LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE siren was loud.

      Painfully, agonizingly loud.

      The sound was a live thing, burrowing deep into her skull, tunneling into the marrow of her bones.

      Make it stop, she thought, oh please, make it stop.

      But even when it did, the silence didn’t take the pain away.

      “My head,” she whispered. “My head.”

      No one was listening. Or perhaps no one could hear her. Was she really saying anything or was she only thinking the words?

      People were crowded around, faces looking down at her, some white with concern, others sweaty with curiosity. Hands were moving over her now, very gently, and then they were lifting her; oh, God, it hurt!

      “Easy,” somebody said, and then she was inside a...a what? A truck? No. It was an ambulance. And now the doors closed and the ambulance began to move and the sound, that awful sound, began again and they were flying through the streets.

      Terror constricted her throat.

      What’s happened to me? she thought desperately.

      She tried to gasp out the words but she couldn’t form them. She was trapped in silence and in pain as they raced through the city.

      Had there been an accident? A picture formed in her mind of wet, glistening pavement, a curb, a taxi hurtling toward her. She heard again the bleat of a horn and the squeal of tires seeking a purchase that was not to be found...

      No. No! she thought, and then she screamed her denial but the scream rose to mingle with the wail of the siren as she tumbled down into velvet darkness.

      She lay on her back and drifted in the blue waters of a dream. There was a bright yellow light overhead.

      Was it the sun?

      There were voices... Disembodied voices, floating on the air. Sentence fragments that made no sense, falling around her with the coldness of snow.

      “...five more CC’s...”

      “...blood pressure not stabilized yet...”

      “...wait for a CAT scan before...”

      The voices droned on. It wasn’t anything to do with her, she decided drowsily, and fell back into the darkness.

      The next time she awoke, the voices were still talking.

      “...no prognosis, at this stage...”

      “...touch and go for a while, but...”

      They were talking about her. But why? What was wrong with her? She wanted to ask, she wanted to tell them to stop discussing her as if she weren’t there because she was there, it was just that she couldn’t get her eyes to open because the lids were so heavy.

      She groaned and a hand closed over hers, the fingers gripping hers reassuringly.

      “Joanna?”

      Who?

      “Joanna, can you hear me?”

      Joanna? Was that who she was? Was that her name?

      “...head injuries are often unpredictable...”

      The hand tightened on hers. “Dammit, stop talking about her as if she weren’t here!”

      The voice was as masculine as the touch, blunt with anger and command. Blessedly, the buzz of words ceased. Joanna tried to move her fingers, to press them against the ones that clasped hers and let the man know she was grateful for what he’d done, but she couldn’t. Though her mind willed it, her hand wouldn’t respond. It felt like the rest of her, as lifeless as a lump of lead. She could only lie there unmoving, her fingers caught within those of the stranger’s.

      “It’s all right, Joanna,” he murmured. “I’m here.”

      His voice soothed her but his words sent fear coursing through her blood. Who? she thought wildly, who was here?

      Without warning, the blackness opened beneath her and sucked her down.

      When she awoke next, it was to silence.

      She knew at once that she was alone. There were no voices, no hand holding hers. And though she felt as if she were floating, her mind felt clear.

      Would she be able to open her eyes this time? The possibility that she couldn’t terrified her. Was she paralyzed? No. Her toes moved, and her fingers. Her hands, her legs...

      All right, then.

      Joanna took a breath, held it, then slowly let it out. Then she raised eyelids that felt as if they had been coated with cement.

      The sudden rush of light was almost blinding. She blinked against it and looked around her.

      She was in a hospital room. There was no mistaking it for anything else. The high ceiling and the bottle suspended beside the bed, dripping something pale and colorless into her vein, confirmed

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