Bojan, page 7
“I know. I just talked to him,” Bojan stated. “Mostly I think it’s because he’s worried about you.”
“Not just me,” she corrected, with a smile. “Anybody involved on the property. He takes his responsibilities very seriously.”
“I’m pretty sure I know how the shooter got in, and I don’t know if it was on the schedule to fix up that dividing wall on the east side or not, but it definitely needs to move up on the to-do list.”
“I think he did mention something about it, though it’s not been an issue before. That particular field was pretty inaccessible on the far east side, but there had also been another wall, a taller one, on that adjacent property. The owner took it down for some reason recently, and now it’s left us more vulnerable on that side,” she murmured.
Bojan nodded, not really understanding, but willing to believe there was a reason for the security slip. Turning his attention to Lacy, he asked, “How long will she be like this?”
“Another couple of hours. Then, once she’s awake, I don’t want her doing anything but bed rest for several more days for sure, if not a full week.”
“Got it. That will be interesting because she won’t take that very well.”
“No, she sure won’t,” Leia agreed, with a knowing smile, “but it is what it is.” She looked over at him. “Now, if you have any kind of ability to heal or anything along those lines with the energy work you do, I suggest you start applying yourself. I’ll leave you here to spend a few minutes with her. Do not touch her physically, and, if she wakes up, don’t do anything except restrain her, and I will be here in seconds,” she muttered. “I’m heading to the bathroom. Nothing like doing surgery with a huge belly like this, but, even worse, the bathroom is never close enough.”
He grinned as she waddled off; then his smile fell away as he looked down at Lacy. He sensed her energy reaching, searching the ethers, looking for something, and he knew perfectly well what it was.
As he stared at her, seeing her looking so lost and so very fragile, he gave in almost immediately. He reached out with his own energy, gently touching hers. Instantly she latched on, and their energy entwined with a sense of coming home.
He whispered, as he stared down at her, “What am I to do with you?”
He knew there was no singular answer; there never had been, just confusion. And yet the one primary answer was without question, the same as it had always been. They were meant to be together, yet he was holding back as he always had. Mostly to protect her, though look what had happened. Even here, a place that was far more secure than most, still he had failed to protect her. He studied the pallor of her skin, wishing he’d been able to do something, anything to stop that damn bullet. Then remembering what Leia had suggested, he closed his eyes and started pouring healing energy into Lacy’s system.
She was like a dry well and sucked up everything he poured her way. As she absorbed it with open arms, he winced, knowing with clarity that their ability to stay apart from each other and to maintain separate lives would no longer be possible. Yet no way he could withhold any help at this moment, not when she needed him the most.
Closing his eyes and accepting whatever was coming, he continued to pour as much energy as he could funnel into her body and into her heart. He didn’t even worry about the wound. That would take care of itself. In this moment, it was all about her heart.
Chapter 5
Lacy opened her eyes slowly, the pain in her side diminishing down to a weird buzz. She glanced around, frowning.
“Don’t move,” Leia ordered, immediately at her side.
Lacy stared at her in confusion. “What happened?” she asked, as she stifled a yawn. “Why am I so tired?”
At that, Leia gave her an odd look. “How’s the pain?”
Lacy assessed it, then shrugged. “I’m not sure what happened, but painwise, I feel pretty good.”
“On a scale of one to ten, what is your pain level?”
“One or two, maybe,” she replied, looking up at Leia. “Why? What happened?”
Leia pulled up a chair, then sat down beside her. “You were shot.”
Lacy looked at her in astonishment, then tried to bolt upright, only to have Leia push her back down again.
“Don’t move,” Leia ordered, then looked at her curiously. “When you moved just now, how was the pain?”
Lacy shrugged. “Not much at all. Why?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I did leave Bojan here with you for a little while.”
She snorted at that. “Bojan wouldn’t have helped.”
“Oh, I think he did more than help,” Leia countered, “unless you have a group of healers somewhere you can tap into.”
At that, Lacy winced. “Definitely a lot of healers are out there, so maybe Bullard pulled some strings to bring them in or something, but I doubt it.”
At that, the door opened, and Bullard walked in, Bojan behind him.
She looked up at Bojan and frowned, and he frowned in return. She almost smiled at the speed of his response. She turned her gaze to Bullard. “Leia just told me that I was shot.”
Bullard nodded, his hands shoved into his pockets as he walked closer. “What do you remember?”
She frowned, closing her eyelids—which is how they wanted to be anyway—then tried to think back. “I was out by the pool,” she murmured. “Something felt off. It’s hard to even describe what it was. I think I called Bojan, didn’t I?” she asked, her eyelids flying open to look at him.
Bojan nodded. “You said something felt wrong, and I came running, but, as I raced to the back door, you were crumpled against it, shot in your side.” He motioned with his hands toward her belly.
She placed her hands there, feeling the bandage, her gaze going to Leia, who nodded in confirmation. “I can’t be too badly hurt,” she noted, with a shrug. “I can’t feel anything really.” Then she smiled. “Unless you’ve got wonderful drugs or something.”
“We do have wonderful drugs, as you know,” Leia stated in a dry note. “However, you’ve definitely got something else going on there.” Then Leia turned to look at Bojan, with a raised eyebrow.
Bojan didn’t look at Leia, keeping his focus on Lacy. “What can you tell me about who was out there?”
“I can’t tell you anything,” she said. “I know you’re looking for answers, but I don’t have any to give you. I told you all there is.”
“Oh, you have the answers,” Bojan argued calmly. “You’re just not remembering them yet.”
She groaned, closed her eyelids again, and moaned. “Ugh, back to that again.”
“Yeah, back to that again,” Bojan repeated, with a nod. “There are memories in your head, and you just have to pull them forward. Stop trying to block them.”
“Well, right now I don’t really feel like pulling them forward—or whatever I can do,” she muttered, staring at him. “When did it happen?”
“Less than an hour ago,” Bojan replied, as he double-checked his watch and then shook his head. “Make that four hours ago.”
“Really? So I’ve lost most of the afternoon?”
Bojan nodded. “Yes, and we really need to know if you can tell us more.”
“I just felt something wrong, so I called you. Then there was that … that weird urgent need to get up and to move. I got up and raced to the door. Then I felt a weird pain. I didn’t know what it was. After the blackness took over, there was just … nothing.”
Bojan nodded. “You heard the shot, probably felt the tug, and didn’t really realize what was going on. Then the shock and the pain would have hit you. That’s probably what knocked you out—or self-preservation maybe,” he muttered, looking at her thoughtfully.
“Oh, I don’t know about that because wouldn’t self-preservation have had me running for the hills? If they shot me once, they could just as easily have shot me a second time,” she murmured. “Obviously whoever was out there had a solid bead on me. It’s a little disconcerting to think that we can’t even sit out around the pool without somebody trying to shoot us.”
“That’s why we’re trying to get to the bottom of this,” Bullard declared. “I can’t have anybody here put in danger, particularly not after your warning.”
“Yeah, my warning about Leia.” Then she turned toward Leia and said, “And thanks for patching me up.”
“Well, it was a two-person job,” she replied. “I’m struggling to reach the table as it is, but Bullard is a pretty handy guy, especially when it comes to stitching up bullet wounds.”
Lacy smiled. “So I owe you both a thank-you.”
“You were on my property when it happened,” Bullard stated briskly. “So I hardly think any thank-you should be coming my way. I’m just pissed that it happened in the first place.”
Lacy yawned. “Well, the longer I lie here, the more unhappy I’m getting about the whole deal too.” Lacy sank back down again and added, “I’m tired, so I don’t know whether that’s the medication or something else.” Lacy yawned again. “I’m pretty whacked.”
“It’s the medication,” Bojan pointed out. “You need to get some sleep.”
“That would be nice,” she muttered. “Maybe you guys can let me sleep now, since I really don’t have anything to offer.” She yawned yet again, then closed her eyelids and heard the sounds of everybody else moving away. She went under again, quickly succumbing to exhaustion.
*
When Lacy woke the next time, she yawned, trying to roll over. Almost instantly the pain slammed into her. She gasped and winced. “Jesus, what the hell is that?”
“You were shot,” Bojan said at her side.
“But it didn’t hurt before.”
“You didn’t feel the pain when you woke up before because I stopped it.”
She froze, then glared at him. “And then what? You don’t feel like stopping it now?”
“No, but I’m afraid that if you have no pain, you’ll do too much thrashing around, like you did before.”
She glared at him. “That’s hardly fair.”
“Really? If you weren’t hurting right now, what would you be doing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to think about it.” Still, she knew he was right. She would definitely be doing too much. “You could keep it at a minimum.”
“Sure, but you can also do that for yourself,” he stated, with that hooded gaze.
“I suppose you didn’t tell them you did anything, did you?”
“No, I didn’t, and you know why.”
“I know, and it is something we have to keep in control at all times. It’s one of the reasons I went into becoming a doctor.”
“Why? So you could use your skills outright?”
“Partly that but partly because then I wouldn’t be afraid of having skills. I mean, I’ll have to moderate my language so people don’t know, but I should at least give people the benefit of what I can do.”
“Well, right now you’re the one in need, so you can fix yourself,” Bojan stood up and walked toward the door.
At that, she turned back to him and said, “Still afraid, huh?”
He just glared at her and left.
She sagged back, wincing. Now that he had withdrawn at least a portion of the energy that was helping her, the pain had definitely kicked in much more than she wanted.
Just then Leia walked in, studied her, and asked, “How’s the pain?”
“It sucks,” she muttered.
Leia laughed. “Well, a certain amount of pain is to be expected.”
“Sure, but I don’t have to like it. … Sorry, I don’t mean to be grumpy.”
“No worries. I can give you some pain meds, if you like,” she offered.
Lacy thought about it and shook her head. “No. I’m afraid I’ll wind up trying to do too much.”
“That’s what I was expecting.” Leia hesitated, then turned to look at her patient. “Can you reduce your own pain?”
“I can do a little bit of it,” Lacy replied, “but it takes an awful lot of my energy to do so. It would be easier if it was somebody else’s energy, since I’m expending as much as I can trying to heal already. It’s a tradeoff, you know?”
“Right.” Leia didn’t say anything for a long moment but then asked, “So, Bojan can do it too, can’t he?”
Lacy stared up at Leia. “It’s really his tale to tell.”
“He doesn’t need to say very much,” Leia noted, with a wry look. “I left him alone with you for a just a few minutes, while I went to the bathroom. When I came back, you were sound asleep and resting comfortably. Then you woke up without any pain.”
Lacy sighed. “But now he took away the pain block because he was afraid I would do too much if I felt no pain, and that would make my wound worse.” She shook her head. “That’s Bojan’s measure of the right thing to do.”
At that, Leia laughed. “Not a bad strategy though. You’ve both used whatever healing energy was available, and, since your wound is not fully healed, you can easily cause more damage.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Lacy muttered.
“It’s really amazing that you guys can do something like this at all,” Leia said, studying Lacy carefully. “Wish I knew more.”
“We can do it sometimes, not always, and certain repercussions are involved,” Lacy shared. “It’s one of the reasons I wanted to go into medicine because then I can utilize my gifts to some degree, without it raising alarms.”
“And yet, if you can take away pain, as Bojan seemed to do, that will raise eyebrows.”
“Yes, it’s possible, and I would have to be very conservative with it. I don’t know how it will work out in practice. I just thought it would give me a better opportunity to help people,” Lacy explained. “It’s also very inconsistent. Some would say the inconsistency is a lack of skill or control. I don’t know what is involved just yet, but I notice that, when I’m a little more emotionally involved, … it’s much harder.”
Leia nodded. “That makes a whole lot of sense. However, if you have a healing gift, it would be a shame to not use it. Just a thought to hold on to.”
“May be a shame, but, if people find out, it’s more than a shame. It becomes a huge burden,” she stated boldly. “Not to mention all the trouble it brings. We can’t help everybody, and I can’t even maintain it for a long time period, so it’s a matter of potentially helping somebody long enough to get them more help, or I could envision thwarting an emergency situation. I might do enough to get them through something,” she added. “I can’t save everybody or many people at all. So, in a way, it’s better if you don’t even think about us doing something like that because it can’t be counted on. Not for long. Not for every circumstance.”
Leia sat back, a pensive expression on her face, as she contemplated what Lacy had told her. “And, of course, the pressure is always on you, isn’t it?”
“It always feels that way. Bojan would never acknowledge what he can do or cannot do.”
“That is a given, and I have to respect his privacy over that too,” Leia said wistfully. “Still, to think that you guys have the ability to help at that level—”
“Yet, not everybody—you’ve got to remember that. So the minute you expect us to help, and we can’t, you’ll feel like we’ve let you down, as will we.” Lacy sighed. “Not an easy way to live.”
“No, of course not,” Leia agreed. “It’s terrible to even think that you would feel guilty for something like that, when you’d done your best to try and help. I can see how that could be misconstrued.”
“Exactly, so we can still do some healing, though it’s mostly energy manipulation. Such as, in the case of my own healing, I can do something to remove some of the pain. Bojan knows I can do that, and he also knows I can’t do all of it. I can’t just block it off and carry on and expect my body to heal. I can’t just heal overnight and get up and walk away tomorrow. He’s counting on the fact that I can do enough to keep myself content and stable.”
“But not feel so well that you run into trouble,” Leia added, with a big smile. “It’s kind of a brilliant strategy.”
“It really is,” she grumbled. “As for the patient, that rest is important, but, as for the doctor, somebody who’s up and at it, moving around all the time, you also know how hard it is to give ourselves that kind of rest, despite our best intentions. In this circumstance, I really don’t have much choice.”
Leia laughed. “No, you don’t. What I’ll do is give you a hand to get you up to your room, and we’ll set you up with someone to help when you need it. You’ll get some bed rest and relax in a quieter, more comfortable space, while the rest of the crew is running around with their hair on fire, trying to find the shooter.”
“Yeah, I’m totally okay to be away from all that chaos,” Lacy murmured. “It doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“No, and Bullard’s on the rampage because you were shot on his property, and, in his mind, under his protection. Of course, if you had anything to offer in terms of information, you know how badly they need it. His Tunisian location had Hsome unrest nearby in these last few days, but that didn’t end up involving his other African compound there. More that it happened outside and involved a few of the contractors he uses on a regular basis. We haven’t had much chance to follow up on that yet. Things are a little busy here.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice if I had information,” Lacy replied, with a sarcastic tone. “I really don’t remember much, and, even if I did, I don’t think it would be of any value because I didn’t hear anything really. It was just a feeling, a fleeting sense of being watched, and no way you can track that.”
“Fair enough. Let’s go,” Leia said, as she pulled back the sheets on the hospital bed.
Lacy slowly sat up, realizing that she was mostly undressed. “Did you put me in a hospital gown?”
“Yes. You were covered in blood, and we had to get both your tops and bottoms off,” she replied. “I just cut them off. Luckily you were just wearing the sundress, so I snipped the straps, and we pulled it off. It’s a bloody mess, but you might get it out. Your underwear didn’t fare that well.”
