“I couldn’t run the idea by you. You haven’t been answering voice mail, email, or texts. For all I knew, you’d been kidnapped again.”

“Let’s not be overly melodramatic,” Pia said as a chill descended her spine. She recoiled at George’s comment as if he had slapped her. Since the episode of having been kidnapped back in New York as the culmination of a series of tragic events, she had tried to suppress the whole experience, but it still consumed her, as attested to by the nightmare from which George had just rescued her.

“Okay,” Pia said with another sigh, noisily letting air escape from her lungs like a deflating balloon. “I guess you’re right, I have been out of touch, but not deliberately. I mean I haven’t been ignoring you specifically. I’ve been so busy, I’ve been ignoring everyone and everything.”

Pia gathered her thoughts as the shock of seeing George and the anxiety of her nightmare abated. “Listen, I don’t mean to be an ass. I had a hard night. I worked till six this morning, and instead of sleeping when I got back, I went for a run. After that I tried to read. This isn’t a great time for me to have company.” Pia sighed again. The reality of having to deal with George was sinking in.

The more her mind cleared, the more she realized that George’s sudden appearance was probably her fault, and not just because she had been ignoring his persistent attempts to reconnect. The problem really stemmed from what she had said to him, standing in a hospital room in New York two years before, at the very end of the events surrounding her kidnapping. She knew she’d encouraged him more than she should have. She’d talked to him about love, how she didn’t know what love meant and how she wanted to change and be more like George, who she knew loved her, as evidenced by his steadfast personal generosity, which he had showered on her, despite little encouragement from her.

At the time, Pia and George had been speaking in the presence of their fellow medical student, Will McKinley, who was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by monitors, stuck full of tubes and barely clinging to life. He’d been shot in the head, just like he had in Pia’s nightmare, and left for dead by Pia’s kidnappers, the men who wanted Pia and, secondarily, George to stop investigating the death of Pia’s mentor, Tobias Rothman, a death Pia had eventually proved to be murder. Pia felt another chill creep through her body. Thinking about the whole horrid affair and Will’s shooting was something she doubted she’d ever be able to come to terms with.

“Have you heard anything new about Will?” Pia asked, hoping for some good news since she assumed George was more in contact with their previous classmates than she.

“Last I heard, things were pretty much the same. That was a few weeks ago. Antibiotics still haven’t been able to rid him of infection. Nor have multiple surgical debridements.”