Chapter 22 #2
Kumar hummed as he leafed through the charts.
“Only nineteen. She transferred from the Kitchens last petition. They practically raised her, but they raise all orphans. The other sectors aren’t suitable for children.
She was only thirteen when she came to Haven—too young.
I haven’t heard her story yet. She keeps to herself like someone else I know.
She was the first to write down her name for medic training.
Shall we?” Kumar tucked the papers under his arm as he gestured toward more curtains.
I nodded, following him. “I feel you should understand my entire inspiration,” Kumar said quietly as he turned right down a curtained hall.
“Entire inspiration for what?” I asked, my thoughts on the girl. She would have been eleven when the war started.
“Your name, I would like you to understand—fully before you take on your new name, Beast.” My brows raised.
“Your unit talks, shares with one another. Are you familiar with the old tales of the angel of death?” I shook my head.
“Religions vary on the exact role. However, they share the belief that the angel in question is tasked with separating the soul from the body upon death.”
“You named me after that?” I demanded. What a horrible role to have, to be associated with.
Kumar carried on. “Yes, you seemed to see souls and not the bodies and the ailments they carried. You sat in the midst of illnesses and waited for death, unafraid of the risk to yourself. But—”
“I sat with them hoping I’d go too in the beginning,” I admitted without meaning to. I couldn’t handle any more of his words painting me as something I was not.
Kumar’s heavy sigh rattled my soul. “I was there the day you rushed in here, skin and bones, screaming for help. You were a sight. I thought your sister’s death would take you too.
You were all alone. I saw that haunted, dead look in your eyes.
I knew it. I once wished for the same. So I gave you an apron and prayed you’d come back.
” I looked at the man next to me in disbelief.
“The war broke many of us. I am happy you didn’t let it break you. ”
But it had. I no longer knew who I was outside of the vicious thing I harbored beneath my skin. No part of my soul remained unmarred. I was broken.
“You have also gifted many souls with more time by taking advantage of my system. Risking yourself once again but for life. Forgetting to mark ailments, cutting time, stealing resources. You have stood between life and death since you came running in here screaming for help. I do not think you are merely whispered about because you will not die, as you put it, but because you have protected the humans left with more life.”
“You knew?” The floor dropped out from under me at the acknowledgment of what I had done here.
I had thought no one knew about all the forms I had lied on, granting people better health scores, ensuring they might qualify for more treatment.
I had only seen the harshness of the health score…
I hadn’t seen it the way Kumar did. Didn’t know people knew.
“Sasha, this is my home. Of course I knew.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
Kumar halted. We were in the section for recovering patients.
“There is no life without death, and no death without life, Sasha. You see ways to help others, and you step into them selflessly. I shall never stop someone from trying to save others. I did not think it would be such a young woman who would realize the opportunity I had created. Funny how the bravest among us are sometimes the most unassuming.” Kumar glanced back down the way we had come.
“But alas, I have said too much, and I have made you uncomfortable. Did you know that your partner is quite popular? I have never had a patient with so many guests—female guests.” His brows raised, as he gracefully changed the topic.
I hid my surprise, but I could see why Levi’s silent brooding demeanor mixed with his looks drew people in. His romantic history had never been a topic we discussed.
“I will be quick,” I said. “I know visitation hours are over.”
“You are never a visitor here, Death’s Angel. Go sit with life,” Kumar said before bidding me good night.
Alone, I slowly made my way down the hall, but I came to an abrupt stop as voices met me.
“Thanks again for the book,” Levi muttered quietly. The sound of movement beyond the curtain filled the air when Levi spoke again. “Isla—”
I pushed myself against the wall of curtains at the name. I had never heard Levi sound like that—desperation thick and all-encompassing.
“Don’t.”
The movement stopped. “Levi,” Isla began.
“Don’t,” Levi repeated. “I don’t want your pity.”
“It isn’t pity.”
“Then what is it?” Levi demanded.
No words came. I wanted to disappear.
“That’s what I thought. I’m not a damn placeholder,” Levi shot back. “I’m not going to fill a role just because the one you really want won’t.”
“It isn’t like that, Levi,” Isla said, anguish in her voice.
“You were just with Patrick.”
“I was—only because…” Isla stumbled over her words.
“Do not blame this on drinking,” Levi said darkly.
“I wasn’t.” The shifting of bodies filled the room with the rustle of hospital bedsheets.
“You should go. Visitation hours are over,” Levi said firmly.
“Levi, maybe I was wrong,” Isla said, her voice small.
“Maybe isn’t good enough. I told you three years ago, Isla. I won’t be your consolation prize.”
“You’re not—”
“Your actions have shown otherwise. You need to go.”
“Is this about Abbott?” Isla started barely above a whisper. “I heard you’re seeing Stewart now. Several moons ago it was Garcia. I know there are others. It’s impossible to keep track of who you’re with.”
“Then don’t keep track.”
“Is she the reason?”
“You are the reason, Isla. You.”
“Levi—”
“Isla,” Levi said, her name a plea. “I asked you to choose me. I did that. After everything I’ve been through, I asked you to choose me. You didn’t. There is nothing here for you. It’s over between us. Go, please, and don’t come back.”
It’s over between us. The discomfort and loaded glances the unit had shared every time Isla and Patrick got too close slowly made sense. The coffee Damien had thrust into Levi’s hands the morning after Isla had stayed with Patrick. The clues had been there; I had missed them.
Quick footsteps filled the hall. I pressed farther into the curtains, hoping they’d swallow me whole as I watched Isla storm from the room.
For one moment, I contemplated fleeing, but the anger that had permeated Levi’s voice kept me here.
His pain still lingered in the silent air.
I realized my anger wasn’t as hard to hold when he stayed, Levi had confessed in the Abyss. I walked into his room.
Blue eyes met mine, emotions whirling in their depths as time slowed down. A prayer pulsed around me in beat with my heart. Levi’s alive. I let those two words run through me, trampling the memories of him ripped open and bleeding out. I allowed my heart to accept that he was okay.
“This is becoming a habit of yours,” Levi drawled dryly, his face yielding nothing as he dumped the book Isla had given him on the table beside his bed.
He looked strong and healthy. He moved his right arm, which was in a sling, shifting the blankets. He could use his arm. My legs wobbled as relief blasted through me. He wasn’t just alive but okay. He tilted his head, watching me. Another challenge. My lips tugged up.
“I didn’t realize all of your important conversations happen in the dead of night,” I countered. There was no point denying the damn elephant in the room. “Do you want to talk about Isla?”
Levi shook his head. I could respect that; even more, I understood it.
“Do you want me to go or stay?” I asked hesitantly.
“Stay.” Levi settled into his pillows. I pulled a chair toward his bed and took a seat.
Flashes of him dying flickered before my eyes.
I reined in emotions that threatened to break through.
He was alive. Levi nodded at me, unspoken understanding filling the air between us. We couldn’t discuss it—not yet.
“You look like hell,” Levi finally said.
“Thanks.” Tears filled my eyes.
“Are you sleeping?”
“Some.”
“Miss the cuddling?” Levi teased. I glared at him even as solace ran through me that something so trivial and normal still existed.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think you’re alone in that.
Your cuddle buddy seems lonely too. Unless you’re cozying up with your new partner.
” There was no judgment in the statement, just curiosity.
“Isla tell you?” I asked, leaning back into the chair.
Levi nodded, his jaw tight.
“I’m not seeing Jaxon again and I don’t have a new partner. You’re my partner. I don’t want another one.” I meant it. I cared for Levi as a partner, as a friend.
Levi sighed, running his uninjured arm down his face. “You’re probably going to need one, Sasha. My health score is fucked.”
“No, it won’t be.”
“Been talking with Hayes?”
I nodded, my eyes finding his ID band. “We’ll figure something out.”
Levi shook his head. “He’ll try. Hell, he’ll probably get on his knees at Lyssa’s feet if that’s what she wants. She’s so fucking vindictive that she’ll probably ask for that and more. Even that might not be enough. I can’t ask Hayes to do that for me.”
We both knew he wouldn’t have to ask. Tristian would do so willingly. “There will be another way,” I assured him. I realized at some point in my numbness that I couldn’t stand the idea of the Force—the unit—existing without him. They needed him—needed to stay whole.
“You sound like Hayes,” Levi said, shifting, his face pulling tight as he used his injured arm.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine. Desperate to get out of here.”
“Too accessible to all your female guests?”