Chapter 174

Julian’s POV

Amber’s frantic behavior had me worried, but if she wanted to check on Mom so badly, I didn’t see any reason to deny her. So I stepped back as she stood up, and then I followed her out into the hallway and down to the waiting room.

Amber was moving quickly, but I stayed in time. When we entered the room, Penny and Blake were already in there. They jumped, surprised to see us coming in, in such a rush.

“Everything okay?” Penny asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

Amber wasn’t answering. Instead, she went straight to Mom. She checked all of her vitals, then her IV, and finally her chart. When she lowered the chart back to the foot of the bed, she rubbed her forehead, like she had a headache brewing.

“Amber?” I asked.

“I just don’t understand,” she said. “She doesn’t seem any different.”

Penny and Blake shared a glance.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Penny asked.

It should have been, certainly. At least that’s what I thought. Penny and Blake too, if I could judge by the new concern on their faces, looking at Amber.

None of us could really understand what was going on with her. She just wasn’t making sense today.

“I could have sworn… last night… that she woke up,” Amber said cautiously.

“She didn’t,” I said. “You would have called me.” I thought I understood what was happening now. I approached her and gently touched her arm. “I found you asleep this morning, Amber. Maybe you were just lucid dreaming that she woke up. You were exhausted last night. You could have fallen asleep.”

It made perfect sense to me. When I’d left with Alice, Amber had barely been able to keep her eyes open. If she had fallen asleep, she could have easily dreamed that Mom had woken up, but that didn’t make it real, even if it felt that way to Amber.

“Maybe,” Amber said, but didn’t seem fully convinced. She looked to Penny and Blake. “I’m sorry to have worried you. Everything is fine with Gloria.”

She glanced at me next and I knew without her saying so that she wanted me to follow her. Together we walked out of Mom’s room and through the waiting room to return to her office. There, she continued to rub her forehead, with both hands this time.

“Headache?” I asked.

“My head is throbbing,” she replied.

“Here,” I said. “Allow me.”

With my gentle coaxing, Amber moved her hands aside and I replaced hers with my own. While keeping my thumbs on her forehead, rubbing small circles on her skin, I combed my fingers into her hair to rub there as well, giving her a full head massage.

Her eyes fluttered closed at once and she sighed.

“Good?” I asked.

She hummed her assent, which was as nice a compliment as I could have received. Rendering her wordless was everything.

When she seemed pliant, I removed my hands and then helped her sit down on the couch.

She seemed more relaxed now, but still troubled. As I sat beside her on the couch, I asked her, “What was the last thing you remember from last night?”

She was quiet a minute, frowning. Then she said, “When you left. I don’t really remember anything after that… But I just have the worst feeling, like something happened and I’m forgetting. Ug, my head is so cloudy.”

I was quiet a moment, then I glanced at the computer monitor, which was still showing the video feed from Mom’s room. Penny and Blake were standing at Mom’s bedside, talking to each other, probably about how strange Amber was acting.

I didn’t want to disbelieve Amber, but I still thought what she experienced must have been a dream. Everything seemed okay this morning, except for her strange feeling.

When I had called last night, the nurse had told me that Amber had been sleeping, so that gave more credence to it being just a dream.

Yet… I remembered the fear I had felt so strongly last night that it had jolted me awake. That had been Amber’s fear.

Was it possible I could have felt her nightmare?

Or was she right…? Did something happen?

By now, I knew better than to simply write off her feelings. Amber was not an overly emotional person. She was a good Healer, and could hide her true feelings in a crisis.

The only other time I had felt her fear that vividly was when her life had been in grave danger.

That memory alone made this worth looking into.

“If something happened last night,” I said, “Wouldn’t it be on the video? It records the whole night through, right?”

Amber looked up, surprised. “Of course!”

She hopped to her feet and rushed to the desk. Grabbing the mouse, she clicked the time bar of the video and tried to rewind. Almost immediately, she frowned deeply, all new hope in her eyes dwindling.

“What is it?” I asked, coming to her side.

“The video… there’s time missing,” she said. “Two hours…”

“Are you sure?” I said, but as I moved over her shoulder, I could see clearly what she was talking about. The time stamp jumped ahead two full hours as she moved from one frame of the video to the next. “How is that possible? A computer glitch?”

“Maybe,” Amber said. “But this, combined with my feelings about last night… I don’t know, Julian.”

I placed my hand on the small of her back, hoping to offer comfort, as she was starting to look incredibly frustrated.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’ll figure it out somehow.”

She nodded, but I wasn’t sure if she believed me. She continued rewinding and fast-forwarding the video, going over the time skip again and again.

“Amber?” I asked, when it seemed like she was caught in a trance.

She blinked and pulled herself from it. Looking at me, she said, “I’ll be okay. Can you go out with Alice? I just want to talk to the supervisor about something. I’m sure he’s in now.”

Her fear of what happened last night likely made her nervous about Alice so I eagerly agreed. I couldn’t piece together a missing night for her, but I could make sure our daughter was safe.

Before I left, I gave Amber a soft kiss on the cheek. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned into it, surprising me.

“Amber…” I said.

“Thank you, Julian,” she told me.

“What for?”

“For keeping me steady.”

Amber’s POV

I went with Julian toward the waiting room, but stayed in the back offices while he passed through the door to leave. Once it had closed behind him, I dropped my entire façade of good humor.

Julian had helped me ease the disquiet in my mind, but with that calmness came clarity and no less worry at those new revelations.

If I didn’t remember last night, it was possible, as Julian suspected, that I had fallen asleep. But it was also possible that something else had happened.

Something that would make me forget the night’s events, just like Gloria had forgotten much of her own life.

With determination in every step, I walked into the supervisor’s office. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk. “Amber? You are here early.”

“I need to order a toxicology report,” I said.

“We already have one scheduled for our patient this morning,” the supervisor said.

That was good, but it wasn’t what I was talking about.

So I told him, “I need one performed on me.”