Chapter 16: Corinne Wakes

Corinne Dray was sitting up in bed when we got to her room, and the first thing she did was ask for her dog.

"Where's Biscuit?" she said, in a voice scraped raw from disuse.

Jonah crossed the room in three steps and went down on his knees by the bed.

He did not say anything for a long time.

He pressed his forehead against the back of her hand, and his shoulders shook.

"Hey," Corinne whispered. "Hey, big guy. I'm all right."

"You were gone for five days."

"It felt like one." She stroked his hair with her free hand. "I heard you. You were yelling at the nurses."

"I was not yelling."

"You were yelling at the monitor."

He laughed, and it came out wet.

I stayed by the door.

I had held this woman's hands and poured my own strength into her three nights in a row, and she had never once seen me with her eyes open.

Her gaze found me over his head.

It was brown and clear and sharp.

"You're Ivy," she said.

"Yes."

"No." She frowned. "You're not."

The room went cold.

"Corinne," Jonah said.

"I talked to Ivy for six weeks. She was funny. She sent me pictures of her cat. She told me she was a sad little princess locked up in a castle."

"I don't have a cat," I said quietly.

"I know that now." She looked at my hands, then at the raw marks on my wrists. "You're the one who healed me. I felt you. It was warm light."

"Yes."

"Then who was I talking to?"

I opened my mouth.

Jonah answered for me.

"Tell us about the trail," he said. "From the beginning, and take your time."

Corinne's face closed up.

She pulled her hand away from his hair and gripped the blanket instead.

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