AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A shrill beep jerked her out of her thoughts. Marek pulled her to the side as shouting nurses and doctors sprinted past her. Her heart pulsed as the ammonia smell and sounds unlocked painful memories of days spent in the hospital by Papa’s bedside, then Mama’s, as they succumbed to cancer one after another.
Her eyes burned as tears threatened to spill out. The second she regained her breath, she asked Sam, “Which room is Betsy in?”
“112.”
Olivia stalked down the hall, ignoring the room filled with nurses and the doctor trying to resuscitate a patient, and stopped when she found the correct room. It was large and airy. Two beds stood a few feet apart, each with a prone body. Identical IV drips were attached to the unconscious patients, the beeping of the EKG monitors stabbing into her heart.
Too much. It was too much like her parents.
“Olivia.” Marek’s comforting hand on her shoulder snapped her back to the present. It bothered her that she felt stronger with him there. She shrugged off his touch and rushed to Betsy’s side.
Her sister was still, with her arms at her side and her breathing even. She was a little pale, as if she hadn’t been in the sun for a few weeks, and her lips were dry and cracked. Otherwise, she looked peaceful, as if she were simply asleep.
And wasn’t that all a coma was? A deep, non-waking sleep?
Her hand shaking, Olivia touched Betsy’s. It was cold, but Betsy had always had cold extremities. It was a constant joke between them, with Betsy warming her hands on Olivia under the covers during the winter.
Nothing made her sister laugh more than Olivia shrieking from her frozen touch.
“What… what’s wrong with her?” she asked without looking back at Marek and Sam.
“We don’t know.” Sam’s voice was gentle. “They’ve been like this since the explosion. As far as the doctors can tell, nothing’s wrong with them physically.”
“You said forty witches. Are they all comatose?”
“Correct,” he replied.
“Well, have the doctors done anything to wake them?” Olivia brushed back a stray hair on Betsy’s head. It was a faded greenish blue. From a young age, Betsy loved dyeing her hair unusual colors. Sometimes Olivia even forgot her sister’s normal hair was dark blond, so different from her own chocolate brown.
Olivia sucked in a shaky breath. She should’ve been here earlier. She should’ve talked to Betsy more. Shouldn’t have been so involved in her own work. If she’d paid more attention during their last few calls, could she have sensed something was wrong?
She looked up when someone knocked at the door. An older, balding man in a doctor’s coat waited, clipboard in hand.
“Dr. Wells,” Sam said. “Good to see you. This is Dr. Rodriguez, Betsy’s sister. And this is Marek. You guys have talked on the phone, I believe.”
“Yes, we have.” Dr. Wells shook Marek’s hand before striding over to Olivia.
“Nice to meet you.” Olivia forced out the niceties. “Sam said there’s nothing wrong with her. Why won’t she wake up?”
“Unfortunately, that’s often the case with coma patients. Everything can be fine, but something in their brain is blocking their consciousness,” Dr. Wells explained. “I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer.”
Olivia bit back a growl of frustration at Dr. Wells’ compassionate expression. She’d seen plenty of it when her parents had passed. She didn’t need his compassion. She needed him to do his job and fix her sister!
“As to your earlier question,” Sam said quickly, as if sensing Olivia was about to explode. “We’ve asked other witches to examine your sister and the others.”
The distraction helped redirect her energy. “Witches? That’s unorthodox.” Dr. Wells’ lips thinned in disapproval but remained silent.
“Since a spell caused this, we thought witches might help,” Sam explained.
“What did the witches say?”
“The magic your sister and her companions performed had taken too much of their life force. They will need time to recover,” Dr. Wells bit out in a tone that said it was bullshit.
Olivia hated to agree with him, but she was a scientist. She believed in cold, hard facts, even though she couldn’t deny cases where nothing explained why a person woke or stayed in a coma.
It was all up to God.
The EKG machine stopped beeping and emitted a flat, alarming sound—a blade of fear sliced through her. A second later, she realized it wasn’t Betsy’s, but the one for the other patient.
