He presses his mouth in a thin line, trying not to smile.
Harrison is prepping something out of my line of sight,but I hear the faint clink of metal, the soft hiss of something pressurized.
This is happening.
This is actually happening.
My pulse ticks faster, and I watch it spike on the monitor beside me.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Harrison moves closer again, holding up the IV line and injecting something from a syringe into it. “This will help slow your system. We need to bring your core temperature down before we proceed.”
It starts in my veins, like ice threading its way through me. I suck in a sharp breath, my back arching slightly off the bed before I force myself to settle.
“Fuck. Okay, yeah. That’s…fuck. That’s cold.”
“Good,” Harrison says, his voice far too fucking calm. “That means it’s working.”
The cold spreads fast, sinking deeper, heavier. My fingers twitch, then still. My breathing changes without my permission until it’s shorter, shallower.
Lane adjusts something on the monitor, watching me closely now. “You’re doing fine.”
“I’m literally freezing to death.”
“Technically, yes.”
I laugh just before my teeth start to chatter. My entire body is trembling, and I don’t think I’m allowed to ask for a blanket. Instead, I try to focus on the fluorescent lights above me that feel way too bright for what the fuck is happening right now.
“Hey,” I say, just wanting to move my mouth to distract myself.
I see them both stare down at me out of the corners of my eyes, but I keep my gaze on the ceiling.
“Just so you both know, if this works, I’m going to be fuckinginsufferable about it.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Lane counters as he puts a hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.
My gaze drifts to him, and I don’t know if it’s his kind smile or the touch on my shoulder, but something about him eases a little of the trepidation currently coursing through me along with whatever’s in the IV.
Harrison must not like the way I’m looking at his husband because he snaps his fingers in front of my face and growls, “Focus.”
“I’d much rather focus on your husband’s pretty face than my impending demise.”
“That’s it,” Harrison grumbles. “He’s staying dead.”
Lane lets out a soft laugh, but it sounds far away. Everything does now. The cold is deeper, heavier, pressing in from the inside out, sinking into my bones, dampening all my other senses. My limbs feel slower, like they’re not entirely mine anymore.
My heart pounds. Then steadies. Then slows. I see it on the monitor—each beat stretching just a little further apart, like time itself is starting to lag.
Lane says something, but I don’t catch it. Harrison answers, both of them clinical and focused. Lane removes my glasses from my face and sets them aside.
I swallow, my throat dry, and stare back up at the ceiling lights that blur at the edges.
This is it. No dramatic music. No final monologue before the curtain closes. Just me freezing to death in a lab I walked into willingly, knowing full well everything will be different when I walk out.IfI walk out.
Who knows if I’ll even walk out the same person.
It’s not that I didn’t consider that before. I just tried tonotthink about it too hard. Reese changed, and I wonder ifI’ll change too or if it wasn’t even the dying or the powers that made him different. Maybe it was simply everything else that happened to him after.
