Free Hidden by Marianne Curley Page B

breathe on your own.’
    What’s this? I’m not breathing on my own? I feel the bulky cylinder between my lips for the first time and begin to splutter and gag as I try to push it out.
    ‘Hold on!’ the sharper voice of the nurse wails, as she pulls the tubing out of my mouth. That feels better. I take a huge gulping breath and open my eyes.
    It’s worth the effort to see Lillie smiling down at me. ‘Welcome back to earth, Jordan Blake.’
    ‘Huh? What did you … ?’
Ease up, she’s only joking
. So why does her reference to earth shake me up? It’s the dream I had, parts of it are still so vivid, still rolling through my head like a movie I can’t switch off.
    The nurse takes my vitals and, while she buzzes around me, the dream spills out like a confession that has to be told. Between sucking on little chips of ice Lillie keeps popping into my mouth, I tell her as much as I can recall. Some details are fuzzy, like the angels’ names, but the intensity of their eyes, and the deal I agreed to, return in perfect clarity.
    Lillie is riveted. Occasionally the nurse grunts as if she’s heard it all before. Her reaction is mildly comforting, but not enough to stop me freaking out.
    ‘That dream has really shaken you up.’
    I shrug my shoulders and wince as pain spears through my chest from front to back and straight down my middle.
    The nurse runs over. ‘Hold on, Jordan. You’re recovering remarkably well. Dr Mac is extremely pleased with you, butyour injuries are extensive.’ She places a remote in my hand. ‘Press this for pain. It’s morphine.’
    I toss it away and she frowns. ‘It could put me back in the dream, and I don’t want to go there again.’
    ‘I’ll have a word with the doctor,’ she says. ‘There are other painkillers that go easy on the hallucinations.’ She collects her bits and pieces on a trolley and pushes it out of the room.
    ‘Lillie, do you think it really was the morphine that gave me the dream?’
    Lillie helps me sip water from a bent straw. ‘It’s possible. Try to put it out of your head, Jordan. Conserve your energy for getting better. Your doctor said you’ll have to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks,’ she says, trying to distract me by changing the subject, ‘with physiotherapy for a few weeks afterwards. I’ve already spoken to your house-mates about covering your chores. Oh, and I’ll be speaking with your principal tomorrow to organise worksheets for next semester.’
    I start to tell her how unnecessary that’ll be, but she shoots me down. ‘Even though your internal injuries are healing remarkably fast, you may still need time off school. Don’t expect to recover overnight, Jordan.’ She pats my hand sympathetically while I stifle a yawn. I didn’t know conversation could be so exhausting. Lillie notices and gets up to leave.
    I grab her arm. ‘No, don’t go. It’s the meds, that’s all.’ I don’t want to sleep in case I slip back into the dream.
    She unhooks my fingers from her arm and kisses my forehead lightly. ‘You need your rest. I’ll be back thisevening.’ At the door she turns. ‘Now that you’re awake, the police are going to want to interview you. I’ll stall for as long as I can.’
    ‘Thanks, Lillie,’ I mumble, growing drowsy quickly now.
    The sound of voices entering my room wakes me. For a moment I freeze, but it’s soon obvious the voices don’t belong to angels. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. It’s Danny, and Sophie’s here too.
    I have no idea how long it’s been since Lillie left, but I didn’t return to
that
dream, and the further it slips away the easier it is to believe the drug-induced-hallucination theory.
    So maybe now I can enjoy the fact that I’m alive and don’t have to go on a stupid heroic quest to find a stupid abducted angel and return her to … What was the name the younger one had called the dimension where angels live?
    Avena
.
    Man, how quick did that come back to