In the end, Louise gave up on controlling the timeline and permitted Sully to train himself. To use the weights for his arms, and the Pilate bands for his abs and quads at his discretion.
Each day, Sully broke barriers and rebuilt the muscle he’d lost.
He was so full of life now.
He smiled more than I’d ever seen.
He laughed at my stupid jokes.
His eyes glowed with less torment.
His thirty-three years had been erased and he’d transformed into a younger, less brooding man. They did say that life was put on hold while a patient lay in a coma. That no aging process occurred.
Well, Sully’s six-week sleep seemed to have stopped all clocks and reversed the strain of his prior years. I’d like to take some credit for that—for teasing his heart open to trust and filling it with affection. For showing him he didn’t need to hate himself or his kind. That it was okay to be happy when so many other creatures were not.
Talking of creatures.
Today, I had a plan and I wasn’t entirely sure how Sully would take it.
“So…I can kidnap him for the afternoon?” I asked Louise as she packed her suitcase and oversaw Joe and Steph as they dismantled the monitors and sensors, slowly restoring Sully’s villa into a home instead of a hospital ward.
“Yes. He can stand and walk a few steps—if someone is there to help bear his weight. Make him use the cane at all times, seeing as he refuses crutches. If he wants to stand for longer than a minute, position him somewhere he can either fall safely or hold on to something. Don’t stay in the sun for too long and no drinking alcohol, even though he’s no longer on antibiotics or painkillers. His system is still fragile and should be—”
“Who the fuck are you calling fragile?” Sully growled as he appeared on the threshold of the living room. One hand rested against the door jamb and the other fisted a bamboo cane with a sweeping handle in the shape of vines and palm trees. The tropical design continued halfway down the shaft, whittled with birds and flowers.
Jess and I had sketched it out a couple of weeks ago and asked one of the carpenters who was working on Euphoria’s reinvention to carve it.
Turned out, the carpenter was a woodcarver, skills passed down from generations and he’d leapt at the chance.
Sully had accepted the gift and hadn’t said a word. He didn’t need to. His eyes said everything. They touched me, kissed me, fucked me, and married me all in one grateful stare.
“What are you doing out of bed? Someone was coming to help you.” Louise stopped folding her clothes, glaring at her tetchy patient. “You’re determined to kill yourself, I swear.”
“Determined to walk, that’s all.” Sully swayed a little as his legs grew used to his weight. He’d slipped on an off-white t-shirt and a pair of khaki cargos. No suits or ties. No sign of the gatekeeper of Goddess Isles. His legs had filled in thanks to his daily exercises but the discolouration of healing bones and weaker areas hinted it would take months before he could do much more than stumble.
Moving to his side, I waited until he looped his arm around my shoulders. “We’re going on a drive,” I said. “I’m your chauffeur.”
“Finally, a change of scenery.” He bent and kissed the tip of my nose. “Where are you taking me? The beach? The restaurant? Lunch with Cal and Jess?”
“We can do all that if you want, but first…there’s something I want to show you.”
* * * * *
“Are…are you going to say something?” I asked softly as I turned off the engine to the ATV and glanced at Sully.
With Joe’s and Louise’s help, we’d assisted Sully from his villa and into the ATV and we’d driven, just the two of us, down the private laneway from Nirvana, beneath sweeping palms and dense jungle to the large oasis where Euphoria was housed.
The virtual reality playground soared into the sky with its thatched roof and aura of hidden fantasies. It might look the same on the exterior but the interior was totally reformed.
Last time Sully had been here, he’d killed a few men and saved me from his brother, all while I’d been helplessly high on elixir.
His hands balled and his jaw clenched as he focused on the building and the memories. “What’s there to say? I wanted this burned down.”
I hadn’t brought him here to relive nasty pieces of our past. I’d brought him here to heal a fractured part of him that’d died on Serigala.
“I couldn’t let it burn. But…it’s not the same as it was, I promise.”
When he didn’t reply, I turned on the ATV again and drove away from the front courtyard and Euphoria’s main double door entrance, heading toward the side of the large building where open-air bathrooms had been turned into entranceways for animals of all kinds. A shower had been removed in one, and the big stone bathtub relocated in another, allowing wet areas for creatures who required access to water like the two injured otters who’d arrived three days ago.