Page 23 of Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad World

“I got that much.” She pointed to the sign on the ceiling.

Now it was his turn to look embarrassed. “One of my younger teammates was worried you’d wake up and start screaming. He figured a bit of information might head that off.”

Annabelle shrugged. “I think the signs are cute. And they worked.”

His soulful eyes captured hers, making it hard to look away. It was as though the surrounding air had become charged. If she’d drawn it, she would have made the room’s background dark, then had threadlike lines of gold darting between them.

She blinked, and the moment was gone. “Why did the DA’s office hire you?” she asked before drinking more water.

He ran a hand over his short, sandy hair and winced. There was a nasty-looking wound where some of his hair should have been.

“What happened to your head?” she asked, not waiting for his reply to her first question.

“First,” he said, “either the DA’s office or the cops has a leak, and the guys you’re testifying against found out your location. Second, they came to stop you from testifying, shot out a monitor screen, and part of it embedded itself in my head.”

A wave of memory almost knocked her back onto the mattress. “The panic room! Gunfire! My apartment!”

Annabelle shot to her feet, threw the door open, and ran out into a room full of people. She screeched to a halt as they all turned to smile at her.

“Nice jammies,” a tall, redheaded man said with a grin.

Two exact copies of him stood at his side.

And that’s when she knew what had happened. Her greatest fear had come true.

She’d completely lost her mind.

As Annabelle started to shake, Noah stepped in front of her. He gently grasped her shoulders, making her look up at him.

“Take a breath,” he said calmly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

She took several breaths. “Tell me the truth,” she whispered, “am I in an asylum and suffering from delusions? Am I hallucinating? Did I have a psychotic break?”

“No,” he said firmly. “You had the flu, and you’ve been out of it for three days. But you aren’t imagining anything.”

She leaned closer to him. “I’m seeing three versions of the same man.”

Noah fought to hide a smile. “They’re triplets.”

Her hazel eyes stared at him. “How do I know this is real and not some psychotic delusion? It’s just like that Buffy episode where she’s in a mental institute, dreaming about life in Sunnydale. That episode shattered my faith in the Buffyverse. After that, I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”

Noah’s lips twitched. “I’ll help you out here. Buffy isn’t real. The triplets are. They’re part of my team.”

He moved to her side. But it wasn’t close enough to give Annabelle the reassurance she craved, so she closed the distance even further, almost plastering herself to his side.

“Annabelle,” Noah said as he gestured to the people dotted around the room, “meet the Benson Security team tasked with keeping you alive and well. Introduce yourselves, guys.”

“I’m Harris,” the man who’d commented on her pajamas said, “and these are my brothers, Evan and Logan. You don’t need your eyesight tested. We’re identical triplets. We’re also IVF babies. I’m pretty sure our mother ordered us up this way on purpose just so we’d have to spend our lives telling people they weren’t seeing things. Her sense of humor’s dodgy at best.” His broad Scottish accent lent itself to the surrealness of her situation. “Evan is our computer geek, Logan’s our procurement officer, and I’m public relations.” His descriptions seemed to amuse his brothers.

“You’re… from Scotland?” she asked.

“Aye, but we work here now.” Harris’ smile was dazzling, but it didn’t have the same effect on her as Noah’s.

“I’m Violet Lee.” A petite Asian woman, looking to be in her early thirties, stepped forward as she spoke. She had the same accent as the triplets and looked angry. “I used to be a police detective, but now I work for Benson Security.”

Annabelle looked up at Noah. “Is everyone on this team from Scotland?”

“Only the crazy ones.”