I try to crack my eyelids open, but my God, the lights in here are brutal.
“Kae? Can you speak?”
“Brihh—” I clear the Sahara desert out of my throat. “Bright… as fuck.”
Some angel does me the favor of turning the lights off, and Iblink many times, but my eyes are persistently unhelpful. Squinting, I can only barely make out a couple of things at a time before I have to furiously blink again.
First, I discern a few features of my bedroom, resolving the question ofwhereI am.
Then I try to make out thewhy,which is significantly more difficult.
There’s quite a crowd in here, circled in various seats around my bed. Abaddon, Dusk, and… Raphael? What the hell is he doing here, and are those actual scrubs he’s wearing? Oh, I so fucking knew it. The council member is, in fact, a doctor.
“Hi, angels,” I rasp, my voice so scratchy, you’d think I’ve been smoking a pack a day for twenty years. I try to clear my throat again, but I’m not sure how much good it does. Raphael seems to notice my problem and passes me a large cup with a straw. Eagerly, I take several long sips from it.
Water has never tasted so good before.
“Thanks,” I finally respond, the words coming out slightly easier. “Uh… What happened?”
Raphael seems to think about how to respond, but before he gets a chance to, Dusk steps forward with an expression that is decidedlynot happy.
“You impulsive,carelesshuman,” my friend seethes. “Do you have any idea how close you came to death? Real, final,mortaldeath? If you ever scare me like that again, I swear to Kesbeel, you won’t even be allowed to boil water again without an angel watching you.”
Oof… I think I’ll just go back to sleep.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dusk growls the moment I close my eyes, moving to sit at the foot of my bed. “You’ve had plenty of time to sleep. I need to know what in the hell you were thinking?—”
Raphael clicks his tongue, shooting a glare at Dusk. “That’s enough, child. I have more important questions for the patient. I would like the room, please.”
Neither Dusk nor Abaddon looks willing to comply.
Raphael sighs, reminding me of my dad when his patience is runningthin. “I need to discuss Kae’s medical care in private. I will allow you two to return as soon as we’re done. Now go. It’s not up for debate.”
Reluctantly, they leave the room, moving far more slowly than necessary. I don’t catch what Dusk grumbles on the way out, and don’t particularly care to. I’m far more appreciative of Raphael’s soothing energy right now than I am of the two overbearing angels.
“How are you feeling?”
I pull myself into a sitting position, wincing, before grabbing my forehead. “I have a fairly bad headache. The pulsating kind.”
“That much is to be expected, unfortunately,” he replies with a quick nod, pulling out a notebook to jot something down. “And the rest of your body? Any pain?”
I don’t really know how to answer that. I’m both exhausted and energized.
“Just a bit of muscle soreness, I guess.” I glance at the IV still in my arm, then at the pole with a bag of fluids hanging from it. None of it is labeled in any way I’m familiar with. I’d ask what it is, but I’d rather hear my whole case presentation. “I remember seeing my body have a seizure, but I don’t know what happened after that... Did Michael tell everyone what he did? How long was I unconscious?”
“Yes, he did.” Raphael frowns, and I get the sense that he’s not pleased with the angel’s risky methodology. “And you have been in a medically-induced coma for a little over three weeks now.”
“Oh… That’s…”Farlonger than I could have imagined. It only feels like it’s been a couple of days. “Wow. Uh… Why, exactly, did you do that?”
Raphael gives me a small, reassuring smile. “To be honest, Kae, you defied all odds by surviving. Your soul was separated from your body for far longer than any human should be able to withstand. The subsequent realignment was exceedingly difficult. If I had woken you during that process, you likely would have experienced delirium, fevers, seizures, and intense full-body pain. I only wanted to spare you from the worst of the suffering.”
“Then I should be thanking you for keeping me unconscious.”
“There’s no need. Besides, I was not even certain you would have survived if I had woken you to that. As it is, I had one of my prodigious students enhance your physical body to increase the odds of it accepting the…enhancedspirit.”
My jaw drops when I glance down at my arms, finding that I am, in fact, significantly more muscular than before. All that time spent doing physical conditioning, just for it to not be enough. While I was preparing myself the old-fashioned way, they were preparing a fuckingcheat codeto use on me. “You guys could have told me that was always the plan.”
“We did not know the procedure would be necessary until...” He trails off, giving me a pitying look. “Well, until the day came when we needed it.”
