“This is starting to feel like school,” she complained, but opened her hands again and drew the lights down, extinguished them.
“I need you to relax again. Breathe in through your nose, out gently through your mouth. Slow, deep breaths.”
Ready to pout about the game delay, she looked over at him. And saw what Nell had seen. Cool, calm control. “I’m relaxed enough.”
“Breathe, Ripley. Count the beats. Slow, deep, easy.”
He sat on the side of the bed with her, checked her pulse with his fingers. “Relax your toes.”
“My what?”
“Your toes. Let your toes relax, let all the tension slide out.”
“I’m not tense.” But he felt her pulse kick. “If this is your prelude to hypnosis, it’s not going to work.”
“Then it won’t work.” Watching her face, he trailed his fingers to the pulse in the curve of her elbow, back to her wrist. Soft, steady strokes. “Relax your feet. You’ve been on them most of the day. Let the tension go out of them. Out of your ankles.”
His voice was so quiet, so soothing. His fingers on her skin were a lovely, light connection.
“Relax your calves. It’s like warm water flowing up through your body, washing out the tension. Your mind’s relaxing, too. Just let it empty out. Your knees are relaxing now, your thighs. Visualize a soft white field. Nothing on it. It’s easy on the eyes. It relaxes them.”
He drew the pendant from under his shirt. Wrapped the chain twice around his hand. “Breathe in the calm, expel the tension. It’s safe here. You can just drift.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me I’m getting sleepy?”
“Ssh. Breathe. Focus on the pendant.”
Her pulse jumped again when he held it up in her line of vision. “That’s Mia’s.”
“Relax. Focus. You’re safe. You know you can trust me.”
She moistened her lips. “This isn’t going to work anyway.”
“The pendant’s in front of that white wall. It’s all you can see, all you need to see. Let your mind clear. Just look at the pendant. Listen to my voice. It’s all you need to hear.”
He took her down in stages, gently, until her eyelids began to droop. Then slid her deep.
“Subject is unusually susceptible to hypnosis. Vital signs are steady, readings typical for a trance state. Ripley, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to remember that you’re safe and that you’re not to do anything that you’re not willing to do and comfortable doing. If I ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do, you’re to tell me no. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Are you able to stir the air?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do so? Gently.”
She lifted her arms, as if for an embrace, and the air moved over him like a soft wave of water.
“How does that make you feel?” he asked her.
“I can’t explain. Happy, and afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“I want it too much, want too much of it.”
“Close the spell,” he ordered. It wasn’t fair to ask her questions like that, he reminded himself. She hadn’t agreed to it before he’d put her under. “Remember the lights? The baseball lights? Can you bring them back?”
“I’m not supposed to play after bedtime,” she said, and her voice had changed subtly, become younger and full of mischief. “But I do.”
He stared at her rather than the lights she threw toward the ceiling. “Subject has regressed, without direct suggestion. The childhood game appears to have triggered the event.”
The scientist in him wanted to pursue it, but the man couldn’t follow through.
“Ripley, you’re not a little girl. I want you to stay in this time and place.”
“Mia and I had fun. If I didn’t have to grow up, we’d still be friends.” It was said sulkily, her mouth in a pout as she played the lights.
“I need you to stay in this time and this place.”
She let out a long sigh. “Yes, I’m here.”
“Can I touch one of the lights?”
“It won’t hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you.” She brought one down until it hovered above his hands.
He could trace it with his finger, a perfect circle. “It’s beautiful. What’s inside you is beautiful.”
“Some is dark.” As she said it, her body arched, and the lights flew around the room like bright stars.
Instinctively Mac ducked. The lights began to whistle shrilly and pulse bloodred.
“Close the spell.”
“Something’s here. It’s come to hunt. To feed.” Her hair began to twist into wild curls. “It’s come back. One times three.”
“Ripley.” Lights flew past his face as he rushed back to her. “Close the spell. I want you to close the spell and come back. I’m going to count back from ten.”
“She needs you to guide the way.”
“I’m bringing her back.” Mac gripped shoulders he knew were no longer Ripley’s. “You have no right to take her.”
“She is mine and I am hers. Show her the way. Show herher way. She must not take mine, or we are lost.”
“Ripley, focus on my voice. Onmy voice.” It took all his control to keep his voice soot
hing. Firm but calm. “Come back now. When I reach one, you’ll wake up.”
“He brings death. He craves it.”
“He won’t get it,” Mac snapped. “Ten, nine, eight. You’re waking up slowly. Seven, six. You’re going to feel relaxed, refreshed. Five, four. You’ll remember everything. You’re safe. Come back now. Wake up, Ripley. Three, two, one.”
As he counted down, he saw her come back, not just to the surface of consciousness but physically. As her eyelids fluttered, the lights vanished, and the room was still.
She breathed out, swallowed. “Holy shit,” she managed, then found herself plucked off the bed into his lap and crushed in his arms.
Seventeen
He couldn’t lether go, couldn’t stop blaming himself for taking chances with her. Nothing he’d seen, experienced, theorized, had ever terrified him the way watching Ripley change in front of him had done.
“It’s all right.” She stroked his back, patted it. Then realizing they were both trembling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held tight. “I’m okay.”
He shook his head, buried his face in her hair. “I should be shot.”
Since gentle soothing wasn’t working, she switched tactics into something more natural to her. “Get a grip, Booke,” she ordered and shoved at him. “No harm, no foul.”
“I took you under, left you open.” He pulled back, and she could see it wasn’t fear on his face but fury. “It hurt you. I could see it. Then you were gone.”
“No, I wasn’t.” His reaction had given her little time for one of her own. Now her stomach quivered. Something had come into her. No, she thought, that wasn’t quite right. Something had comeover her.
“I was here,” she said slowly, as she tried to puzzle it out for herself. “It was like being underwater. Not like drowning or sinking, but just . . . floating. It didn’t hurt. More of a quick shock, then the drift.”
Her brows drew together as she thought it through. “Can’t say I cared for it, though. I don’t like the idea of being tucked aside so someone else can have her say.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Fine. Actually, I feel great. Stop taking my pulse, Doc.”
“Let me get these things off you.” But when he started to remove the electrodes, she closed a hand over his wrist.
“Hold on. What did you get out of all that?”