The man nodded and set into the rhythm of a strong and purposeful pulse.
With confident fingers, the leader unfurled the cables and slapped electrical pads onto Sully’s chest.
Fiddling with the machine, he pressed a button, and a high-pitched whine sounded.
“Clear!”
I sat away from Sully, and the man stopped depressing.
The leader punched the button, and Sully’s form jerked off the floor. He collapsed again, his head lolling sideways.
The leader paused, pressing his fingers once again to Sully’s throat. “Still nothing.”
Resetting the machine, he yelled, “Keep your hands off him until I say otherwise.” He electrocuted Sully again.
He jerked up and flopped down.
Nothing.
My own heart threatened to go into cardiac arrest. Still tender from elixir and foggy from a sedative, it couldn’t cope with the possibility of finding Sully and then losing him forever.
Tears tracked silently.
The urge to touch him became excruciating.
The machine whined again before another bolt of power shot into Sully’s useless heart.
“Fuck.” The leader searched for a pulse again. His gaze met mine. “Breathe for him.” Pressing his hands together, he shoved the other man away and drove the heels of his palms into Sully’s chest.
A rib cracked.
He grunted as he pressed harder.
I did as he asked, blowing as much air and love as I could down Sully’s throat.
Come back to me.
Please, please come back.
He kept pumping.
I kept breathing.
Come on, Sully.
This isn’t the end.
I know it isn’t.
It can’t be.
Panting hard, the man pushed me away and picked up the small machine again. Activating the charge, he gritted his teeth and pressed the button. “Clear.”
Sully jack-knifed off the floor.
He fell back a second later, sprawled and lifeless and…
Dead.
He’s…dead.
The finality of such a thing.
The totality of the word.
“NO!” I threw myself on him. I slapped his righteous cheek. “Wake up, you bastard. Wake up!”
The woman grabbed me from behind, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear, making the urge to break down unavoidable.
“The battery is getting low,” the man mumbled. “One last attempt.” Raking his hand over his sweaty face, he barked, “Clear!”
And pressed the button.
Sully shot upright.
He fell backward.
Still nothing.
I broke.
A keening sound escaped me. A high-pitched wail that I couldn’t control. I hugged myself and rocked. I bowed over my knees. I fell to the side, hugging the explosions annihilating me.
The bomb in my soul. The shrapnel in my belly. The extermination in my core.
He can’t be dead.
He can’t.
No!
The faint howl of sirens announced the paramedics had arrived. The woman bustled to the door. “I’ll bring them here straight away.”
The men lingered, not knowing how to help me or Sully.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Grace.” One of them tried to pat my shoulder.
I lashed out with claws. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
The leader slowly removed the sticky pads from Sully’s chest. His head bowed, and regret bracketed his mouth. His hand trailed over Sully’s throat, his fingers searching one last time for a pulse.
He froze.
My sobs silenced.
Sick, vicious hope exploded.
I would die from this hope.
I would perish beside Sully because hope was the only thing keeping me alive.
Please…
If this turned out to be fake…
If he’s dead…
The urge to vomit burned my throat.
Nausea and vertigo, hot flashes and icy sweats.
Please!
The man closed his eyes, his entire focus on the faintest flutter of life.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three.
Four.
Five nightmarish moments.
His eyes soared wide just as the paramedics spilled into the room. “Shit, he’s alive.” His attention shot from me to the uniformed men falling to their knees around Sully.
The man I loved more than fucking life itself became the centrepiece of calm professionals and panicked mercenaries.
“Heart attack?” one of the ambulance workers asked, opening his bag of tricks to create a miracle.
“I think so.” The leader nodded. “Shocked five times. CPR administered since cardiac failure. Pulse has restarted. Faint…but it’s there.”
“Good work, we’ll take it from here.”
I tried to breathe and couldn’t.
I tried to move closer…I fainted.
Chapter Fourteen
I WASN’T HERE NOR there.
I wasn’t alive nor dead.
I didn’t know what I was or who.
I sucked in a breath, only to find I had no such ability.
No lungs, no heart, no physical presence to control.
Darkness all around me. Coral spires and sand caverns, jewelled anemones and sleek oily sharks.
Was this reincarnation?
Had I traded a form that walked on land for one that swam in the depths?
And if I had…why couldn’t I see my new shape?
Why did no fingers or fins appear when I tried to move my extremities? Why did no bubbles explode from my mouth when I tried to exhale?
Why couldn’t I remember what I was before this?
I had a name; I was sure of it.
I had a life…I was convinced.
Yet the more I tried to remember, the faster it dissolved until I was just a speck.
An unnamed, unclaimed speck lost in the global vastness, adrift and unwanted.
Darkness thickened.
My speck vanished.
I was nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
“HE’S CRASHING AGAIN!”
I stood by the door, pressed against the wall so I wouldn’t be kicked out. The doctors had tried to keep me out of surgery while they worked on Sully, but…well, I fucking refused to obey.