Sully...please, wake up.
It’s lonely and wrong without you here.
I ignored the arrow of worry that Sully might never wake up. That everything I was doing was worthless. A black cloud crept over my thoughts, but I did my best to disperse it.
If I stayed busy, I could keep my pessimism at bay.
Cal strolled ahead and I stayed in Euphoria, plotting design, planning new pens, new veterinary equipment...a new start for Sully and his rescues.
Wake up, Sully.
Please.
* * * * *
Week two brought more paperwork than I could read without going cross-eyed.
Cal spent a few days staying by Jess’s side after she suffered an episode similar to Sully’s, which set her prognosis back.
His attention was on her...as it should be, and mine swung back to focus entirely on Sully. I didn’t want to leave him, so instead of sitting in his office and studiously deleting any file or email that might be incriminating, I took his laptop to him and used the passwords Cal had given me to hack into his online life.
One of my first tasks was messaging my father. I thanked him profusely, apologised for the long delay and stress in not getting in touch, and advised that I would call him soon to tell him what happened. I would need the time to come up with a fictional tale rather than divulge the real one.
He responded almost immediately in typical ‘worried father’ style, demanding answers and to speak to the man I’d put my life at risk for. I’d typed back with a promise he would meet him soon...
And then, I’d logged off Facebook because my heart hurt too much at the thought that Sully might never meet my father or that I would never see the man I loved smile again.
The melancholy was never far away. The heartache and the strain of sitting beside him while he lay unmoving almost drove me to madness.
Work was my salvation, and I threw myself into it.
“I’m rifling through your emails, Sully. If you wake up now, you can stop me.” I glanced at the silent, stunning man beside me.
I stared so hard, my eyes strained seeking the slightest shiver.
Nothing.
Sighing, I stroked his arm and clicked into his online domain. “I won’t delete anything important, you have my word...just the stuff that could ruin your freedom.”
I earned a new appreciation for Sully’s intelligence and the lengthy text-heavy emails he received from his scientists about new drugs, successful trials, and strategic focus groups. Those I kept, placing them into a file labelled Sinclair and Sinclair Group.
Searching his folders, I kept my heart guarded against trafficking emails and correspondence, not really wanting to learn his acquiring methods or the payment amounts he’d given for the girls’ lives. However, after two days of snooping, I found nothing even hinting at his unlawful predilections.
Not a single deleted spam link or saved internet cookie that might lead back to sites and men that the police could never know about.
He’d either used an encrypted server or he’d already cleaned his inboxes personally.
Biting my cheek, I looked at Sully.
He lay as still as always, like a knight entombed in marble. His arms neatly by his sides, the sheet hiding the constellations of healing bruises, cuts, and scars. The cast on his ankle and the bandages on his thigh remained blocked by the bedding while his cheeks grew hollow and his muscles sharpened from lack of solid food.
Needles vanished into the back of his hands and a pillow cradled his handsome head, sensors stuck to his chest, and his eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“Can you hear me, Sully?” I ran my hand over his forehead. Cool to touch. Empty. “Every day is harder...every day is scarier.”
No response.
“I love you, even if you are putting me through hell...again.” I tried to laugh, but it just sounded pathetic. Sighing, I returned to rifling through his life and stumbled upon a reply email from his lawyers.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: New Will and Testament.
To Sullivan,
We have received your request and updated as per your instructions.
Sinclair and Sinclair Group will be bequeathed to Calvin Moor upon your death.
Jessica Townsend will receive two million in cash.
Eleanor Grace will inherit Goddess Isles along with two caiques, Pika and Skittles.
Your prior donations and preferred charities have also been updated along with your current assets that will be equally split between Calvin Moor and Eleanor Grace.
Anything else, please don’t hesitate to email.
As always, we appreciate your business and wish you good health.
Elliot Cockran.
Tears that I’d managed to keep locked inside overflowed.
All my worst fears compounded.
He’d come after me even at the detriment of his own health.
He’d known he was going to die and put me before his own life.
He’d ensured everything he’d controlled and created had been divided.
Cal deserved it after a lifetime of friendship.
But me?
I’d already taken the most expensive thing from him.
I’d taken his life.
I’d captured his heart.
And now...? Now he’d given me an end instead of forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
...
..
.
OUT OF THE DARK came a choice.
A single question that hovered on my fading periphery.
Live or die?
The time had come.
Fight or give in?
I hovered in absolute darkness with no answer.
I wanted her.
The girl I couldn’t see or hear or touch.
I wanted happiness with her, the world with her, forever with her.
But I couldn’t have her without having all my misdeeds and trespasses.
The fact still remained that I’d done things that couldn’t be undone.
Things that couldn’t be forgiven.
Things that would prevent me from happiness because I didn’t deserve such absolution.
Live or die?
Make the choice.
Decide.
Now.
The blackness thickened.
Something crushed my phantom chest.
And I made a choice.
I gritted my non-existent teeth as my misery selected for me.
My answer was non-verbal.
The response silent but suffocating.
Things started changing, morphing, preparing.
I waited for the end.
...
..
.
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE COMA BROKE ON the third week.
And I wasn’t there.
The phone call came at four in the morning, ripping me from sleep and racing me in my night shorts and pink singlet all the way to Dr Campbell’s surgery.
Cal was already there.
His eyes stuck on Jess as if she was the only woman alive, his hand wrapped around her small one, his body slouched in a chair beside her bed.
I crashed into the room, unable to stop my speed, ripping both their attentions to me.
Sully had written a new Will and Testament to include the three of us. He’d gone after me knowing he wouldn’t survive, and it didn’t matter that for the past week I’d done my best to erase the fate that he’d written and scribble completely different things, I couldn’t seem to stop his choice.
I hadn’t told Cal that he was the new CEO of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. I couldn’t wait to tell Jess that she was a wealthy woman—earned by sacrifice and tenacity.
That part was happy.
The fact that she was awake was happy!
Yet as Jess licked her cracked lips, blinked her hazel eyes, and beamed a great
big smile, I burst into noisy tears.
I couldn’t stop the ache for Sully. The guilt at his suffering. The pain of our separation.
Why won’t you wake up!
My tears exploded harder as Jess murmured, “Come here.”
Sniffing with no grace, I stumbled to her bedside and kissed her warm cheek. “You’re back.”
“I am,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just so glad you’re alive.” I forced a watery smile. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too. I was just asking Cal where you were.” Her voice was different. Husky and hazy, the slight shadows of wherever she’d been still slinking through the syllables. “He told me that you freed the other goddesses. That we’re the only ones left.”
This was conversation.
This was a life raft from my sudden drowning in misery missing Sully.
I clung to it and ripped my thoughts from death to life. “We are. The island feels empty.”
Cal grinned up at me, his skin flushed and green eyes glowing. “I haven’t told her what you did with Euphoria yet. That there’s already a menagerie installed, and the tile is covered in hay and god knows what.”
I squeezed his shoulder, shaking with relief that at least one of us had gotten our happily ever after. My knees threatened to buckle with relief and envy.
As grateful as I was and as happy as I was that Jess had survived...I couldn’t ignore the hooks and splinters that Sully was still unresponsive. No matter how much I whispered to him by night or kissed his cheek by day, I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t entice him to twitch or reveal any sign that he still existed.
Jess had woken, but Sully...
God, I couldn’t breathe around the fact that we’d already ended.
We’d ended with a broken heart.
In some cracked place inside me, a piece of depressed psyche began the process of acceptance. Grief was a sneaky, slithery thing—self-preservation beginning the task of erecting a wall around my soul for the inevitable. It did what Louise had told me to do and prepared for the day when the heart monitor no longer beeped cheerfully like Jess’s did but slipped into a single monotone.
I didn’t want it.
I’d never accept that Sully was gone.
He’s not gone.
Not yet!
“Ah, Jinx...I’m sorry.” Jess’s eyes filled with matching tears. “Cal told me about Sullivan.”
I slashed at the wetness on my cheeks and ducked to kiss her again. “Don’t. Now that you’re awake, I’m sure he’ll follow. You’ll pave the way back for him.”
She held my stare and so much was said. Our strange sisterhood. Our unlikely bond. It was all there, familiar and steadfast, and I was so, so grateful that I had her because she would hold me up when I fell.
Because I would fall.
I would plummet if Sully chose death and not me.
Dr Campbell came bustling in, his elderly face etched with sleepiness but thrilled at the same time. “Don’t you two tire her out.”
“I’ve been sleeping for weeks, Dr Campbell. I won’t get tired.” Jess smiled. “Don’t make them go. Not yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Cal squeezed her hand. “You sure know how to run from a guy. If you didn’t want to chase whatever this is, you didn’t have to try to die on me.”
Her cheeks pinked. “So...you still want to see where this goes?”
I shouldn’t be here for this.
I was the third wheel. The unwanted watcher.
Swallowing past the ball in my throat, I backed away only for Jess to snap, “Don’t you think about leaving, Jinx.” She untangled her gaze from Cal’s and looked at me. “I’ve been dying to share, and I’m annoyed that Cal told you instead of me.”
Her face spoke of flirty, fanciful things, but her gaze was sympathetic and understanding. This wasn’t an overshare when she’d literally just woken from a coma, but her attempt at distraction.
Fine.
I needed a distraction.
I needed her to help me stay sane when that sanity had frayed to the point where I could no longer hold on.
I glanced at Calvin. He sat stiff and chilly, but a smirk teased his lips. He was in on the attempt, both of them pitying me, pitying Sully, pitying us.
Bracing my shoulders, I met their courage with my own. “Okay, tell me everything.”
He nodded, accepting my agreement to be distracted and looked from me and back to Jess, speaking to her. “Sinclair guessed. He gave me hell.”
Her eyebrows vanished into her blonde hair. “He guessed? How?”
“Said I’d never provided aftercare before.”
“Ah, yes well. That wasn’t exactly planned.” She blushed again. “But I’m glad you finally opened your eyes and saw me.” Her gaze sought mine, and her face glowed as if she’d woken full of vitality and gossip instead of a body weak from sleep and drained from haemorrhaging from Drake’s bullet. “I’ve been kind of in love with him since I arrived. Men, huh? Blind as bats.”
I hugged myself, attempting normal conversation when this was anything but a normal topic. “But...serving in Euphoria with different men and—”
“I’d rather not be reminded, thanks,” Cal muttered.
“When?” I asked. “How?”
“The night I slept with Markus Grammer as you,” Jess said. “Cal came to check on me after he helped Sully put you to bed.”
It was my turn to blush.
The caveman fantasy.
The first time Sully took me, wearing his masks and telling his lies.
I’d fallen that night and never gotten off my knees.
Sully, goddamn you, wake up!
“Elixir hadn’t quite finished with me.” She laughed, only to stop suddenly, wincing at the pain no doubt in her lower belly. In her womb that no longer existed thanks to fucking Drake.
“Hey, it’s okay, you can tell me later,” I rushed. “Focus on yourself instead of—”
“I kissed him when he tried to tuck me into bed.” Her eyes glowed with pure affection as she glanced at Cal. “He didn’t kiss me back, but...it got him thinking.”
“You were high,” Cal muttered.
“I wanted you.”
“Elixir wanted me.”
“No...I did.” She looked at their joined hands. “Every guest. Every Euphoria session...I was with you. When you didn’t notice me, I figured I might as well make everyone else happy because that way...maybe I could make you happy. Maybe we could all be happy.” She flicked me a glance. “Maybe I could make Sullivan happy so he’d give me the opportunity to sleep with the one guy who I actually wanted and to be his equal.”
Her motivation.
Her hidden agenda.
So much simpler than her sinister plots that I feared. The age-old fatalistic hope of matchmaking in order to find her own freedom.
“You’re a brave, brave woman, Jess.” I smiled.
She blushed. “Just stubborn.”
I pushed away tears that still leaked, attempting a joke. “And to think I ever suspected your motives.”
“Well, I was rather persuasive.” She grinned but then turned serious. “I knew how you were feeling when you first arrived because I was feeling it too. You wanted Sully, but he kept refusing you. I wanted Cal, but he didn’t see me. I figured...if I could help, then someone might help me.”
Cal stood and bent over her.
He kissed her hard.
Hard enough to make the heart monitor spike and Dr Campbell to growl from the next room. “Get your tongue out of her mouth, Moor.”
Cal pulled away, his nose nudging hers in sweet affection. “I see you now, woman. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Once again, the intimacy in the room was a dagger to my heart.
It took a mallet to my legs and swept them from under me.
I tripped and rubbed at my chest.
The craving to be next to Sully cracked my bones with need.
I
needed to touch him, kiss him, murmur to him, even if he couldn’t reciprocate.
“I...I—” I choked on a sob and swallowed hard. “I’m unbelievably happy for you guys, but...I have to go.”
Jess looked tired, her body no longer willing to ignore her injuries. “I’m so sorry, Eleanor. He’ll wake up...you’ll see.”
“Uh-huh.” Blind with tears, I backed toward the door.
Cal stood as if to help me, but I held up my hand. If anyone touched me right now, I’d scream. The urge to bolt fizzled down my legs, but a single question drilled into my head. Loud enough to stop my tears and freeze my heart.
I halted.
I locked Jess in a stare. “Can I ask you something?”
She shivered but nodded. “Of course.”
“When you were sleeping...what was it like?”
Cal turned to face me, his features stern and tight.
Jess took her time answering, knowing why I asked and deliberating on any help she could give me. “It was like...a long dream. I wasn’t aware of the outside world, but I knew I was dreaming. For a while I was on the beach, just standing there. The sun rose and the sun set, but I couldn’t move. My skin burned from exposure, and a magnifying glass concentrated the rays onto my belly where it burned a hole right through me. I remember looking down and seeing the ocean turning red with my blood.” Her face clouded over. “Dark things happened after that. Things I don’t really want to discuss and will work on forgetting, but it wasn’t a nice place. I was back with my parents and the uncle who...anyway.” She shook herself and clutched the sheet. “I’m sure each person is different. Some might be in a dream. Some might be in heaven for a time. Some might be in limbo and not remember a thing. Don’t take my experience as something Sullivan might be enduring.”
I shivered, saving what she said to comb over and dissect later. For now, I needed to know another important thing. More important than all the rest. “And how did you wake up? Was it a choice? What sent you back?”
She waited for a moment, her thoughts flittering over her pretty face before she said softly, “The dream ended, and whiteness wrapped around me. And I just knew. Go left and I’d travel to whatever came next. Go right and...I’d be given a second chance.”
“So, you made the choice to wake up?”
She nodded but then backpedalled when she saw my face crumple. “But, Jinx...it might not be that way for everybody. He might not have a choice. He might not be aware he’s even alive—”
Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 22
