She thought that perhaps she was dreaming. That would have explained a lot … hell, it would have explained everything. The sense of unreality; the fact that to her senses, Lynch was moving in what appeared to be slow motion. Lynch’s face was smeared with dirt and what appeared to be burn marks, and there were bits of dirt in his short-cropped red hair. His lips were moving, slowly and deliberately, but no actual sound was emerging. His eyes were wide with urgency and Mallory, for the life of her, couldn’t understand why. Why is Lynch in my quarters? For that matter, it’s broad daylight … why was I sleeping during broad daylight? Where’s Janus? In her bewildered, stream-of-consciousness flood of thought, Janus—her husband of four years—became the touchstone. Her thoughts locked onto him, as if she were being swept helplessly down a river and he was a jutting boulder in the middle that she was able to grab onto and find purchase. No … we got up this morning. Janus shook my shoulder, woke me up.
