AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re saying you’re not human?”
“If that makes it easier for you to digest, then call me whatever you like,” I say with a shrug. “The point I’m trying to make is that just because I can’t love Celine doesn’t mean I won’t treat her well. She will be taken care of. Pampered and protected.”
“Like she is now?” Taylor scoffs, jerking her head toward the medical annex that Dr. Baranov still hasn’t emerged from. “Very impressive. Just do me a favor and don’t ever try to ‘pamper’ me, please.”
I bite back a smile. Nothing about this is funny. The fiancée I can’t force myself to love is dying one room over. The tiger cub I can’t let myself have is spitting fire in my face. I’m at war with an enemy who just slipped through my fingers like sand and I’m bleeding from half a dozen cuts and everything I spent too fucking long crafting is falling apart right in front of me.
And yet the littletigrionokbares her fangs, and it makes me smile.
I don’t have any goddamn clue what that might mean.
“You’re not the pacifist you claim your sister is,” I observe.
“I don’t take attacks lying down, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You and I have that in common.”
“Probably the one and only thing we have in common,” she retorts. “Because the fact is that I do love Celine. And I can’t just sit idly by and—”
“I thought you were going to trust your sister?” I say. “Her life, her mistake. Right?”
Her gaze falters and drops to the floor between us. When she speaks, it’s a raspy whisper. “That’s assuming she still has a life to throw away.”
As if on cue, Dr. Baranov walks out of the adjoining room, his face kept carefully blank.
“Is she okay?” Taylor clamors as soon as she sees him, her eyes darting toward her sister’s room. “Is she awake?”
Dr. Baranov focuses on Taylor. He lets loose a weary sigh, and my heart double-clutches in my chest. “Your sister suffered major trauma to the head. She’s stable for the moment, but it appears…”
“Yes?”
“It appears she’s slipped into a coma.”
Taylor gasps, her body rocking with a sob that doesn’t come out. “C-coma… Are you sure?”
“There’s still a reasonable chance that she’ll come out of it. We’ll have to monitor her closely over the next few days and hopefully—”
Taylor doesn’t wait to find out what follows “hopefully.” “So you have no idea when or if she’ll ever wake up?”
“The next seventy-two hours are crucial,” Dr. Baranov gently explains. “If she wakes up within that time frame, then the rehabilitation process will be simpler.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Baranov’s eyes flit to mine. “Then recovery will be more difficult. She might need to be re-taught certain things. Walking, talking, and reading, for example.”
Taylor swallows. “That’s fine. We can help—”
“But…”
Her head snaps back up to Dr. Baranov. “But what?”
“The likelihood of her waking up after seventy-two hours is…slim.”
She sucks in her breath, and I can feel her teetering towards me. Is it instinct? Is it purely coincidental? I don’t wait to find out. I gently grab her arm and twine my fingers through hers.
She doesn’t push me away. Her eyes stay trained on Dr. Baranov. “How slim is ‘slim’?”
His perfectly orchestrated mask cracks just enough to let her see just how much hope he has for Celine’s recovery: vanishingly little.
