Chapter 21Hell is Calling
Hell is Calling
Isabella
The air outside is thick with frost, a cruel reminder that winter is truly coming. The city feels different tonight, quieter, but not in the comforting way.
I’m standing at the counter, carefully sorting through supplies.
The shelves are organized, but still, there’s always something to be done; bandages to re-wrap, vials of medicine to check, drawers to clean.
The familiar rhythm of the work eases the tension in my shoulders as my hands move without thought.
My dark green hoodie is snug against the cold, my sleeves pushed up as I try to keep my hands warm by keeping them busy.
Sawyer’s by the window again, his leather jacket creaking as he shifts his weight, arms crossed over his chest. I glance at him now and then, the quiet and stillness between us both hanging thick.
He hasn’t moved much tonight, content to watch the snow swirl in the wind, his boots resting on the windowsill.
His sleeves are rolled up, exposing tattoos that stretch across his forearms. There’s something distant in his gaze, as if the storm outside is something deeper than just the weather.
Ada is moving around the back of the clinic, rummaging through paperwork and adjusting supplies.
Her oversized sweater makes her look smaller than usual, her jeans worn at the knees, the fabric softened by time.
She’s checking the inventory, flicking through some charts as she hums a low tune under her breath.
Every so often, she glances over at me, her eyes searching for something, answers, maybe, or just some sort of connection amidst the stillness of the night.
The quiet between us is comforting in its own way, though there’s an edge to it. A tension that builds with each passing moment, the kind you can’t quite place, but you feel deep in your bones.
I hear a soft thud of Ada’s boots against the linoleum floor as she walks over to the sink. I turn my attention to the shelf I’m cleaning, the antiseptic smell filling the air as I wipe down each surface, fingers numb from the cold that keeps seeping in no matter how much we try to fight it.
‘‘Everything in order out there?’’ Ada’s voice breaks the quiet, soft but steady. Her eyes flick to Sawyer for a moment, watching him as he stands at the window.
Sawyer doesn’t answer right away, his gaze still lost in the storm outside. ‘‘As much as it can be,’’ he mutters, almost to himself. He glances over his shoulder at us. ‘‘Quiet night, I guess.’’
I set the cloth down, moving over to the desk to check the charts.
The numbers are all there, everything accounted for, but something still doesn’t sit right.
I glance at the clock on the wall, past midnight.
The hours stretch longer on nights like this, as though time itself has slowed down, waiting for something.
The heater clicks on, but it’s not enough to chase away the deep cold that’s settled into my bones.
The stillness grows thicker as the night wears on, and the tasks become almost meditative; checking the supplies again, filing paperwork, sanitizing instruments.
The kind of routine that becomes second nature in a place like this.
I move from the counter to the gurney, glancing at the man who lies still, his body hidden beneath the sterile white sheets.
His shallow breathing is the only sound that breaks the silence.
I check his vitals again, the beeping of the monitor steady but still too faint in this quiet.
For a moment, I let my fingers linger on the edge of the cold metal, grounding myself in the calm.
The lights overhead buzz faintly, casting a harsh, artificial glow over the room.
The man on the gurney hasn’t moved in hours.
His breathing is steadier now, the rise and fall of his chest no longer a desperate struggle.
I should be relieved. His vitals have stabilized, the blood transfusion worked, and for now, his body is holding on.
My eyes drift over the man’s exposed arm, tracing the faint lines of tattoos that snake across his skin.
Each line seems to tell its own story, the designs not entirely sharp but still visible—a mix of symbols and shapes that blend together like memories fading with age. I follow the ink down his forearm, across the wrist, wondering about the significance behind each piece.
Then my eyes catch onto the star above his knee again.
The ink has bled a little over time, the edges of the star almost imperceptible in places. Still, the symbolism is clear.
Ada is now standing near the doorway, arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
She hasn’t said much more since our conversation, since we first saw the ink on his knee and heard the words spill from his lips like an omen.
But she’s been watching him, studying him in that calculating way of hers, as if waiting for a storm to break.
Then, just as I turn to check the monitors again, a sound cuts through the stillness.
A sharp inhale.
My head snaps toward him. His fingers twitch. His body shifts slightly, muscles tensing beneath the thin hospital blanket. And then—his eyes open.
At first, they’re unfocused, pupils blown wide from pain and medication. He blinks slowly, his gaze drifting along the ceiling before finally settling on me. His lips part, cracked and dry, but when he speaks, his voice is hoarse, barely above a whisper.
“Winter never buries its own.”
I freeze.
The words slithers through the room like a ghost, wrapping around my throat, squeezing. The weight of it settles in my chest, heavier than it should be, thick with something unspoken. I glance at Ada, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t react, just watches. Waiting.
Because winter does bury its own.
The frozen earth swallows the dead. The cold takes what it touches.
Unless—
A violent shudder rips through the man’s body, his fingers twitching, grasping at nothing. His breathing stutters, but his eyes, his eyes remain locked on me, searching, waiting for understanding to settle.
And it does.
The man swallows, his throat bobbing, and then his lips part again, words slipping out in a breath of sound, ragged and broken.
“Hell is empty ... ”
The air in the room seems to thin.
“ Diable is here.’’
And in that instant, everything goes to Hell.
The words sink into me like a blade, slow and deep. They lodge in my ribs, cold and sharp, making it hard to breathe. The clinic around me feels too small, the air too thin. My pulse slams against my skin, and for a second, I swear I can hear it echoing in the silence.
Then, before I can even begin to process it, his breathing stutters.
A sharp, ragged inhale, then a violent shudder rips through his body. His fingers twitch. His back arches off the gurney in a brutal, involuntary convulsion.
The monitor spikes, screaming an erratic warning.
Ada moves instantly, shoving past me, her voice breaking through the sudden chaos. “Shit—he’s crashing!”
I can’t move.
My feet feel bolted to the floor, my hands useless at my sides. The words still ring in my head, repeating over and over, drowning everything else out.
The gurney rattles under the force of his seizing body. His chest rises and falls in uneven, desperate gasps, his eyes rolling back for a split second before snapping open again, wild, unfocused. His breath hitches, catching on something unseen, something internal.
Ada shoves an oxygen mask over his face, fingers flying as she checks his pulse, as she calls out numbers I can’t quite process. Her movements are fast, practiced, but there’s an edge to them, a sharpness that only comes when you know, when you know it’s slipping away.
“Come on,” she mutters, voice tight with determination. “Stay with me.”
The beeping monitor turns into a shrill, continuous wail.
Flatline.
A sharp sound cracks through the air as Ada grabs the defibrillator. The pads press against his chest, the machine whines, charging, waiting for the command.
Then—shock.
His body jerks violently. The gurney creaks under the force, but the monitor doesn’t change.
No pulse.
Another shock. Another desperate attempt.
Nothing.
Like a radio caught between stations, white noise pressing in, curling around my skull, making everything feel wrong.
I press my palms against my ears, squeezing my eyes shut, willing it to stop. But it doesn’t. It won’t.
The air in the room grows heavier, colder.
The last breath he took lingers for a moment, a ghost of sound, before dissolving into silence.
He’s gone.
Ada exhales sharply, sitting back on her heels, hands still pressing against his lifeless chest as if she can force him to stay. But she doesn’t move again. She doesn’t try another shock.
Because there’s no point.
The silence is deafening.
It wraps around me, thick and suffocating, pressing in on my lungs until I can’t tell if I’m breathing anymore. My heartbeat slams against my ribs, wild and uneven, the only sound I can register beneath the endless, droning wail of the flatline.
My feet shift back instinctively, but the floor beneath me feels wrong, like I’m not really standing here, like I’m watching this from somewhere outside my body.
The room sways.
The walls stretch, shrink, blur. My breath is shallow, too fast, like I’m trying to suck in air through a straw. The static in my head grows louder, filling every crevice of my skull, drowning out everything else.
I stumble. My shoulder hits the wall, but I barely feel it. My vision tilts, smearing into something senseless, something wrong.
“Isabella.” Ada’s voice barely cuts through the haze.
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. The words of the now-dead man claw at the inside of my skull, looping over and over, twisting into something heavier, something unbearable.
The edges of my vision go black. The air feels wrong in my throat, too thick, too sharp. My stomach churns violently, and then I’m moving, stumbling, half-blind, crashing into the doorframe as I barely make it into the bathroom.
I fall to my knees in front of the toilet, fingers gripping the cold porcelain as my stomach heaves.
I don’t even have time to breathe between the waves of nausea, between the violent spasms wracking through me, trying to expel something that isn’t just sickness but something deeper. Something I can’t get rid of, no matter how hard I try.
By the time it stops, my hands are shaking, my entire body trembling like a leaf in a storm. The taste of bile lingers at the back of my throat, sharp and acrid, but I barely register it.
Ada is there before I can even catch my breath.
She drops to her knees beside me, her presence steady, grounding, but I can’t meet her eyes.
I feel raw, like my skin has been stripped away, nerves exposed to the cold air pressing in from all sides.
My breaths come in ragged, uneven gasps, and my fingers still clutch the porcelain like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
‘‘Isabella.’’ Her voice is quiet, but firm. I hear the worry laced between the syllables, the way it coils beneath the usual composure she wears like armor.
I shake my head. I can’t speak. I don’t know how to speak.
She hesitates for only a second before reaching out, pressing the back of her hand against my forehead like she’s checking for a fever.
It’s an instinctive gesture, one that should be comforting, but I flinch anyway.
Not from her touch, but from the world pressing too close, from the weight of what just happened suffocating me from the inside out.
Her eyes flick over me, assessing, searching, like she’s trying to figure out what’s happening inside my head.
“You’re in shock,” she murmurs, voice steady, even as her own hands shake. “Just breathe, okay? In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
I try.
The first inhale is sharp, painful. The second barely makes it past my throat before my stomach twists again, like my body is still trying to purge something that isn’t there.
The grief I’ve carried for weeks, the heavy, suffocating kind, the kind that settled into my ribs like cement, shifts, twists, morphs into something else entirely.
Hope .
Hope unfurls inside me, slow and steady, a creeping wildfire licking at the edges of my grief, turning it into something sharp. Something dangerous.
I press my palms against the floor and push myself up. Ada watches, eyes flickering with something unreadable, concern, maybe. Or something close to fear. She knows what that nickname means, from who that nickname is.