Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5)

by Winters, Pepper

  He flinched and looked away.

  “What aren’t you telling me? What did you do? Please tell me you didn’t take more. Please tell me you weren’t that stupid!”

  Raking both hands through his hair, he groaned and made eye contact. “You’re right again, I had another dose. I was lucky the first time...I’m not so lucky now—”

  “You took it because of me.”

  “I took it so I could come after you.”

  Rage exploded through me. Anger and pain and every fury on the planet. “How could you?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” He flinched and rubbed his chest, a greyness creeping over his sex-glowing skin. “I couldn’t let you die, not because of me—”

  “And by taking more of that awful drug, you took away all my choices. Don’t I get a say in this?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, you don’t.”

  I grabbed his arm, hating the ice chilling him already. “That’s why you want me to forgive you? You think I can forgive you for killing yourself for me? I love you, you son of a bitch, and you’ve just taken everything we had and burned it to the ground. How am I supposed to survive without you—”

  “At least I know you’re safe—”A grunt of pain shut him up. Internal pain I couldn’t see or stop.

  Tears splashed down my cheeks. My chest cracked open. “Safe? I’m the opposite of safe. I’m heartbroken.”

  “Don’t. Please, don’t—” His eyes flared as if internal twinges grew worse.

  “We have to get you help. Get you to a doctor.” I flew off the bed, racing with my blanket dragging behind me. Hurry, hurry. “If we hurry, we can—”

  “Eleanor.” His hand clutched his chest over his heart. “Ah, fuck.”

  “No!” I bolted back to him. I dug my nails into his shoulders. “Sully, don’t you dare. Don’t you even fucking dare—”

  His eyes met mine again, wild and full of regrets. “Jinx...I—”

  He tipped forward, crashing off the bed.

  Chapter Twelve

  SO THIS IS WHAT it feels like to die.

  Not at the hands of someone else.

  Not through torture or torment, elixir or old age.

  This was how it felt when your very body shut up shop and shooed you out the fucking door.

  Christ!

  I lay on the floor, vaguely aware that my broken leg had crunched in my fall. Who the hell knew if I’d broken another bone or at what angle it rested. I’d lost all sensation in my extremities.

  “SULLY!” The floor shuddered beside me as Eleanor crashed to her knees and clutched me close. Her touch was ruthless and unforgiving, rolling me from my crumpled pile and lying me flat on my back.

  I blinked, doing my best to focus on her.

  I thought I’d have more warning.

  I stupidly believed a clock would start, counting down my remaining heartbeats, giving me a heads-up to kill Drake, kiss Eleanor, and somehow make peace with my passing.

  But no...the wall that I’d been running headfirst toward had appeared, smashed me to pieces, and left me for dead.

  “Goddammit, Sully, don’t you dare do this to me!” Eleanor shook me. “Breathe.”

  I couldn’t feel her.

  I couldn’t feel her heat or her worry.

  All I felt was the strangeness of having to fight with everything I had for another breath. A breath that refused to come because my heart no longer operated.

  “Someone! HELP!” she screamed. “Anybody!”

  It sounded as if she existed down a long black tunnel. A tunnel I could no longer travel through.

  I choked.

  My heart turned into a fiery pyre.

  “Sully, God. Please!”

  My back bowed in her hold, muscles overriding my nervous system in their quest to function.

  I’d watched people die before.

  I was even the reason for a few of those endings.

  I’d read studies on death and was an expert on all manner of demises—thanks to my position in pharmaceuticals. However, this was new.

  No one mentioned in the medical journals how a life was systemically snuffed out.

  Two things happened.

  One, your body went into preservation mode, shutting off sensitivity to all areas apart from the one thing killing you. It was like a suction. A numbing, erasing suction that forced all my attention to lock onto the scrambled thud of a breaking heart.

  Two, your soul—if that was what we housed inside our mortal shells—detached. It no longer took ownership of a body it’d been birthed into but hovered free, unwilling to be associated with a rapidly failing machine.

  “Sully. Fuck, don’t do this. Please, please don’t do this! Fight it! Stay with me.” She hugged my head on her knees and rocked over me. I couldn’t console her. I couldn’t apologise or tell her how much I fucking loved her.

  I couldn’t feel the fierceness of her hands or the wetness of her tears.

  All I could feel was the fading.

  The pain and the coldness.

  The inevitability of goodbye.

  “HELP! For God’s sake, help!”

  Her screams were muted now. My ears failing.

  Her manic strength was feeble now. My body no longer reacting.

  Her attempts to keep me with her useless now as my heart chased its last beat.

  My hectic, harrowed pulse grew quieter, slower...gone.

  “No!” Shoving my head off her lap, she bent over me and pressed her mouth to mine.

  Breath poured into my lungs.

  Bracing over me, she pumped my chest with two fists, performing CPR on a body that had already died.

  She screamed words again, but I no longer comprehended such a tongue.

  Her mouth on mine. Her fingers pinching my nose. Her breath filling my chest.

  Her pummels on my heart grew fiercer, driving my spine into the floor.

  Eleanor...stop.

  She screamed and yelled and shouted incomprehensible things.

  I loved her.

  Please don’t be sad. It’s better this way.

  She breathed into me again, delivering oxygen that my body no longer knew how to convert into life.

  I had no way of begging for absolution. No words to beg for a second chance. No way to tell her how grateful I was for her. How I’d always be hers...even if we now had to exist apart.

  I would wait for her.

  I’d claim her again...if she ever fell to hell.

  I’d wait for her forever.

  My muscles seized in their death dance.

  I jerked on the floor, sending another gush of screams from Eleanor.

  My eyes popped wide as the final lance of pain stabbed clean through me. A lance directly into my heart and the useless non-thumping chambers.

  Eleanor...

  She faded.

  Darkness gathered at my edges, spilling into my corners and descending over me.

  It took my vision.

  It took my soul-mate.

  It took me.

  Goodbye...

  Chapter Thirteen

  I WON’T LET HIM die.

  I won’t.

  You can’t die, Sully.

  I forbid it.

  Forbid it!

  I alternated between forcing every drop of oxygen I had into his mouth and pounding his chest with furious CPR. Digging the heels of my fists over his heart, I wanted to crack apart his ribs and bury my hands inside him. I wanted to massage his heart and force it to restart.

  Stay alive!

  Please!

  He felt wrong.

  He felt...gone.

  His mouth lax. His body prone. His life force and essence, his mercurial, wonderful spirit had abandoned me.

  He can’t!

  “God, please.” Feeding air into him, I sucked in another breath for me, driving my weight against his ribs. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

  I ducked again, pinching his nose and breathing before returning to my war against his st
opped heart.

  “Sully!”

  His head bobbed each time I dug into his chest. His lips parted and glistened from where I breathed into him. His skin was icy, the colour already receding from his tanned skin. His legs lay sprawled in painful directions, his arms useless beside him.

  There was no vitality left.

  No sinful smirk or savage power.

  Just an empty puppet with no one to pull its strings.

  “Sully, don’t. Come back. Please, please come back.” I breathed and pounded, breathed and pounded.

  I screamed.

  Tears began, breaking through my panic holding them at bay.

  I breathed into his mouth, leaving his lips painted with wet disbelief.

  I depressed his chest, leaving splashes of grief on his nakedness.

  “Anybody...somebody...please!”

  Every second he travelled further and further from my reach.

  Every useless attempt at keeping him with me sent him deeper into a realm I could not follow.

  “Sully!”

  I punched his heart.

  I kissed him instead of breathed for him.

  I lost myself.

  I hit him and begged him and did things I never thought I’d do.

  I kicked his wounded leg, hoping the pain would bring him back.

  I slapped his scruff-shadowed cheek, pleading shock to wake him up.

  I bit his lip as I exhaled deep into his lungs.

  “SOMEONE HELP ME!”

  He’s dying...

  He’s leaving.

  He’s gone.

  “No!”

  This was hell. This was utmost purgatory, and I was alone.

  I threw myself on him, renewing my efforts with heart presses and oxygen pouring.

  And finally, the universe decided to send aid.

  The door to the bedroom swung wide in the night.

  Not just one person to help me but four.

  Three men bolted forward while an older woman wearing a fluttering white nightgown ran in.

  A man with slicked-back dark hair and a goatee shoved me aside without apology, pressing his fingers to Sully’s throat.

  His eyes met mine. “No pulse.”

  I choked on sobs as I wrapped my arms around my bleeding, brutalising insides.

  Moving to Sully’s other side, he linked his hands together, placing them over the bruise I’d caused while palpitating Sully’s unbeating heart. “You breathe, I’ll pump.”

  Nodding manically, I swiped away my tears and did my best to swallow my sobs. Taking position by Sully’s head, I pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth.

  The man set a punishing pace, swift and deep with his compressions. “Brent, go get the defib. Andrew, call an ambulance.”

  Both men vanished.

  I continued breathing for Sully, keeping air in his cells and hope in his blood.

  The woman wrung her hands. “If he can be moved, there is a fully equipped surgery within the east wing. The previous owners needed in-home specialist care.” Her voice was pinched but calming. “There is oxygen and adrenaline and—”

  “We’ll move him if he breathes again.” The man kept driving his full weight onto Sully’s sternum while I continued breathing for him. No one cared that Sully was naked. No one eyed up my lack of clothing either. No self-consciousness or pity could be spared while we all focused on denying death its chosen soul.

  The slap of shoes on flagstones sounded as both men reappeared. “Ambulance is on its way.”

  A medical bag with its ominous red plus sign slid against the floor as a blond man tripped beside Sully. Ripping open the zipper, he pulled out a travel-size defibrillator.

  Use it quickly!

  I breathed everything I had into Sully.

  Come on. Come on!

  The leader swapped places with his underling. He grabbed the guy’s hands and placed them over Sully’s heart. “Keep performing CPR. Don’t stop until I say.”

  The man nodded and set into the rhythm of a strong and purposeful pulse.

  With confident fingers, the leader unfurled the cables and slapped electrical pads onto Sully’s chest.

  Fiddling with the machine, he pressed a button, and a high-pitched whine sounded.

  “Clear!”

  I sat away from Sully, and the man stopped depressing.

  The leader punched the button, and Sully’s form jerked off the floor. He collapsed again, his head lolling sideways.

  The leader paused, pressing his fingers once again to Sully’s throat. “Still nothing.”

  Resetting the machine, he yelled, “Keep your hands off him until I say otherwise.” He electrocuted Sully again.

  He jerked up and flopped down.

  Nothing.

  My own heart threatened to go into cardiac arrest. Still tender from elixir and foggy from a sedative, it couldn’t cope with the possibility of finding Sully and then losing him forever.

  Tears tracked silently.

  The urge to touch him became excruciating.

  The machine whined again before another bolt of power shot into Sully’s useless heart.

  “Fuck.” The leader searched for a pulse again. His gaze met mine. “Breathe for him.” Pressing his hands together, he shoved the other man away and drove the heels of his palms into Sully’s chest.

  A rib cracked.

  He grunted as he pressed harder.

  I did as he asked, blowing as much air and love as I could down Sully’s throat.

  Come back to me.

  Please, please come back.

  He kept pumping.

  I kept breathing.

  Come on, Sully.

  This isn’t the end.

  I know it isn’t.

  It can’t be.

  Panting hard, the man pushed me away and picked up the small machine again. Activating the charge, he gritted his teeth and pressed the button. “Clear.”

  Sully jack-knifed off the floor.

  He fell back a second later, sprawled and lifeless and...

  Dead.

  He’s...dead.

  The finality of such a thing.

  The totality of the word.

  “NO!” I threw myself on him. I slapped his righteous cheek. “Wake up, you bastard. Wake up!”

  The woman grabbed me from behind, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear, making the urge to break down unavoidable.

  “The battery is getting low,” the man mumbled. “One last attempt.” Raking his hand over his sweaty face, he barked, “Clear!”

  And pressed the button.

  Sully shot upright.

  He fell backward.

  Still nothing.

  I broke.

  A keening sound escaped me. A high-pitched wail that I couldn’t control. I hugged myself and rocked. I bowed over my knees. I fell to the side, hugging the explosions annihilating me.

  The bomb in my soul. The shrapnel in my belly. The extermination in my core.

  He can’t be dead.

  He can’t.

  No!

  The faint howl of sirens announced the paramedics had arrived. The woman bustled to the door. “I’ll bring them here straight away.”

  The men lingered, not knowing how to help me or Sully.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Grace.” One of them tried to pat my shoulder.

  I lashed out with claws. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

  The leader slowly removed the sticky pads from Sully’s chest. His head bowed, and regret bracketed his mouth. His hand trailed over Sully’s throat, his fingers searching one last time for a pulse.

  He froze.

  My sobs silenced.

  Sick, vicious hope exploded.

  I would die from this hope.

  I would perish beside Sully because hope was the only thing keeping me alive.

  Please...

  If this turned out to be fake...

  If he’s dead...

  The urge to vomit burned my throat.

&nb
sp; Nausea and vertigo, hot flashes and icy sweats.

  Please!

  The man closed his eyes, his entire focus on the faintest flutter of life.

  One second.

  Two seconds.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five nightmarish moments.

  His eyes soared wide just as the paramedics spilled into the room. “Shit, he’s alive.” His attention shot from me to the uniformed men falling to their knees around Sully.

  The man I loved more than fucking life itself became the centrepiece of calm professionals and panicked mercenaries.

  “Heart attack?” one of the ambulance workers asked, opening his bag of tricks to create a miracle.

  “I think so.” The leader nodded. “Shocked five times. CPR administered since cardiac failure. Pulse has restarted. Faint...but it’s there.”

  “Good work, we’ll take it from here.”

  I tried to breathe and couldn’t.

  I tried to move closer...I fainted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I WASN’T HERE NOR there.

  I wasn’t alive nor dead.

  I didn’t know what I was or who.

  I sucked in a breath, only to find I had no such ability.

  No lungs, no heart, no physical presence to control.

  Darkness all around me. Coral spires and sand caverns, jewelled anemones and sleek oily sharks.

  Was this reincarnation?

  Had I traded a form that walked on land for one that swam in the depths?

  And if I had...why couldn’t I see my new shape?

  Why did no fingers or fins appear when I tried to move my extremities? Why did no bubbles explode from my mouth when I tried to exhale?

  Why couldn’t I remember what I was before this?

  I had a name; I was sure of it.

  I had a life...I was convinced.

  Yet the more I tried to remember, the faster it dissolved until I was just a speck.

  An unnamed, unclaimed speck lost in the global vastness, adrift and unwanted.

  Darkness thickened.

  My speck vanished.

  I was nothing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “HE’S CRASHING AGAIN!”

  I stood by the door, pressed against the wall so I wouldn’t be kicked out. The doctors had tried to keep me out of surgery while they worked on Sully, but...well, I fucking refused to obey.