AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"All or nothing," he whispered aloud, a small, bitter smile curving his lips. His breath clouded the clear pane.
It was the prayer he should have offered six years ago. Instead, all he'd said was let me live.
When he turned back around, he saw the faces peering at him through the open doorway.
"Come on in," he said wearily, too tired to fight them any longer. They wanted to see the woman, and he couldn't blame them. She was the most interesting thing to happen at Lethe House in years.
The inmates shuffled in slowly, silently. One by one, they pulled up chairs and formed a ring around the bed, scooting in like some macabre quilting bee for damned souls. The hushed murmur of their voices filled the quiet room, and suddenly he was glad for their arrival. Maybe they would somehow reach the woman beneath the bandages, maybe the sound of their voices would draw her from the coma. It wasn't much of a hope, but it was all they had.
ik * ?**
31
Pain. Immeasurable, inexpressible, it wrapped around her, invaded her bones and ate at her flesh with tiny, piercing teeth. Slicing, burning, aching, freezing ...
She wanted desperately to cry out, but all she could manage was a bleating whimper, a hesitant sound like that animal?puffy, white, four legs. Mackinaw . .. rubber. Words came at her, drifted by in a hazy kaleidoscope that had no meaning whatsoever. She thought of the animal again, pictured it, saw it moving in a herd, but no name came to her.
She moved restlessly, felt the stinging cold wrapped like an icy blanket around her body. Her teeth chattered, her fingers trembled.
"SweetLord . . . shemadea sound. .. ." It was a voice. Out there, beyond the freezing darkness . . .
She tried to speak, say something, shriek for help, but nothing made it past her chapped lips, her aching chest. Another shiver wrenched through her. She gasped at the intensity of it, clawing the wet fabric beneath her fingertips.
Lamb. The word for the animal burst into her mind. She pushed it aside, not caring anymore. The pounding in her head was excruciating. Blinding blows, a thrumming torment. Her heart pumped hard, drowned out every sound except the evidence of her own life. Where am I?
She had the one coherent thought before another volcanic blast of pain slammed through her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing hard. Oh, God, it hurts it hurts it hurts. She couldn't take it anymore. She screamed?or thought she did, wished she did?and then it was over.
She was drifting again, moving back into the comforting black waters of oblivion.
Back to the place where there was no pain.
Chapter Three
Ian glanced at the bottle of scotch on the green bedside table. He ached for a comforting drink, but it was a pleasure he'd forcibly denied himself for the last four days. He wanted to be sober when she awoke. If she awoke.
"Please wake up." He said the words softly, hearing the throaty catch in his voice and not caring. He was tired, so tired. He'd been sitting by her bed for days. One hour blurred into the next and the next and the next. He stared at her in morbid fascination, watching every struggling breath she took, wishing with everything in his soul that he could breathe for her.
In the past days, she'd become more than his patient. She'd become his world. He'd tried at first to remain detached and professional, but such distance was beyond him now. The coldness he'd once worn like a frock coat was now impossible to find. He wanted her to live so badly that sometimes he couldn't breathe. Every time he looked at her, he got an aching pain in his chest, and he knew what caused it.
She would probably die without ever once waking up. "Just open your eyes," he whispered. "Please .. ." He sat perched on the small, straw-seated mahogany chair, his long legs folded tightly against the painted green bed frame. Moonlight fell through the open windows, puddling on the pale woman in the bed. Diamond
32
33
chips of ice lay melting all around her. Yet, even so, her fever climbed higher and higher, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.
Her bruising was so much worse now; there was no hint whatsoever of her face. But not all of the news was bad, and Ian clung to the good news like a lifeline. She'd accepted the feeding tube well, and the third set of bandages around her head was finally beginning to stay white. The bleeding had eased off and the swelling on her brain had abated. She might actually have a chance ... if the pneumonia didn't kill her.
She wanted to live as much as he wanted her to. He could see it in every laboring breath she took.
He leaned forward and took one of her hands in his. It lay limp and unresponsive in his grasp. He stroked her hot, damp fingers, noticing the soft pliancy of her flesh, the whispery hairs at her wrist, the hard calluses at each finge
rtip.
She was making him a little mad, and even though he knew it, he couldn't stop it. Didn't really even care, because for the first time in years, he felt truly alive.
Sometimes, when it was late at night and he was alone with her, he could close his eyes and imagine her waking up, smiling, laughing, beckoning to him.
