C. Omololu - Intuition

I look over at Rayne’s mom and she nods encouragement. “One of us is always here,” I say. “We’re not going to leave you alone. You just make sure you stay with us, okay? Hang in there. I know it’s tough.”

A nurse has been hovering by the curtain, but now she leans in toward Rayne’s bed. “I have to take her vitals now. We need to let her rest.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be back soon.” I give Rayne’s fingers one last squeeze, and it might be my imagination, but I think I feel the faintest pressure back.

Rayne’s mom puts one arm around me as we walk back down the hallway, and I lean into her just a little bit. It feels like my legs are stuck in quicksand and I know I need to sit down soon. “You did great, honey,” she says. “I’m sure it really helped.”

My mind is racing with the images I saw and the sensations I felt. I was with Rayne in there, wherever she is right now. I could feel her pain and her frustration as she tries to stay with us.

“I’m going to go back and sit with her,” Rayne’s mom says. “See if you can get Peter to go home, at least for a little while.”

“I will,” I say, pushing back through the double doors. I’ve got to sit down soon, or I feel like I might pass out.

“Her numbers are looking better,” I say as I walk into the waiting area, but I stop cold in the doorway. Peter’s not alone. For a second, I think about running out of the room, but I know my legs won’t carry me very far.

The two of them look up, and I see damp tears in the corner of Peter’s eyes. He glances at Griffon and then at me. “Um . . .”

My legs buckle for real then, and I’m grateful for the chair that’s leaning against the wall as I sink into it. I feel like I’m going to throw up, so I put my head down toward my knees, knowing I look like an idiot, but glad to get away from Griffon’s eyes.

“Cole,” Griffon says with alarm, and I feel his hand on my forehead. As soon as he touches me, he pulls back, obviously remembering that we’re light-years away from physical contact at the moment. He kneels down. “You look pale. Are you okay?”

I try to sit up, knowing that I look wobbly. “Yeah.” I take another deep breath. The nausea seems to be passing, although my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest. “I’m okay. I just haven’t eaten much today, that’s all.”

“Is there a vending machine around here?” Griffon asks Peter. “She needs a Pepsi or something.”

“There’s one two floors down. I’ll go,” Peter says and dashes out the doorway, clearly glad to get away from whatever scene he imagines is about to happen.

Griffon squats down in front of me. “What did you do?”

The creak of his leather jacket as he moves and the faint, spicy scent coming from his body is too much. I put my head in my hands, feeling totally overwhelmed. “What do you mean?”

“Just now. Your Akhet vibrations are all wrong. Faint and out of synch.”

Staring at the speckled linoleum floor, I reply, “I made contact with Rayne. For a few seconds I could feel what she’s feeling.” I stop. How can I explain to him that I could also see images, like her thoughts were somehow transmitted into my head?

“And now you feel terrible? You’ve got to be careful using your empath skills like that. You don’t know what that could do to you.”

I look up at him for the first time, taking in the power of his warm, amber eyes. Eyes I’d not quite managed to forget over the past few weeks. His hair is a lot shorter—without the curls he looks older, and I have to fight the urge to reach out and run my hand over the smooth suede at the back of his neck. “What else am I supposed to do? Just watch her die? I’ll do anything I can to stop that from happening, no matter what it does to me.”

I hear footsteps in the doorway, but it’s not Peter. “Is she okay?” Giselle asks, stepping into the room.

Griffon turns. “I think so. Just weak from connecting with Rayne.”

Giselle sits down next to me in a hard plastic chair, and I can smell the flowery, soapy scent of her perfume. “So she can really do this? Cole is really an empath, as you say?”

I stare at her. “I’m right here.”

Her mouth straightens into a tight line. “Of course. I’m so sorry. That was rude. Are you feeling better?”

“I’ll survive.” I look at Griffon, wondering why he brought her here. She has nothing to do with Rayne.

Griffon looks at Giselle and then back at me. “We’re on our way to the Peninsula,” he explains. “We have a meeting with the architects who are designing the new lab.” He pauses. “What did you sense? When you were in with Rayne?”

I take a deep breath and try to pick things out of the jumble of senses and images. “She’s really confused.” I pause. “And there are a lot of images going through her head. Almost like memories, but a lot more random.”

“Wait,” Griffon says, staring at me. “What do you mean you saw her memories? I thought you could only sense other people’s emotions, not read their minds.”

“I don’t know.” I look up at him. “I was connecting with her, and it was like I could see what was going on in her mind and how she was feeling at the same time.” I take a deep breath, not sure I can explain something that I don’t totally understand. “Not exactly like watching a movie; it was more like the impression of the things she was thinking. Does that make sense?”

Griffon’s studying me closely. “Sort of. But I’ve never heard of anything like this before. What kind of images did you see?”

I close my eyes and try to remember. “Crazy things that don’t seem to fit together. A flash of one scene and then a flash of another. None of it makes any sense.”

“Like a hallucination?” Giselle offers.

“Maybe,” I say, nodding. “Her head is splitting with pain and her skin hurts, like it’s on fire.”

I see a look pass between the two of them. “Anything else?” Griffon prompts.

“Her fingers. Her fingers ache badly, like they’re being squeezed really tight. They’re almost blue, and her mom said she’s having problems with her circulation.”

Griffon stands up in front of me and folds his arms, looking at Giselle as if he’s trying to confirm something. “Meningitis, maybe?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Her mom said they ruled it out last night.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

“Can you think of any other symptoms?” Giselle asks. “Anything you might have noticed yesterday?”

I think back to the blur of yesterday afternoon. Was it only yesterday? It feels like a lifetime ago. “Um . . . she had some really violent convulsions, and they kept saying that her pupils were dilated. The paramedics thought that she was on something.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” Griffon looks at Giselle. “What do you think?”

She purses her lips thoughtfully. “If it’s not meningitis, then it’s still something that’s affecting her nervous system.”

“How quickly did it start?” Griffon asks me. “Was she feeling sick for a long time?”

“No,” I said. “That’s what’s so weird. For most of the day she was fine. Then she just said that she had a headache and it felt like she had a fever. The next thing I knew, she was flat on the ground.”

Griffon paces a little in front of me. I sit as quietly as possible so I don’t interfere with his thinking. “Okay,” he finally says, more to Giselle than to me. “This is going to sound crazy, but what about ergotoxicosis?”

Her eyes grow wide. “Saint Anthony’s fire? Maybe. But we haven’t had that in this country for centuries.”

“I saw a lot of it in Italy the lifetime I transitioned—all the symptoms are there,” Griffon says, shaking his head. “But where would she have gotten it?”