Chapter Thirty-One
At Long Last, Arturo
Valentina lay still with her eyes closed, feeling strange. The light beyond her eyelids was bright and the space around her was quiet, save for the soft sound of someone nearby breathing. That was weird enough, considering when her consciousness had slipped away she had been surrounded by gunfire and explosions, harsh bursts of light, and the flickering heat of fires burning out of control. But it wasn’t the strangest thing.
She could swear she was only wearing a single thin garment, sleeveless and not long enough to cover her legs, and there was only a whisper-thin layer of sheet and baby-soft blanket over that. So how could she be so perfectly warm?
This was definitely the oddest thing she’d ever felt. The lack of pain in her entire body—in her
