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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 fresh 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.”
