Darkness Unbound by Zoe Forward

squinted making out brunette hair cut into a neat bob surrounding a face that was my-way-or-no-way tough. Her old boss, Colonel Holly Greene, director of operations at the Company. Had she dreamed up magi and the guy with glowing blue hair?
    That bar scene had seemed so real. She also remembered the ripping pain of bullets searing her body when she rescued that kid, Cy, from the Hashishin compound a few days ago. Maybe she’d dreamed everything that occurred after she rescued Cy, and was in the hospital from those wounds.
    The skin tats from magikal healing would confirm the magi as reality. But a few ineffective tugs against the arm and leg restraints proved glimpsing her skin a futile endeavor, at least for the moment.
    “Where’s Kane?” Colonel Greene demanded.
    Even through the fog of pain and dizziness, a soul-deep protective instinct pushed her to silence. The Company didn’t need to know about magi. If she mentioned them or the guy with glowing blue hair, they’d no doubt invite a shrink to visit her.
    She wished all of it to be real. As an outsider for most of her life with the bizarre doorway-opening problem and then having a wall-banging one-nighter with a supernatural guy from the past, she longed to find someone that might understand. With those magi she might’ve found a group that accepted magikal weirdness without judging her to be several cards shy of a full deck.
    Her right fist closed tight around something sharp. The knife from Amun-Ra’s arm. Relief whooshed through her. You’re not crazy. It’s not a dream.
    Then logic hit. Why wasn’t the colonel disarming her? Maybe she couldn’t see the blade.
    The world shifted eerily, and her stomach rendered a final warning. “Gonna puke.” Seconds later stomach contents coated her and the colonel.
    “Damn it,” the colonel complained, swiping debris from her face. She gripped Astrid’s chin and lowered her face close. “Lieutenant Scarre. Focus. Where is Langford?”
    Kane? Ingrained military submissive behavior had her replying, “Don’t know.” Technically, that was correct even though a vision of the magi estate flashed through her mind.
    The room teetered. Her stomach clenched again.
    “All right. That’s enough!”
    She recognized the voice. She squinted through complaining eyes to see the too good-looking blond in green scrubs and a surgery cap.
    Christian’s gaze swung to hers. He pushed a pair of wireframes up his nose. With a disdainful sigh he said, “My God, what is this hospital coming to? Where’s the nurse? I demand to know who allowed my patient to sit in her own vomit.”
    “I don’t know who you think you are, but this is my operation. Get out,” Colonel Greene ordered.
    “No. You’re done here. She is my surgical patient. Now she has to get a bath before prep. Christ, I hate being behind schedule.” He rolled his watch and drama huffed.
    The colonel closed in on him.
    Christian squared off. “Don’t make me call hospital security on you, ma’am. I’ll have you and your cohorts locked out of this room faster than you can say don’t-you-dare.” Softly he said, “Please, leave Ms. Scarre’s room. All of you.”
    To Astrid’s shock the colonel nodded, and all evac-ed.
    Christian pulled a smart phone from his scrubs’ shirt pocket. His fingers flew over the keys for a few seconds. He waited for the phone’s soft ding indicating a reply before addressing her.
    He approached with his back to the viewing door, where she glimpsed a too-avid audience. He wiped at the puke coating her with a towel and whispered, “I’m sorry about all of this, especially about how shitty you probably feel right now. And smell. Damn, you’re ripe. What a clusterfuck.”
    “What’s going on?”
    “Shhh. I can’t bring Kira in here to fix you. Too exposed. Too popular an area right now. So we’re going to have you out in a few minutes. On my count, the lights are going down. There will be a ten-second delay before back-up