Page 28 of Minding the Minotaur (Monsters of the Labyrinth #1)
S AMMY
I open my eyes to see Clem’s face floating above me. She leans closer, her green gaze full of love and concern.
“Hey, hon, you’re back,” she murmurs, stroking my arm.
“B-back…? Back from where?” I look around, trying to work out my surroundings. I’m lying in a bed, in a sterile, almost empty room. There’s a drip fixed to my arm. I feel like a fledgling bird that’s fallen out of the nest and has no idea how it got here.
Suddenly, a host of memories are pushing into my brain, confused, fantastical, disjointed. They feel like a dream, and yet—not.
I struggle up to sitting. “Clem, where am I?’
“Sparkle General.”
“You mean hospital?” She nods. “What happened to me?”
Clem glances around, lowers her voice. “You’ve been in a coma. It was touch and go for a while.”
I struggle to sit up and she hands me a glass of water. “ This will be the first liquid you’ve taken by mouth for three weeks, so go easy.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, you’ve been out cold for almost three weeks.”
I gag on the first sip of water, and Clem tries to take it off me, but I’m suddenly so thirsty I drain the glass. And as if the water has hydrated my mind, the memories start flooding back.
“The Labyrinth…” I husk out. “I was in the Labyrinth.” My heart lurches at the memory of a handsome minotaur smiling at me with love in his beautiful dark eyes. “Arlo?—”
“Shush, hon, not here,” Clem says, looking nervous. “When you’ve eaten something, I’ll get a wheelchair and take you to the roof garden. We can talk there.”
I pull off the bedcovers. “Let’s go now.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed, then wince at the pull of the drip in my arm. I sink back onto the bed.
“Hey, slow down.” Clem pulls the covers back over me. “You’ve had a hard three weeks. Trust me Sammy, I know. I’ve been here every day since they brought you in. After work, before work, weekends. Watching, worrying.”
“Thank you, Clem, you’re the best friend I could wish for.” I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “It’s just, I have so many questions.”
“Yeah, I know.” Clem drops her voice. “But the problem is, the authorities will have a lot of questions for you , now that you’re awake. Don’t tell the nurses or doctors anything that you think might have happened.”
I frown. “I don’t think —I know, Clem.” With the memories come a whole heap of emotions, mostly sadness and longing. That Arlo isn’t with me. That I’m not with him. “It was all real?—”
Clem stops abruptly as a nurse bustles in.
She makes a lot of fuss about the fact that I’m awake.
I dutifully stay quiet while she checks my vitals.
“Your blood pressure is a little low, but everything else seems fine. We’re so happy to have you back, Sammy.
” She beams. “I think this can come out now.” She removes the cannula and drip, and I move my stiff arm.
“Can I go home?” I ask. Of course I mean to the Labyrinth, but she thinks I mean Garnet Gardens.
“Not yet. We’re waiting on more test results.”
“Test results?”
“You have been a very sick girl,” the nurse explains with a smile, “and we need to find out why.” She writes something on my chart, then leaves.
Almost immediately, another staff member arrives with a food trolley and I choose a limp-looking ham and lettuce sandwich.
I devour it hungrily. Obviously being sustained on a drip has not been very satisfying for my stomach.
Clem talks about inconsequential things, like the shows and clubs she’s been to.
I know she’s just filling in time, and frankly, I couldn’t be less interested.
Afterward, I brush the crumbs off my ugly green hospital gown and say, “Let’s go up to the roof now.”
Clem leaves to fetch a wheelchair, and the phone beside my bed rings.
I let it ring a couple of times before picking it up gingerly.
“Is that you, darling?”
“Mom!” My face relaxes with relief.
“At last, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I think. How did you know I was in hospital?”
“Marsha Winters was good enough to call us yesterday. She told us you’d had an accident, but that you’re recovering well.”
“Marsha called you?” How the hell did the CEO of DeVines know I was here?
“DeVines always look after their employees, darling.”
“B-but I’m—I’m not—I mean, I don’t work there anymore. ”
Mom gives a little laugh. “We know all about the misunderstanding with Ronald DeVine’s niece, darling. From the papers and all. But Marsha said that’s all sorted. Ronald has forgiven you, and Marsha has a special new role for you.”
A cold sweat pans over my skin. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Mom.”
“I’m sure you will soon. We’ve been worried sick since you sent us that letter, then not hearing anything for weeks. You can imagine our relief that it’s all going to be okay. Your dad just wants a quick word, honey.”
I wait, then hear Dad’s deep rumble on the other end. “Hey, Sammy girl.”
“Hi Dad.”
“It’s so good to hear your voice,” Dad says. I sense him hesitate. “Just a word of warning. Marsha’s giving you a second chance. She doesn’t do that often, believe me. Just make sure you keep on side with her, and everything will be fine. Stay safe, sweetheart, we love you.”
I can barely gag out that I love them too, and when Clem returns, I practically catapult into the wheelchair. “We have to talk,” I say. “Urgently.”
Clem nods and wheels me out to the lift. She presses the button to take us to the rooftop garden, which is beautiful, of course, like everything in Sparkle, and surprisingly empty of other people. Clem takes a quick skirt around, scanning the walls and planter boxes.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She bends down and says close to my ear, “I just needed to check for bugging devices. It looks okay, but keep your voice down.”
Fuck. Between this and the weird conversation with my parents, my feeling of unease is mushrooming.
“While you were out of the room, Mom and Dad called me. They said Marsha told them I was in hospital. How would Marsha have known? ”
Clem looks puzzled. “I have no idea. I’ve told no-one anything except the hospital staff. And Jax primed me with what to say to them.”
“Which was?”
“That you were cleaning one of the portals when the edging broke and you fell through to the outer rim, breathed Earth air and passed out.”
“Do you think they’ll buy that?”
“I hope so.”
We fall silent for a moment.
“Clem,” I say, “remember Arlo, the minotaur I met in the parking lot at DeVines, how lovely he was? The job Jax got me turned out to be with him and, er, I guess, one thing led to another and we—we are… that is—we fell in?—”
She puts a finger to my lips, her green eyes twinkling. “I know,” she says. “Jax told me that too.”
“Oh—ahhhh. Jax knows?”
“Yep.” She smirks. “Arlo made that pretty clear.”
My cheeks get hot, and I grin sheepishly. But only for a moment, before worry sets in again. “What if they trace me back to Arlo? They could hurt him… maybe even vaporize him,” I whisper.
“That won’t happen.” Clem’s jaw sets.
“I have to get back to the Labyrinth. I can’t stay in Sparkle.”
She takes my hand, looks into my eyes. “Jax will get you back to the Labyrinth, I promise, Sammy. But he has to be really careful. The authorities have gotten much more vigilant of late, apparently. Jax won’t tell me why, of course.”
My blood runs cold as I recall the talk of evil magic and malefics at Digger’s Diner.
“There’s things going on in Sparkle we haven’t got a clue about, Clem. Bad things. It’s not safe here… not for me, and probably not for you.”
Clem’s gaze pans my face, her brow furrowing. “This isn’t the time to worry about all this, you’ve got to get strong first.” She hesitates. “We shouldn’t be away from the ward for too long, or they may come looking. Play along, and Jax will work out a solution, I promise.”
For some reason, I shiver.
Before I’ve even thought it through, I blurt, “Jax is… trustworthy, isn’t he, Clem?”
“There is no-one in the world I would trust more than Jax,” Clem says, with so much passion that I feel guilty for even voicing my doubts.
It’s stupid of me to have misgivings. Jax got me the job in the first place.
He saved my life, and now he’s covered my ass with an alibi as well.
This could potentially get him in deep shit too.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” I say quickly. “Blame it on my screwed-up brain.” I stand up on wobbly legs. “I’m going to walk back.”
I take a few faltering steps, and lean on the rail overlooking Sparkle.
I survey the city, hoping—fruitlessly, of course—to see past the mirage of make-believe, past the dome wall even, to that other world that is breathtakingly beautiful, but somehow toxic to me in ways I don’t understand.
But of course, there’s nothing to see except the glittering buildings, and beyond them, Heaven Hill and the haze over Paradise Beach, where my parents live.
Paradise schmaradise.
Clem touches my arm. “C’mon hon,” she says gently.
I sigh and go to turn away. But as I do, a building in the commerce district catches my eye. I’ve never noticed it before, even though I must have driven past it countless times on my way to and from work.
It’s tall and angular, made up of panels of glass that glint bright blue in the sunshine.
Why, I wonder, does it look so familiar?