In Between Dreams (30 page)

Mei was in hysterics. Bailey wiped her hands on the back of her pants and walked to Mei and Halene. Knowing she couldn’t do much, she held out her arms for Mei. She barreled herself into Bailey’s arms, crying words Bailey didn’t understand. Bailey ran her fingers through Mei’s hair softly, trying to comfort her.

Halene made eye contact with Bailey, her eyes were filled with alarm and distress.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bailey whispered to both Mei and Halene. “He’s going to be fine,” she lied. She wasn’t confident in her words, but she couldn’t come apart any more. She needed to pull herself together. For Mei. For Halene. For herself.

Halene and Mei went into the bathroom to clean up the blood and sweat from their bodies and to radio Bai to retrieve her. Bailey stood as the lookout, hoping Katherine or Sam would come and update her on Daniel.

As if answering her prayer, Sam approached her. He held two pairs of scrubs in his hands.

“What’s going on?” Bailey asked, her voice frantic.

“They’re taking him into surgery now,” Sam said. “It’s going to be a couple hours.” He handed her the scrubs. She realized he was also covered in Daniel’s blood. “Why don’t you get changed? Mei too.”

Bailey agreed silently. Sam’s eyes met Bailey’s, and he put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s going to be okay, Bailey.”

“You don’t know that,” Bailey argued softly, and rubbed her lips together. “But thanks for saying it.”

Bailey tapped her knuckles to the door. “Come in,” Halene said, and Bailey entered the small bathroom. Bailey handed Mei the scrubs, and Mei took them gratefully. “She talked to someone on the radio for a minute. I think Bai knows where to pick her up,” Halene told Bailey.

“Good,” Bailey breathed out, and changed. She put her blood-drenched clothes on the sink. Mei did the same. Bailey took a wet paper towel and wiped Mei’s face. There was dirt, blood, and grime loaded on her face from the days she spent in the basement. Halene helped as well, cleaning her arms and neck.

After a half hour, they walked out of the bathroom. Sam was waiting in the hallway for them, leaned up against the wall. His head down, looking at his shoes. Sam greeted Mei immediately. He put his hand on either side of her arms in a comforting motion. He spoke to her in Mandarin and waved for them to follow him further into the hospital.

Bailey looked around at the crowds of men coming into the emergency room. There were hordes of them. Bailey ducked her head and walked behind Sam quickly.

“Is that from us?” Bailey whispered to Halene, who looked back into the waiting room.

“Holy moly,” Halene said loudly.

“Shh,”
Sam and Bailey said simultaneously. Sam walked faster, pulling Mei with him. Bailey and Halene hurried behind them.

When they arrived into the main corridor of the hospital, Sam pulled the crew into a supply closet, drawing the attention of a nurse, but no one else.

Sam spoke to Mei in rapid Mandarin. She answered back quickly, leaving Halene and Bailey standing idly by watching the conversation go back and forth like a game of Ping-Pong. After a moment, Sam turned to Bailey. “Bai will be here soon,” he said. “We’re going to call him and ask him to meet us in Daniel’s room.”

“I thought Daniel was in surgery?” Bailey questioned.

“Wait,” Halene spoke up. “He’s
where
?”

“One thing at a time,” Sam scolded. “Daniel
is
in surgery, but they assigned him a private room. That’s where Katherine is. We’ll go there and wait for Bai. We’ll need to have a lookout at all times. We don’t want any of the 14K members who happened to be crawling all around these halls to see her.”

Halene took a deep breath and agreed. Sam turned to Mei, told her the plan. She turned on the radio and spoke into it. After sixty seconds, one small word came over the device, and Mei nodded.

“He’s coming,” Sam said. “I’ll take Mei to the room, you two follow in a couple minutes.”

“What’s the room number?” Halene asked.

“It’s one floor up, the third room on your right,” he explained, and put his arm around Mei. “See you soon.”

Bailey turned to Halene and theatrically wiped the back of her hand over her forehead. “We’re almost there. It’s almost over.”

Tears formed in Halene’s eyes, and she gulped back sobs. “He’s going to be okay, right?” she murmured. “Daniel,” she said to clarify. Bailey nodded with conviction. “He’s got to be okay, Bailey,” Halene pleaded.

“He’s a fighter, Hales.” Bailey said it with a resigned sense of clarity. “He’s going to fight his way out of this come hell or high water. If ever there was a time to believe in him,
this is it
.”

Halene let out a light sob, nodded her head, and fell into Bailey’s arms. Bailey ran her hand over Halene’s head and kissed her forehead. She believed her words more furiously than ever. Daniel was a fighter. He was going to make it through this. He had to.

twenty-one.

B
ailey and Halene opened the door to Daniel’s room. There were two empty hospital beds, late-night Chinese sitcoms on the corner television, and Sam and Mei in the corner of the small room.

The room was drab with no pictures or signage on the walls. The paint was a tea green with nearly four feet between the beds. A functional nightstand stood next to the bed with a water pitcher, tissue box, and call button box clamped to the corner.

Bailey walked to one of the two windows. She wanted to know if Daniel was okay; she wanted to see his face. In absence of knowledge, she tried to fill her mind with something else. Anything else. She looked over a parking area, which had an enormous sea of bicycles. There were at least fifty lined up outside the hospital. She assumed the bikes were ridden to the hospital by staff and visitors. She glanced at the emergency area. The ambulances were all modified vans, not the standard ambulances she would see on Seattle streets.

“Bai hasn’t come yet?” Halene asked, and sat on one of the empty hospital beds.

Sam shook his head. “He’ll be here soon.” He put his arm around Mei. Mei looked at Bailey with wide thankful eyes. She stepped out of Sam’s grasp and ran into Bailey’s arms.

“Tank hu,” she said. Bailey found it endearing when Mei tried to speak English.

“You’re so welcome,” Bailey said softly. “But you should thank Sam.”

“She already has,” Sam said. “Persistently.”

Bailey smiled down at Mei. Mei broke the embrace and put her hands in Bailey’s. She spoke in rapid Mandarin. Sam stepped forward, and looked at Bailey as he translated. “She’s saying they get to go to Bali with her uncle. They’re going to start a new life. A crime-free life. And she owes it all to us.”

Bailey smiled and put her finger on Mei’s nose quickly, like she’d done to young kids in the past. “I’m really going to miss you,” Bailey said sincerely.

Mei smiled widely as Sam translated Bailey’s words. She said two words back. Bailey shook her head at Sam, telling him silently that he didn’t need to translate. Bailey knew that Mei was saying she would miss Bailey too.

Two short knocks filled the room. The group turned to the door. A stout Chinese man with graying hair and round glasses came into the room. He bowed quickly at the room of friends. Mei flung herself into the man’s arms without hesitation.

“It’s Bai.” Sam confirmed what they all thought. Bai had pain in his eyes as he wrapped his arms around his niece. A hint of a smile crossed his face while a hoarse sob echoed through the room. Tears fell down his face as he held the only family member he had left in the world. They held each other tightly for a minute, gripping the reality that they were finally together again.

After this outburst of emotion, Bai’s demeanor was polished and professional. His clothes were elegant and stylish for an elder of a family. He was gracious, and his eyes beamed wisdom of a man who had lived a life of purpose.

Bailey felt a rogue tear fall down her cheek and she wiped it. That, right there, that was why they did their missions. They helped people find happiness and leave behind their past and find the goodness in the world.

Bailey knew that Mei could do great things and that she could become an amazing woman. She had an aura about her. Mei had a goodness that Yin had been unable to extinguish with his evil. Bailey couldn’t be happier that Mei had options she didn’t have before. Now she was no longer under Yin’s control.

Bai and Mei parted from their embrace and turned to the trio in the room. Bai spoke to Sam in Mandarin quickly. Bai put his hands together, as if for prayer, and bowed to Sam. Sam mirrored Bai’s motion.

“He says he owes his eternal happiness to us,” Sam translated. Halene and Bailey put their hands in the same praying hand gesture and bowed to Bai.

Bai spoke again and Sam nodded. “They have to leave,” Sam said.

Bai and Mei turned to leave, and Bailey felt her nose tingle and happy tears fill her eyes. She turned to Halene who looked at the door in awe. “We’re helping people,” Bailey said. “Real people.” Her voice was that of disbelief. They had done
that
; they had created that reunion.

Sam let out a soft laugh. “This is incredible,” Sam murmured, touching his chest. “This feeling.”

They knew that what happened to Mei from then on out wasn’t their concern. They had gotten her back to her family, and that was all they could do. Bailey sat in a chair at the corner of the room, and Sam and Halene sat on either side of her.

“So,” Bailey said so quietly Sam and Halene had to lean in to hear her. “How long will Daniel’s surgery last?”

Sam glanced at the clock. He seemed to be counting in his mind. “Three more hours,” Sam sighed. “This is going to be a long night.”

“Daniel’s probably back in Australia by now,” Halene said with a shrug. “We can probably all go home.”

The confusion was apparent once again. Bailey decided it was time to find out the details.

“Speaking of things no one understands,” Bailey said, and raised her eyebrow at Halene. “I think we’ve got time. Why don’t you start explaining?”

Halene made a face, clearly not wanting to get into it. Halene knew Sam and Bailey let their questions and concerns take a backseat in order to complete the mission. Now they deserved answers.

“You have to know one thing,” Halene started. “It wasn’t my idea to keep it from you.”

“Then why did you?” Sam asked, his tone far from condemning. It was a question from someone who truly wanted to understand. Sam and
Bailey would understand if there was purpose in it; it was the secrecy that unnerved them. On some level they felt betrayed.

“And whose idea was it?” Bailey piled on another question, unable to hold it in.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Halene said. Her shoulders slumped visibly. “By the time I had come into this group, the dynamics had already been set. It was how it had always been. You two didn’t know it was real. That’s just how it was. I didn’t think it was my place to change that. I don’t know who started with the secrecy thing, but I just continued it.”

“I can understand you going along with the process. But you had to wonder why we weren’t brought all the way in,” Bailey said. “Did someone tell you not to tell us?” Sam and Bailey both instinctively leaned in toward Halene. She pulled her her chair away, feeling overwhelmed. Bailey sensed it and backed off.

“Daniel,” Halene said. “He told me you guys weren’t aware this was real, and he’d appreciate if I kept it that way.”

Sam clenched his teeth together in anger. He already had so many reasons to dislike Daniel, and it made him furious. Bailey felt her heart ache. She had known it had to come from Daniel: where else would it have come from? But it hurt to hear it.

Bailey wanted more information. What Halene had given wasn’t enough. “Forgive me for being pushy, but I’m at a loss. What is this? Is this some sort of magic? How can we be in two places at once?” Bailey asked in frustration.

Halene stifled a giggle. “I wouldn’t call it magic,” she said softly. “It’s more like quirk of nature.”

“Nature?” Sam scoffed. “Nature allows people to time-travel?”

“It’s not time travel, either,” Halene stated. “It’s more than that. It’s different.” Halene took a deep breath. “I don’t know everything, and I don’t know how much I’m supposed to tell you.”

“Why? Why can’t you just tell us everything?” Sam asked, speaking for both of them. He tried not to let the frustration show on his face. But he was antsy to know what was really going on.

“Please, Hales,” Bailey said softly. She reached out and grabbed Halene’s hand. “You have to tell us. It’s happening to us too.”

“I think I can answer
some
of your questions,” Halene said, caving to Bailey’s requests. “I can give you the information behind how it works from my understanding, but Daniel will have to fill you in on how it directly relates to you two. I wasn’t there for that, and I can’t explain it. All I really know is the mechanics of how your consciousness travels between your respective two bodies.” The mention of having two receptacles of their consciousness made Bailey feel uneasy. There were two of her? There really is a Seattle Bailey and a Dream Bailey.

Except, this isn’t a dream
, Bailey reminded herself.

“Thank you,” Sam said, gratitude spilling from him. “It’s been a weird twenty-four hours.”

“Any information you can give us would be awesome,” Bailey agreed. “Close some of the gaps.”

Halene looked at the ceiling as she put her thoughts together. Bailey could almost see her planning out each sentence. “It’s all about nature. Nature is mostly about leveling things out.” Halene stood, like she was giving a lecture as she spoke. “For every extremely cold day, there will be a hot day to counter it. Nature is about balance. When certain people are born, extraordinary people, nature recognizes it and evens it out with shadow of that extraordinary person.”

“Shadow?” Bailey and Sam asked in unison.

“A shadow self,” Halene explained further. “It’s someone who looks like that extraordinary person but doesn’t have the same abilities. It is like an average you, so to speak. Average in the ways that you are extraordinary and extraordinary in the ways that you are average.”