Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,50

had to admit it kind of grew on you), and everybody was whistling and shouting.

“Okay,” Loch said, leaning forward. “I went down to the Infirmary after class, instead of going to the Chess Club—”

“Wow, I bet that took real courage,” Muirin said snidely.

“You’ve been here longer than I have, Muirin—you know they like us to be where we’re supposed to be all the time,” Loch snapped.

“He’s right, Murr,” Burke said. “That was a real risk you took,” he added, and Loch smiled at the praise.

“So I eavesdropped on Ms. Bradford. You know how everybody was talking at dinner about how Nick’s going to be in a hospital for a long time? Well he is, but not in Radial. Ms. Bradford was making the arrangements on the phone with somebody to have an ambulance meet her and him at the train station in Billings.”

“When?” Addie asked tensely.

“They’re going first thing in the morning,” Loch said. “If you’re thinking about—about breaking him out, or—or anything—there isn’t any point. I tried talking to him.”

He sighed, and looked really upset. But he was laughing and joking all the way through dinner, Spirit thought. She didn’t know whether to be proud of Loch for being able to lie so well—or worried, because if he could lie that well to them about something like this—something they all knew about—what else might he lie about later?

“I had to wait almost an hour for her to leave. Ms. Holland says that when I’m a full-fledged Shadewalker, I’ll be able to fool security cameras into not seeing me, and walk right up to people and have them not see me even if they’re looking for me, but right now it’s more like they just happen to not look where I am. I didn’t dare try to walk past her desk and try to talk to Nick while she was there.”

“But she did leave,” Muirin said impatiently. “And then what happened?”

“They have him strapped into a bed, with an IV in his arm, and one of the bags was just saline, but the other one was really small, and I figured it was some kind of sedative. So I stopped the drip and tried to wake him up, and—stop hitting me, Muirin. I’m going to tell this my own way.”

“It’ll go faster if you don’t try to hurry him, Murr,” Burke pointed out.

“I was scared to death,” Loch said shakily. “If Ms. Bradford came back, she’d be sure to see me. And Nick wouldn’t wake up. He looked so awful—pale, and . . . I don’t know how to describe it. Kind of . . . starved.” Loch stared off into space for a long moment, and even Muirin didn’t try to hurry him this time. “Like he hadn’t just been gone for a few hours. Like he’d been gone a really long time. But I remembered something I read in a book once, how to wake somebody up if you really had to, so I pinched his earlobe as hard as I could. And he did wake up—at least a little—and I asked him what had happened to him.”

On the floor below, the game had reached the end of the first quarter. The break in the action meant a drop in the noise level, and Loch stopped talking until the ball was back in play again.

“I don’t know if he was really awake. I don’t know if he knew I was me,” Loch said. “All he’d say—over and over—was: ‘the horns—the horns.’ I couldn’t get him to say anything else—and he started getting louder and louder—and trying to get loose. So I started the IV again and got out of there. Maybe I should have brought Brendan with me to talk to him—his Gift is Animal Communication,” Loch added bitterly.

Spirit blinked in surprise; she’d never heard Loch say anything that cruel before, especially about a friend who was hurt. But then she thought about how guilty he must feel at having to leave Nick there. He’d said Nick had been trying to get loose. And he’d sedated him and run.

“You did the right thing,” she said firmly, and Loch glanced at her warily. “Hey,” she added, forcing a smile. “At least Nick gets to leave Oakhurst, right? Maybe he’ll get better in Billings.”

“I hear Billings’s the garden spot of Montana,” Addie drawled.

“I do not want to know what the garden spot of Montana could look like,” Muirin said feelingly.

“Well, it would have streets and buildings, just for starters,” Burke