His head snapped up. Hoping.
But he knew that hadn’t been her voice. He knew the voice that moaned. And while he was anxious, and excited, he was also deeply disappointed.
Walking over to the bedside, he began talking before he even got there. “David?”
Fingers twitched. Eyeballs moved beneath the eyelids in a pattern similar to REM sleep, but now identifiable as coming out. The moan came again, sounding more like the creak of old hinges than anything human, and Jordan wondered briefly why their bodies weren’t getting more used to this. Why it wasn’t seeming just like a normal waking up.
As usual, a stray glance cast its way toward Jillian, but registered nothing.
David, however, was rapidly coming around. His eyes fluttered. His hand clenched in a full grasp, and his right arm twitched, eliciting a swift intake of breath that Jordan guessed was none other than pain from having pulled against that dislocated shoulder.
“Son of a bitch!”
Jordan almost laughed at the words. They weren’t perfectly formed. But he could tell what David had said.
“Hey, David.” He smiled at the man on the gurney. Maybe this meant Jillian would wake up, too. But then again she had gone under first.
Jordan pushed that thought away, it would do him no good, and he turned back.
David’s eyes focused on him and he spoke again. “Son of a bitch.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” The words were thick but no longer slurred.
“What do you mean?”
A sigh of defeat escaped David, and for the first time that Jordan had ever seen, the regal bearing slipped away from him. “I was staying awake. I was . . . well, I guess I wasn’t.” He turned to look at the wall, and Jordan heard the whisper, “Shit.”
So he distracted David, waved the EEG papers in front of him. “You want to tell me what happened about an hour ago?”
“What?” It worked. David was no longer swearing nor looking at the blank white canvas in front of him.
“About an hour ago both you and Jillian registered some brain activity.”
“Really?” He reached for the papers with his left hand at the same time he asked, “What time is it now?”
“About two a.m.”
David examined the readouts in front of him, and, as smart as he was, Jordan figured he had at least a rudimentary knowledge of what he was looking at. “So that’s what it looks like.”
“What what looks like?” Jordan held up the second set of papers. “Jillian’s got it, too. What is it?”
David took a breath and gathered himself, looking at Jordan, really looking at him, for maybe the first time ever - not just sizing him up, but reading him. And maybe even reading correctly. Jordan couldn’t say he liked it. David reading him made him damned nervous. But he needed to know. “What is it?”
“Jillian will have to tell you.”
That was what happened when David read you. Nothing good could come of it. So Jordan nodded and tried again. “Maybe you can ask her next time you see her.”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
His mouth opened for a rude comeback, but he noticed David pointing with his right finger. The hand wasn’t good for much besides pointing to the left, but it did its job now.
And he heard it: a rustle of sheets.
Abandoning David, he flew the three steps to stand directly beside her. Eyelids quivered with the rapid movement beneath. Her fingers twitched again, and her chest moved like she would moan.
But she couldn’t, because of the tube down her throat.
So Jordan stood over her, barely feeling the smile that spread unknowingly across his face, as her lids fluttered and fluttered again before opening. “Welcome back.”
Her eyes burned. And all she could think was that this was the worst part, so she forced herself through a few rapid blinks.
Jordan stood over her, an idiot grin on his face. “Of course you came back, I just saved your life.”
What the hell does that mean?
But she really couldn’t give it much thought. She couldn’t talk yet. She still felt rusty. But if she could have she would have started in. That was just like her and Jordan. She wakes up from a coma, and he starts sparring with her.
It felt good to be home.
The air was better over here, or something.
But she closed her eyes, letting the grit slide past. Because she remembered what David wanted her to do. What she was pretty sure she had agreed to do, just before she drifted off to sleep.
“No! Jilly!” Jordan’s voice, frantic with worry, broke through her morbid thoughts. She felt his hands on hers, smacking at the back of them, touching her forehead, resting on her cheeks. But she couldn’t much blame him for panicking when she closed up and shut out the world. She did keep slipping into a coma. So she opened her eyes to the relief on his face. And only then did she register the sounds around her.
Crickets chirped in the background, a few birds made calls in the middle of the night. It sounded like home. But overlaying all that was the bleep of a heart monitor, the hiss of a ventilator, and the feeling that she was wired to everything. Only then did she catch a glimpse at the edge of her vision, and managed to tie together what the dry feeling in her throat was.
She was intubated.
And Jordan would never have done that to her if he hadn’t had to.
A moment of pure panic settled over her. Now that she knew what the tube was, she had to get it out. Her brain knew she shouldn’t remove it herself, but her hands scrambled for purchase and her eyes watered. Her chest fought for the right to breathe, fighting the ventilator.
Warm strong hands closed over hers, and while she knew it was Jordan, and that she should have been comforted, the hands pushed hers away, stopping her from her goal. Before she could protest, his face was over hers, his eyes staring at her, making certain she understood. “Jilly. You have to wait. Let me listen, then we’ll take it out.”
He was lying. He wouldn’t necessarily remove the tube. Only if the sounds were right. Only if she was going to breathe well enough for herself when he took it out. But she wanted to believe.
The urge to swallow was overwhelming. She wanted to fight, but she tamped it all down, knowing that Jordan was right. And she simply blinked a few tears back, as she felt his hand slide under her shirt. The plastic circle of the stethoscope touched her once, twice, waiting each time, while she forced patience upon herself. She counted.
“You’re good.”
The words brought a flood of relief, but no real comfort. She managed a slight nod, filled with panic and tension, when he asked her point blank if she was ready. Jordan walked her through coughing, while he steadily slipped the tube up her throat. She had to cough twice, even though she knew it took most patients only once.
Finally when she was able to breathe for herself, she felt like oxygen was flooding her, even though she was fairly certain she’d been getting more of it through the machine. Her lungs worked rapidly, reestablishing their dominance.
Again she felt the hands. They grabbed hers and pinned them at her side. Why? Why was he holding her down?
Again, teal eyes looked into hers. “Jilly, you’re shaking, you were about to knock out your IV.” His arms came up to hold her, one hand stroking her face, and only as he said the words, “Jilly, don’t cry” did she realize that his fingers had come away wet.
So she squeezed her eyes shut, and leaned into him, while he pulled her into a sitting position, as she re-learned to breathe. In and out. In and out. Finally settling into a semblance of her normal rhythm.
“You feeling better now?”
Her head jerked around. And her lungs began to shove all the air out. It should have been a scream, but she still didn’t have much of a voice from being intubated. Instead, she pushed out a soft but shrill wail that seared her throat like nothing she could ever remember.
David nodded at her, not bot
hering to look happy, or surprised, or anything other than pissed off.
When her breathing returned to normal, she realized she was staring at him. Just as she was going to do something about it, a gentle pressure on the side of her face turned her back to where she was inches from Jordan’s concern. “It’s just David.” But he looked at her a little deeper, wanting an explanation of why David would make her scream.
So she told him.
Only no sound came out.
And after a moment she realized it was a damn good thing that no sound came out. Because she had started to explain what had happened.
David was going to have to kill her over there. There was no way she could show her face again. No doubt the techs had already found their naked, comatose bodies entwined on the gurney. Oh yeah, that was one for the books.
She felt the heat flood her face, and she did her best to bury it in Jordan’s chest.
At last she found a whisper, and, figuring it was the best she was going to get, she settled for it. “David’s supposed to be asleep.”
“Because?”
Her breathing was kicking up and she wanted to fan her face with her hand. To fight the flush, to work off some of the nervous energy, to cover for the fact that she was panicking again. She never did things like that - and certainly not where she was going to get found out.
She turned and looked David in the eye. “We made a deal.”
“Good.” His voice was like ice. “I was afraid you were going to back out.”
“So you showed up here to check on me?” She shifted in Jordan’s arms, but he didn’t seem to want to let go of her. Jillian really gave it no thought, other than that it was comfortable, and it was working to stave off another panic attack. There was nothing she hated more than being a helpless female.
Word by word, her voice grew stronger, “Trust me, I’m not backing out after that wake up.” Her eyes focused on the straps and casts that held David in the bed, if not by force then by inability. “Is that what it’s like for you when you wake up over here?”
He didn’t speak, but his eyes held hers as he nodded.
She shuddered a bit at the thought. “I don’t want to do that again.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” He grinned, but it wasn’t in humor. “So you’ll do it?”
She couldn’t look him in the eye, not with what she was agreeing to. But in the end, this would set her free, too. “Yes.”
When she found some backbone, some of the flash of anger she had felt before returned. “So why are you here?”
He spoke plainly as though it wasn’t his fault. “I fell asleep.”
“Why?”
“I’m male, it’s what we do!”
She couldn’t help the flush that crept up her cheeks, and David laughed just a little, a real laugh, at her expense. She felt more than saw Jordan’s bewilderment through his arms. Finally, he found a voice to add to the conversation. “What?”
“Nothing.” She and David both said it at the same time, looking away, and she figured Jordan had to have figured it all out. But when she finally looked up again, he seemed just as confused.
Silence reigned for a while, but it was David who started up again. “So, do you want to tell him what we decided?”
Thoughts of conspiracy charges flitted through her head. It was bad enough that she would do the thing. “No.”
But David surprised her by taking a stance. “I think we ought to. I don’t want to take a chance that you’ll back down.”
“I won’t-”
But he didn’t allow her to finish. His eyes quickly darted from Jordan to her and he simply began talking over her. “I think the boy has a vested interest in setting this to rights. I think he’ll be helpful.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Jordan’s voice cut through the argument, and Jillian knew there was nothing she could do to stop David from telling Jordan whatever he wanted. She also realized in that moment, that she didn’t want Jordan to know what she had done. That she had been curious and frustrated and scared, and that she had turned into willing arms.
She couldn’t really work up any good shame over it. She just didn’t want the embarrassment of the explanation. And the way she figured it, in this world it didn’t exist. But the men talked right by her thoughts, and Jillian needed to know what David was spilling.
But he wasn’t spilling anything, he was performing a careful set-up worthy of a courtroom. His question was directed at Jordan, “What happened to Jillian while we were under?”
As Jillian waited for his response, she realized that at close range his jaw was squarer than she thought, his shadow had progressed well beyond five o’clock, but it wasn’t enough to hide the clench of a tiny muscle in the side when David grilled him. “Her stats got so low we had to put her on IVs and intubate her to keep her breathing. Then the brass decided you two weren’t worth the money to keep on the machinery.”
Her breath pulled in, again burning her raw throat. “They were going to pull the plug on me?”
He nodded, “You looked brain dead.”
“I woke up just in time, then.” The pure chance of it didn’t sit well with her, but it didn’t have to, Jordan spoke up.
“No you didn’t. I found enough evidence to mount a case and they decided to let us keep you on it.”
Jillian felt her bones lose some of their starch, and she slumped down against him. “Thank you.”
When he nodded, she felt it against the top of her head.
But David interrupted again, keeping the conversation on the track of his choice. “If we can work this out, then Jillian won’t go under again.”
“I’m listening.” Jordan’s voice was hard, and so were his arms. He clearly didn’t think he was going to like what he heard, and Jillian knew he wasn’t.
“When I get back over there, I’m going to pull her plug, or medicate her, or suffocate her if necessary.”
The arms around her tightened with each gruesome description, until she couldn’t draw in enough air. They let up only when she started the makings of another panic attack. But Jordan had only a quick apology for her before he lit into David.
But she watched David, and he may have been lying on his side, casted from stem to stern, but he spoke with authority and slowly chipped away at Jordan’s resistance.
Jordan threw every what-if? at him. “What if she dies?”
“Then I die.” Jillian jumped into the fray. She wanted Jordan’s help, but she wasn’t about to let him talk them out of this. “It’s better than this going back and forth. That was the worst wake up ever. At the rate things are going I’m going to die soon anyway. At least this way I get a choice.”
Jordan focused on her, effectively removing David from the conversation, and by his intensity, David might have not even been on the planet. “So if he kills you over there, then you stay here . . .”
She nodded.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Again, “Yes.”
Jordan stared David down. “What do you get out of this?”
But David didn’t give any ground. “You two do the same for me over here. So I can stay there.”
“But why?” Jordan had leaned back away from her. He looked back and forth between the two of them, as though he saw what had happened, even though it hadn’t been mentioned. As if to ask, ‘why would two lovers want to go separate ways forever?’
Jillian stepped in before David could. “His father’s over there. And over here he’s facing massive amounts of therapy and at least a couple surgeries. There he’s whole.”
David looked embarrassed by that last bit, like he always was when the topic of his tumbling down the steps came up.
For the next half hour Jillian stood up and stretched, and traced a circle already worn in the grass, while Jordan grilled them both. He brought up every contingency he could think of. Threw out every way it could go wrong. Pointed out time and again that no one knew what could
happen and that they just might really kill themselves in some very warped version of Romeo and Juliet.
Jillian pressed her voice into service. “I’m going to die soon anyway. If I’m lucky I’ll get stuck on one side or the other - just wind up wherever I am when my vitals finally give out. This way I get to choose, I get to stay here.”
His eyes looked through her. He saw so much more than anyone else. But he was thinking. And she knew he couldn’t argue her logic.
Finally he spoke. “Potassium chloride.”
She almost jumped with joy, she just didn’t have quite enough energy.
“Will you please tell me what the hell he just said?” David’s droll tone cut into her happiness, but she simply turned and gave an explanation.
“It will stop your heart, and then mostly break down. No autopsy would turn it up unless they were looking for it. And you already have an IV so there won’t be any puncture marks.”
David nodded. “Painless?”
Jordan shrugged. “You’ll be comatose, you shouldn’t feel a thing.”
David rolled over and looked at Jillian, “And what about you?”
How did she answer that? How did she choose a method to die? Especially when what she really wanted was to live. But in order to do that, she had to kill off the Jillian on the other side. She shuddered before opening her mouth.
But the sounds she heard weren’t from her voice. It was Jordan. Explaining that the potassium chloride was the best method, where to find it unless the tents had been rearranged, how to draw it up, and how to inject it.
“Good.” David turned and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, speaking to the air in general. “Now there’s just one more problem. How do we get me back under so we can do all this?”
25
Jordan had begun to question his own sanity. He was walking through the tents with a syringe of potassium chloride in his top pocket. It was hidden by the jacket he wore, and he was certain that no one would notice.
What he wasn’t certain of was why he had done it. They should have plenty of time once David went under to get the medication and dose him. They should have hours. But he had seen the opportunity and drawn it up right there in the supply tent.
Resonance Page 43
