He died as the monitor switched from chaotic chirps into flat line screaming.
And I lost a piece of myself.
He died to hurt me, to spite me.
He died because of me.
And I lost another piece.
He died because he’d come after me.
Because he’d saved me.
Because he’d loved me.
And I lost another piece.
His islands weren’t enough to bring him back.
Pika wasn’t enough.
Skittles wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough.
And I lost another piece.
Grief came swift.
Tears brewed heavy.
Terror was absolute.
And I lost another piece.
The flat line screech of his dead heart broke me.
The slack lips and closed eyes broke me.
The loss of such perfect possibilities broke me.
And I lost a final piece.
I spiralled.
I sobbed.
My grief mutated from pathetic to furious.
Vicious violence bled past my tears.
I crawled on top of him and struck his beautiful face.
I struck again.
He left me?
He abandoned me?
Well, he would arrive at his reckoning bearing my sorrow-inflicted scars.
My sobs overflowed.
I lost all my pieces.
And I snapped.
Chapter Twenty-Six
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Chapter Twenty-Seven
DARKNESS HAD FALLEN.
A skip into the future, transforming sunlight to midnight.
I groaned as I tried to sit up. Muscles didn’t obey me. Limbs didn’t bend right, and the world didn’t stay still. Nausea spun me upside down, and I lay sprawled where I’d woken.
Where am I?
I blinked, gritting my teeth against the swirl and sickness of the world.
Sully.
Oh, God.
The memory.
The awful, awful reality.
Dead.
Gone.
He’s dead!
A keening, screaming pressure fissured my chest.
He’s dead.
I lay on my back.
Sobs erupted and wracked my weak frame.
He can’t be dead.
Please.
It can’t end this way!
It can’t.
“Sully! God, please.”
Noises sounded behind me.
Someone came to offer condolences, their presence unwanted and cruel. “Hey. It’s okay, Eleanor. I’m here.” Louise Maldon appeared beside me, ducking to her haunches and taking my frigid hand. “You’re okay.”
I tore my hand from hers, needing to roll over, to curl into a ball so my grief couldn’t dig its blade deeper into my belly.
Sully...
My sobs came faster, harder, crippling me.
She wiped at my tears, unable to stem the gush. “I’m so sorry that I had to do that. Let it pass. The nausea will fade.”
In my suffocating sorrow, I didn’t understand.
All I knew was I couldn’t live in this horror.
Let it be Euphoria.
Let it be a nightmare.
Anything but real.
He’s dead.
No!
I cried harder than I’d ever cried before.
She hugged my head and brushed my tear-wet hair aside. “Listen to me, you’re fine. I had to administer a sedative because you were out of your mind. You were hindering our efforts. We couldn’t have you striking him while we tried to save him.”
Her words did their best to wriggle into my misery. The grief pressed harder, stabbing its blade, cutting up my entrails.
Sully...
Louise stood and grabbed me by the shoulders. Dragging me into a sitting position, I dry retched as nausea pushed acid up my gullet. She moved to the side, pre-empting my attempt at vomiting but continuing to brush aside my hair. “I need you to listen now, okay? He’s alive.”
Liar.
Deceiver.
Trickster!
I swiped at her, mad in my misery. “I watched him die!”
“You did.” She grabbed my chin, fixing my dizzy-drunken eyes on hers. “He flat lined. You lost yourself to grief. I tried to remove you from the room so we could work on him, but you were uncooperative.” Her fingers dug into my cheeks. “I injected you with a sedative for your own sake...and for his.”
I blinked, tears still rivering down my face. “How could you tear me away from him? He died!”
“He died, but he didn’t stay that way.”
I stilled.
Everything stilled.
Sanity did its best to tiptoe through my lost willpower and comprehension. “You’re lying.”
She dropped her hand from my chin, taking both my hands in hers. She stayed bent over before me, imploring me to trust. Her usual medical scrubs had been replaced with a cream dress more suited for the island humidity and her freckles had grown into a thicker scattering thanks to the sun. However, her clear green eyes were still those of a professional.
A doctor who spoke with truth, even if some truths hurt.
“I need some sign from you that you’re listening. That you’re not checking out on me. Shock can create so many complications, Eleanor, and I need you to listen to me.” She squeezed my hands. “Can you do that?”
I shook my head, grateful that the sickness dispersed this time.
I no longer felt nauseous, only confused and heart sore and bruised in every bone. “I...I don’t understand.”
“Come with me. It will be easier to show you.” Pulling me from the couch where I’d woken, she escorted me through Sully’s living room where a pair of macaws had made themselves at home on a dining chair and past a bushy-tailed squirrel raiding the fruit bowl.
My knees wobbled. I tripped as my body buckled beneath mourning, but she never let me go or stopped dragging me back into the bedroom that’d become a grave.
No, wait.
I didn’t have the strength to go in there.
I would shatter beneath her lies and her truths.
I clenched my jaw as she pulled me over the threshold, and instantly Pika and Skittles chirped from the corner. They sat squished together in a rattan bowl holding smooth sea glass pieces. Bottle green and sapphire blue—refracting memories of Sully’s turbulent eyes.
My heart bled all over again, filling my bruised bones with horrendous pain. “I don’t. I can’t—” I tugged on her hand.
“Come.” With fierce strength, she yanked me to the bed.
A bed holding a sheet-shrouded man who I loved more than everything combined.
I couldn’t stop shivering.
My teeth rattled.
Tears burned as I looked at Sully.
Lying regally beneath the white sheet, he was sublime unblemished perfection. No more sweat or fever. No glistening skin or broken heartbeats. He was serene and as solemn as any artfully prepared cadaver.
My keening began anew.
I couldn’t see this.
I couldn’t remember him like this.
I wanted to recall his sexy smirk and violent passion. I wanted to hear his husky laughter and stony commands. I needed life. I needed him.
But...he’s gone.
His face was slack. His lips slightly parted and mostly blue. His skin had turned to snow, showing tracks of veins twining up his sinew-etched throat. His powerful frame and gorgeously toned muscles w
ere fading; reducing in mass and strength the longer he remained buried beneath a sleeping curse.
He’d left me, discarding his earthly remains, ready to be scattered with roses and goodbyes while displayed on a funeral parlour podium.
My legs buckled.
Louise tried to keep me standing, but I puddled to the floor at the foot of his bed. Tears flushed out my bleeding soul. I was surprised I cried salt instead of crimson.
Skittles squawked and tried to come to me, her splint preventing her from flying. Pika fluttered for her, perching on my lap as my tears dribbled over him. He cooed and nudged my numbed fingers, then flew to my shoulder and nuzzled into the crook of my neck.
I broke.
I buried my face into my hands and sobbed.
Fingers pried at my wrists, pulling my hands away. “If you won’t believe what I’m telling you. Look.” She nudged my chin up, angling my head at the heart rate monitor hooked permanently to Sully’s sculpted chest.
It shimmered in my tears.
Faint squiggly lines. Muted blips and beeps.
“See? His heart is still beating. Your shock is making it hard to believe me, but it’s true.”
Pika left my shoulder and flew to his master. He didn’t unleash his rambunctious terror upon Sully but twittered softly and fluffed up his feathers before nesting on Sully’s chest.
His slightly breathing chest.
I moved.
It was as if I’d been struck by lightning, infected by electricity, and enduring a bolt through my heart.
Crawling like a madwoman, I closed the distance and kneeled by Sully’s side. I snatched his hand and pressed two fingers against his wrist. I closed my eyes and sniffed back my agony-laced hope and waited.
Thud-thud.
Thud-thud.
Thud-thud.
And then, I did the most embarrassing thing of all.
I convulsed with sobs of relief.
Snotty and wet.
Wild and loud.
I wept.
I wailed.
I cried harder for hope than I had for an ending.
I cried until a migraine attacked me, dehydration made me weave, and Louise plucked me from the floor and guided me to my place beside Sully.
The moment I felt the softness of his bed and smelled his sea and coconut scent, I plastered myself alongside his unconscious form.
I shivered.
I sighed.
I slept.
* * * * *
The second time I woke, sunlight had replaced midnight, leaving my world topsy-turvy. Stealing days I hadn’t known and scrambling the calendar of how long Sully had been asleep.
Unlike all the other days of waking after a fitful night, snatched seconds, and repeating nightmares, I felt rested.
Heavy and hurting but rested.
Sitting up, I groaned as my head pounded and my eyes felt twice their usual size. I needed to wash my face from the stickiness of grief. To rinse my mouth out from my sobs.
The thought of a shower made me glance at the bathroom.
The fear of Sully crashing again made me crush closer and rest my hand on the strong pulse in his throat. To run my fingers through his thick hair and bask in utter gratefulness that he was still alive.
Breathing and sleeping and alive.
“Don’t scare me like that again, okay?” I bent and kissed the tip of his nose. “No more, Sully. The next time you want to do anything shocking...just wake up.”
“Ah, you’re awake.” Louise padded into Sully’s bedroom, her hands scooping up her auburn tresses and securing them into a bun at her nape. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” I wiped under my eyes, then placed my hand back on Sully’s arm. Always touching him. Forever there. I would never leave his side again.
Louise frowned slightly at my touch on him before moving to grab a deck chair from outside and placing it in front of me.
I prickled with unease as she sat and sighed, brushing away the fine tendrils that’d escaped her bun. “You slept for fifteen hours. I’ll call for some food, and you need to drink, but before we get to that...are you coherent enough to talk?”
I swallowed hard.
Fifteen hours?
I’d never slept that long in my life.
“Can we have a conversation, or would you rather wait?” she asked again, peering at Sully’s silent form before settling back on me.
I raked hands through my knotty hair and nodded. Surprisingly, my brain was no longer stuffed with tears, not sluggish and full of smog. “We can talk.”
“Good.” Leaning forward, she slipped into doctor’s clipped tones and authority. “You are not to do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Allow your system to deplete so drastically. You hadn’t slept in god knows how long. I barely see you eat. You aren’t useful to him if you’re not looking after yourself.”
“I think sacrificing a bit of sleep is—”
“Over a week of no sleep is medically dangerous, Eleanor, which is why your shock yesterday didn’t let you register that he was alive. Why your emotions are on a knife’s edge. Why you snapped when he had an episode. Why you’re mentally and physically exhausted. And I get it. Of course, I do. You’re under a lot of strain. You keep watching the man you love try to die. It’s understandable that it became too much.”
She made me sound weak.
I didn’t like it.
I looked away and looped my fingers with Sully’s. Nothing happened. He didn’t twitch. The monitor didn’t react. It was as if I didn’t exist.
I shook my head, hating the coldness of his unresponsive hand. Ice. Stiff. A stranger.
“How is he still alive?” I forced out nasty questions. “I watched him die.”
“Once he flat lined, it interrupted the tachyarrhythmia. We were able to stabilise him. His pulse resumed with the defib, and we injected him with anticoagulant to reduce the likelihood of a stroke.”
“And he stays stable without me touching him?”
“He does.”
I squeezed his fingers.
No spike. No flutter.
Just the steady pump, pump, pump of a heart I no longer trusted.
Would it keep Sully alive this time, or would it throw him to the wolves again?
It was my enemy.
I hated that heart. I wanted to scoop it out and give him a new one.
Give him mine...at least mine was strong—I could feel it hammering at my ribs with dismay.
Louise gave me a moment to accept that whatever link we shared no longer factored in his desire to stay alive. He didn’t need my help anymore. I was unneeded.
That hurt.
It made me flounder and second-guess. What did I do wrong? This had to have been my fault because he’d crashed when I’d talked to him. When I’d reminded him of us. Perhaps it was true, and he couldn’t remember me. Maybe he didn’t want to cling to a goddess who’d only meant to be his employee. Maybe he saw me as he did Calico and Jupiter—a girl trying to steal his heart to win her freedom.
Sully...
I wanted to dive into his head and find him. I wanted to shake him until his eyes snapped open.
“This is the part where you need to listen to me carefully, okay?” Louise murmured. “It’s important.”
I tensed.
Pika flew to me, and Skittles squawked in frustration from her spot on the side table. Her tiny wing flapped awkwardly in her splint. Going to her, leaving Sully without my touch, I held out my finger and shuddered with friendship as she hopped onto my perch and rubbed her beak along my jaw as I kissed her.
Tears pressed all over again, but I swallowed them back.
Placing Skittles onto my shoulder, I returned to Sully’s bed and sat on the edge facing Louise. Pika landed beside Skittles, digging their claws into my muscles as I tensed. “Go on.”
She winced. “There are things we need to discuss...going forward.”
I’d woken with fre
sh optimism, but her words punctured me until all faith and belief escaped. I sank again, deeper into the darkness. Unable to live in this roller-coaster world anymore.
Soar and fall.
Climb and dip.
Hope and failure.
He’s alive...but for how long this time?
“I’m...” The room swam and my empty stomach clenched. “I’m suddenly not feeling very well.”
“I know. It’s the shock still. Your symptoms will come and go until you accept certain things. I know you’re still holding on to the hope that he’ll wake and everything will go back to normal. I want that too. And I will do whatever I can to ensure it happens, but...you also need to accept the facts. It’s important to be informed so your body doesn’t suffer.”
I couldn’t reply.
I appreciated her advice, and I agreed. I’d always been one for as much knowledge as I could get, but...I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to be slapped with reality.
Not yet.
Not while Sully had only been stable for a little while.
He’ll wake up...you’ll see.
“You’ve been so diligent staying by his side. I believed, like you, that as long as you touched him, he might pull through this but...”
Shaking my head, I buried my face in my hands. “Stop. I don’t—”
“He no longer responds to your touch. He’s alive. His vitals are stable, and he’s breathing unassisted, but no other sensory perception is operational. We did tests on his reactions, and each one reveals the systematic shutting down of a human nervous system.”
That explained the nasty sensation of touching a stranger.
Why he no longer needed my closeness.
Why there didn’t seem to be a tether between us anymore.
If Louise was to weigh him, like her prior patient studies, would she find his soul missing? Were the electric impulses that were gone from his body mechanical or mystical?
I sucked in a breath, my skin turning icy.
He’d shut me off. He’d let me go.
It was his choice and only his, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
My hands fell from my face as an eerie calm smothered my panic.
I didn’t know if it was shock or I’d finally reached the bottom of my well and I had no more strength to siphon. Either way, I would listen. I would register. And then I would survive whatever future I’d been given. “Continue.”
Louise sighed heavily. “I’m sorry that I have to hurt you further.”
Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 19
