THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

block her fall.
    She squeezed her eyes closed and hunched her shoulders, preparing to hit face first.
    And stopped in mid-air.
    An arm scooped around her waist right before her face should have smashed into the ground.
    She opened her eyes.
    Yep, that smooth flat surface she stared at had to be the floor, because the two feet in odd sandals also in view matched the ones Jaxxson wore.
    He hoisted her up to stand on her own and released her, stepping back with a strange expression. A mix of confusion and surprise.   
    Yeah, she was freaky, but this guy had no idea just how weird.
    Want to talk freaky? Take a look at this place .
    Awe stretched through her voice when she said, “This has got to be the most rockin’ tree house I’ve ever seen.”  The room looked about fifteen feet across and more like an apartment than a doctor’s office. Nothing cold and sterile here.
    She sniffed. Eucalyptus? Sort of. And something else just as soothing. Sage? Or maybe lavender? It could be from the rough-hewn wood of the tree walls, toned down from the outside stripes. How cool was this to be inside the heart of a living, breathing tree?
    Or were they? “Is this tree still alive?”
    “Of course it is.”  He strolled away.
    She scrunched up her face and silently mimicked his words Of course it is, but he didn’t see her.
    Jaxxson stopped at a wall where an odd assortment of dried plants hung from a vine line. He pulled a wooden bowl off a crude shelf and sat it on a large slab table that was covered with a soft-looking gray skin of some kind. Reaching for several dried plants, he used a polished rock to crush the leaves into the bowl.
    Definitely not like any kind of hospital or clinic that she’d ever seen.
    Glancing up higher, there appeared to be another room accessed by a hand-hewn ladder, like a loft. She asked, “You live here?”  
    Putting down the bowl, he turned to her, a furrow between his brows as if he still tried to figure out something about her. “This is my temporary quarters until we find a way home.”
    So he wasn’t from here either.
    “Where’s home?” she asked, trying to figure out the emotion beneath his words. He’d gone from adversarial to quiet since she’d stepped inside this place. Maybe the scents in here had a calming effect on him, too.
    He took his time answering. “Back through the transender.”
    “You mean that–” Just then she noticed something new about the table in front of him. No table legs. Nothing between the slab and the floor. “Is that, uh, floating on its own?”
    He looked down at the space beneath the slab then back at her. “Of course it is. I need you to sit on the surface so I can treat you.”
    She started to tell him the thing was too high when the slab suddenly levitated down low enough for her to easily slide onto it.
    But she didn’t move. Had that really happened or was this guy some kind of magician, which could mean he was fooling her about everything, even being a healer.
    He ordered, “Sit.”
    Considering all the bizarre things she’d encountered since Rayen’s hand had been sucked into that computer screen, Gabby decided to just roll with this for now. She inched herself onto the slab, waiting for it to slam to the floor at any second, Jaxxson reached for his bowl of ground-up leaf mixture. He grasped a handful that he let sift through his fingers as if checking to see if the texture suited him. Then he added some liquid from another bowl.
    Was he a healer...or a witchdoctor?
    What if that evil-eyed tile girl had convinced Mathias to do this as a set up? 
    Scary second thoughts bombarded Gabby. Her heart rate increased like a sprinter going for a record and her breathing shortened until it came in pants.
    What exactly was that stuff Jaxxson held? Would it do more harm than the red vines? What if he’d brought her here to interrogate then kill? She knew nothing about tek-nah-tees. Would he believe her?
    He paused, cocking his head to one side. “Why are you becoming more distressed?”
    Had he read her thoughts? Without touching her? To hide her surprise at his question, she asked him one. “What kind of doctor are you?”
    “Heal-er,” he said in an exaggerated voice of impatience. “Understand?”
    She buried her worry under her temper. “Oh, I understand. Doc-tor A-hole. Got it.”
    If not for the dire circumstances, she’d get a laugh at the dumbfounded look on his face that said he had no idea what she’d just called him.