She thought about trying to say thank you, but somewhere between the thought and the words, she slipped back into sleep.

*

This time, when she woke up, Jessie was actually capable of opening her eyes.

As she looked around the room, she was able to immediately tell that she was out of the ICU and in a regular room. For one thing, it was much quieter. Instead of dozens of beeps and voices, she heard only one machine beeping occasionally.

The lights were off and the shades were pulled. But the bright sun leaking through at the edges told her it was the middle of the day.

Which day though?

She glanced over at the two small, uncomfortable-looking chairs in the corner of the room. Both were occupied by sleeping people. One was Agent Dolan, who snored softly. In the other chair was Kat Gentry. If she was here, that meant she’d come from Europe, which suggested Jessie had been out for quite a while.

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A doctor was coming in. He must have noticed she’d woken up. Seeing Kat and Dolan asleep in the chairs, he closed the door quietly after entering and walked over without a sound. With his baby face and shaggy brown hair, he looked far too young be a doctor, though Jessie suspected he was probably older than she was.

“Hi,” he whispered when he was right next to her. “I’m Dr. Riggs. You must be Jessie.”

She nodded, not sure how effective her voice would be after this long without speaking.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” he said. “I can’t answer all of them. But I can tell you how you’re doing medically. Do you think you’re up for that?”

She nodded again.

“Okay. The short version is that you don’t have any permanent damage, though you will be moving slowly for a while. The knife wound to the right side of your back required thirty-seven stitches. You’ll have limited mobility in that area for a while and will need extensive physical therapy. The wound to your right thigh was especially traumatic and will take quite some time to heal. And, of course, you’re going to have a number of additional scars. Considering you were stabbed or cut over two dozen times and lost a lot of blood, I’d say you came out of the whole thing pretty well. You also have a cracked rib, a fractured left wrist, a strained right ACL, and a concussion to go with a pretty sizable knot on your head. As you can imagine with that being the short version, the long version will take some time. But we can save that for later.”

Jessie took a moment to let everything he’d said settle in. Considering that she wasn’t sure she’d ever wake up when she drifted off in that mansion, she considered herself lucky.

“Murph?” she managed to croak. She braced herself for the answer.