Now You See Me

Twenty-Eight: Trust Me

I could hear people talking, but it was like listening through poor radio signal. Their voices were muffled and warped, and they could have been talking nonsense for all I knew, because I couldn't make any words out at all.

There was a fog over my thoughts that prevented me from waking up; my head felt three times its usual size, and it almost appeared as if I was missing from the neck down. I couldn't tell if I was in human or Syren form, whether I was underwater or out of it. I couldn't tell who was in the room or even which room that was.

It felt horribly, frighteningly familiar, a feeling that I'd been through this before.

And then there was panic. I couldn't have gone back to remembering nothing – if I had it would be the end of me. As it stood, I was totally incapable of making it through something as testing as this had felt before.

Fear rocketed through my system and I could sense that I was still attached to the rest of my body; electric shocks seemed to pulse through it all and highlight it in my head, but it felt more like constructing a blueprint by touch than becoming aware of my own body.

"Damien?" I heard it three times, each fainter than the last. "Damien, can you hear me, sweetheart?"

Yes. I wanted to say, but I couldn't find my mouth. I felt sick and disjointed and out of place. Everything was wrong. Help me. I don't like it.

"Give him some space." The voice changed. There was beeping in the background. "He's coming round. He's probably going to freak out at first so I want you three to keep your distance. Those claws are vicious."

"What about you?" She was indignant, that first speaker.

"Me? I work in this place full time, Mrs Smith. Getting mauled is an occupational hazard."

There was a mask on me. It smelled disgusting; rubber and blood and morning-breath. Sweat and condensation rimed the inside and it chafed against my skin – as I moved to try and shift it, my neck ached and buzzed and creaked with lack of use. I jumped as the mask was carefully removed, and the strap scraped against my scalp as they pulled it off over my head. I could smell menthol gum and for some reason it made me want to cry because it was so familiar.

"Damien." A hand lightly tapped my cheeks. "Come on, soldier, you can do it."

Despite knowing that they fully expected me to, I flipped out as soon as I opened my eyes. Perhaps it was the fear the I would open my eyes and still recognise nothing, or the fact that I felt hideously disorientated, but either way I found myself shooting bolt upright in a bed, cold sweat breaking out on my forehead in fat drops and hands flailing as I tried to find a grip on something solid. I eventually clapped a hand on a forearm; it was tan and smooth and warm and feeling it grounded me almost instantly.

"You steady?"

I looked up and met Leia's gaze, and the fact that I recognised her soon had tears blurring my vision. She glanced between my eyes for a second before sighing and sitting down on my bedside, to patiently detach my fingers from her arm. My breath caught in my throat when I saw that I'd made her bleed; four fierce punctures slowly wept crimson onto the bed-sheets as they welled up in the absence of my claws.

"I-I'm-"

"Don't apologise," Leia interrupted. She smirked at me, wrapping the damage in the ruined cover sheet and tying a deft knot with one hand. "I've had much worse. You're the one we need to worry about."

I stared at her, then at the sheet, and then at her again. A funny choking feeling rose in my throat, and I laughed even though logically, it felt like the last thing I wanted to do. "I remembered you," I whispered. She blinked. "I thought for a minute I'd...that it had happened again...and then I remembered you and I'm so glad..." I stopped, unable to carry on. The tears that had been waiting to fall now spilled down my cheeks in what seemed like torrents. "I didn't want it to happen again."