The wail rose and fell in pitch, but it wouldn't stop. It was all urgency.

Motion tugged at my body, like waves cradling me. No, not waves, everything was dry here, and it had texture, not like the ocean. I was lying on my back, something soft and warm below me. My throat was parched. My lips burned.

No visuals.

Opening my eyes hurt, but it brought light.

I groaned.

"Hey, Miss, do you hear me?" A man with a round head and a cherub's face framed in red curls watched me from above. From the heavens? No, he was closer than that.

"Water." I was dying for it.

He moved out of sight, reappeared with a concerned frown, put a hand behind my head, and lifted it. A white bottle was in his hand. He placed it against my lips, gently. I drank, eager gulps to drench the dry waste that was my insides.

"Enough," he said. "You've got to take it slow, or it won't stay down. You're severely dehydrated. We've hooked you up to an IV. You'll be better, soon."

My brain fumbled with clumsy, short fingers to make sense of his words, but there were too many of them—and some strange ones, too.

Movement again, the noise of an engine, and the wail, too—an ambulance?

"What's your name?" he asked.

Finally, something I could make sense of, bless the curly guy.

"Anderson... Anne Anderson."

My mind's fingers found something else that made sense. The cherub wasn't a cherub at all unless I was dead. And I wouldn't be thirsty if I were dead. The man was that English singer—what was his name again? Any second, he'd get out his guitar for me and sing that he's in love with my body.

The guitar and the song never materialized, yet sleep did.

~~~

"We don't know how she got washed up on the beach. A beachcomber called us... She's dehydrated and has a couple of bruises, but she'll recover. I guess she'll wake up within the next few hours." The words came in a woman's voice, a high-pitched one.

"Excellent. When can she be moved?" A man, haughty accent.

Go away, voices. I wanted to sleep.

"Hard to say, Detective... tomorrow, maybe."

Detective? As in police? I opened one of my lids.

A ceiling above me.

I turned my head and my eye towards where the words had come from.

A stout, dark-skinned woman with short, gray hair and a white coat stood at a window. Beside here was a tall, thin man in a dark leather jacket, frowning at a tablet she held.

"Excellent," he said. "She'll need a guard... I'll send someone over. Can our man be stationed in the corridor?"

"Sure, Detective." She nodded.

He dug a card from a pocket and handed it to her. "Lovely. I'll be off then, the guard will arrive in a few minutes. If anything comes up, give me a ring. The number of our station is on the card. Just ask for me... Shawn Shortbitten, or my assistant, Monica Mendez."

Shawn Shortbitten—I knew the name. He had conducted the investigation into Thomas Thorne's death. And he was the one Theresa and Homer didn't trust.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe slowly.

"Any questions?" he asked.

"No, all's clear" she answered. "If anything happens, I'll call you or your assistant. And we'll make sure there's a chair for your man in the corridor."

Steps left the room, cut off by the sound of a door closing. Then silence.

I opened my eyes again. I was alone, lying on a bed with a handhold suspended above my head—a hospital.

A tube led from a catheter in my left forearm to a transparent IV bag hanging from a stand beside the bed.

I took a breath, trying to concentrate.

Shawn Shortbitten was sending a police officer to guard me until I could be moved. Moved where? A prison, probably.

I was a prisoner.

Theresa was out there with Thierry on The Indomitable. I had to help her. And the police, at least Shortbitten, were on Thierry's side, helping him hush up the things he had done. They wouldn't help me.

Really?

Shortbitten was a detective, for God's sake. He wouldn't let Thierry kill his sister.

Would he? And would he believe me? And how much time would it take to convince him?

Time. That was the one thing I didn't have. It might be running out for Theresa, out there on that boat. I had no time to sit in a cell and no time to wait until I had a chance to argue with the Shortbitten.

I had to get out of here, right now.

My hand was unsteady as I grabbed the handhold and pulled myself up to a sitting position. The muscles in my arms and legs were unwilling to move and hurting, and even more so those along my back.

I was clad in hospital pajamas, two veils of white cotton covering my body, fore and back, tied at the sides. The outfit was complemented by a flimsy, disposable slip. Where were my clothes?

I lowered my feet to the smooth floor and reached for the wheeled IV stand holding my bag of whatever they were infusing into me. Careful not to fall, I got up. My legs were wobbly as they walked me and my dizzy head along the bed. I dragged the stand with me, using it as a support, frail woman style.

The window offered a view over a city under a blue sky dotted by a flock of small, white clouds. Where was I? The buildings and streets in sight were a generic checkerboard pattern that lacked distinct features. But the twin peaks jutting from the range of hills to the left were familiar—I was in my town, probably in St. Clement's hospital in the north. I had grown up not far from here.

I turned to face the room. There was a cabinet against its back wall. I navigated myself and the IV stand towards it and opened its door, hoping to find my clothes inside. It was empty.

I returned to the bed and sat. The catheter was secured to my wrist with an adhesive strip. Holding my breath and trying to stop my hands from shaking, I tore it off, and then I pulled out the needle, an action that left my skin covered in goosebumps. A drop of blood marked the puncture and grew larger as I watched it. Shuddering, I wiped it on the bedsheets, leaving crimson smudges.

The corridor outside my room was deserted except for an irritating smell of disinfectant. There was no one around to see me in my patient's garb.

I needed something else to wear.

The second door down the hallway had a yellow tinted window in it, with a plate labeling it as a "Staff Room". It was deserted, a staff room without staff. I entered.

A series of lockers were lined up along a wall—locked lockers, all of them as I realized when I tried their handles. Next to them, a doctor's coat hung from one of a row of pegs. I donned it over my pajamas. It was long enough to reach my knees, leaving my hairy legs and naked feet in plain sight.

A bright red stain bloomed on one of the coat's sleeves—my wrist was still bleeding.

Someone had left a notepad on the table. I grabbed it, hoping it would make me look less conspicuous, more doctorish, and doubting it.

I opened the door and peeked into the corridor, reluctant to go back there. But I didn't have the time for finding a better disguise.

Where were the elevators?

Turning to the left, randomly, I soon reached a corner. Beyond it, another corridor waited, populated with a bright-blue-clad man pushing a food trolley.

I froze.

His mouth opened as he saw me. I looked down at the empty front page of my borrowed notepad, giving it an erudite frown.

Trying to hold myself erect, I resumed my steps and passed him without looking up from the pad. Without looking back. Without knowing what he did.

I found the elevator. I called it and the door opened right away—its cabin had been waiting on this floor. Fighting a bout of dizzyness, I entered it and pressed the ground floor bottom.

The wall beside the buttons was a mirror. The figure standing there looked like a creature from a horror movie. Pale face, matted hair, scabby lips, an unhealthy stoop, and a bruise under one eye. She was in a white, oversized coat, bare-calved and barefoot—a zombie on her bad-hair day.

No wonder the trolley man's jaw had dropped.

The cabin opened into a lobby, a high room with a glass front and a stately, majestically revolving door, a receptionist's desk to the right, and a lounge with chairs and idling patients or visitors on the other side. Its stone floor was chilly under my feet.

A handful of people stood by the desk, talking. One of them was the dark-skinned, gray-haired doctor I had seen in my room. She was addressing a wiry man who wore a police uniform.

My guard!

He was looking away from me, his eyes on the doctor. But the woman would see me when I ran for the door.

There was no other exit in sight.

The doctor laughed at something, then motioned the officer towards the elevators, towards me.

I brushed a hand through my hair, letting the messy strands fall over my face, and started towards the exit. I must have looked like a freak, a drop-out, sleepwalking a hospital lobby with her eyes on a notepad, naked feet making a clapping sound on the floor.

The doctor's high-pitched voice drew nearer. "...might wake up before noon, but you never know for sure."

Right, woman—you never knew for sure.

They passed me.

I was halfway to the beckoning door.

"When she's awake," the officer said, "we'll... hey, you!" The last two words were a shout.

I didn't look back, I just ran, reached the revolving door, and entered it. Once enclosed in one of its pie-shaped sections, I glanced back through the glass. The police officer was all eyes and open mouth as he reached the next compartment behind me. His muffled voice told me to stop in the name of the law.

I decided I couldn't hear him.

When the door released me, I gave it a shove, hoping that this would trigger its safety mechanism and slow down its revolutions. Then I made for the hospital's driveway.

I, Anne, a rebel running from the police.