing the room to near darkness. “You’ve got about six minutes. Anything longer and your brain is toast.”
He started with the soles of Donovan’s feet, running his thumbs upward toward the toes, then back down again, pressing them hard against muscle, so hard it was almost painful.
Donovan felt his tension leak away and suddenly realized how tired he was. He’d been running on fumes ever since the accident. That he’d managed to survive this long was an act of sheer will.
Now Wong’s magic hands were leeching the negative ions from his body, sucking the tension away. He felt himself sink deeper into the table as the hands worked their way to the tops of his feet, then on to the shins, the calves, moving upward to his thighs, thumb tips pressing into selected pressure points, each one sending what felt like a pulse of electricity through his body and straight up into his brain.
By the time they reached his shoulders, the table beneath him had melted away. He felt weightless, floating on a cushion of warm air. Wong might not look like much, might not have the most pleasant demeanor in the world, but he knew what he was doing. No question about it now.
Donovan stared up at the ceiling. After a moment it began to recede, growing smaller and smaller as his body sank into a kind of velvety darkness. Like the table, the room seemed to melt away, and he was no longer floating — but falling.
The sensation was so abrupt and unsettling he jerked in surprise and opened his eyes — only to find himself back on the table, beneath Wong’s capable hands.
He hadn’t even realized his eyes were closed.
His heart beat rapidly. Wong touched his chest, his voice uncharacteristically soothing. “Easy now. That’s just a preview of coming attractions. You’ve been through it before, so just relax.”
The hand moved along Donovan’s chest, fingertips pressing gently into the flesh. He let himself relax again, heart beating against Wong’s fingers, gradually slowing until it was little more than a lazy thu-thump that seemed on the verge of stopping altogether.
For some reason, the thought of that didn’t concern Donovan. It felt right. Natural.
“Good,” Wong whispered. “Almost there.”
Then he lay one hand flat on Donovan’s chest as the other cupped his chin.
“Say hello to Jimi for me.” With a quick, economical motion, he pressed hard on Donovan’s chest while jerking his head to one side.
Donovan felt a faint crack as the room instantly melted away and darkness enveloped him.
A split second later, he was gone.
51
Chaos.
Wong had been right. That was the only way to describe it.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in familiar territory, hurtling like a rag doll through the eye of a hurricane, a whirling wormhole of light and sound, a jumble of voices murmuring incoherently in his head.
Only it was different this time.
This time there was pain. Pain so deep he thought he might scream.
It started in his chest and spread rapidly through his entire body, expanding his organs until they felt as if they were about to burst. And just when he was certain it couldn’t get any worse, the pain deepened, widened, devouring him whole.
He remembered a horror movie he’d once seen, Jennifer Jason Leigh tied between two trucks as their
