Chapter 10
TEN
In the grand scheme of things, flying in a helicopter isn’t the worst outcome.
It’s actually kind of fun. If they’d quit jostling my ribs.
Being alive, of course, tops the list of positives.
God. I can’t believe I died.
A groan slips out before I can stop it. The medic leans over, calm and efficient. “I’m going to give you some pain meds now.”
He placed a headset on me the second they loaded me, so his voice filters through the noise of the blades overhead like he’s talking from the bottom of a tin can.
I nod, swallowing down the ache that runs all the way to my toes. If this is what it feels like to be a prize fighter, I’ll stick to academia.
“Bring it on,” I tell him. “But just so you know—I’m a lightweight. One glass of wine and I’m singing badly and dancing like a donkey scratching its butt on a fencepost.”
His eyes crinkle. “Roger that. I’ll keep you strapped down. No butt-scratching in here. Too many important switches.”
He starts an IV with practiced hands, the cool rush of fluid creeping up my arm. Within seconds, everything feels much better.
“Can I ask you something?” I manage, drawing in the deepest breath I can.
“Fire away. I’m just taking your blood pressure. My teammates call me The Talker, so you picked the right audience.”
Good. Because apparently dying has turned me into Chatty Cathy.
“Do your patients ever talk about what they… saw? When they… you know.”
I cannot say, died. My mouth won’t form the word.
He stills for a beat, then folds his gloved hands, leaning back like we’ve got all the time in the world. “You mean while you were gone?”
That word—gone—hits different, yet somewhere deep.
My lip trembles, even though I’m trying to be strong. “Yeah. It’s strange. I’m not sure what I saw, exactly. But it wasn’t nothing. And that’s… inconvenient for someone who believes in facts and data and very earthly things—”
My voice cracks, and his hand moves to rest on my shoulder, warm and steady. Reassuring.
But it’s not the hand I want. Not Justice’s.
“Lots of people have experiences,” the medic says quietly. “My brother did, after getting injured in the war. He crossed over and came back. Swears he saw something. Turned him spiritual as hell.”
The tears come bubbling up, stinging as they push into the corners of my eyes.
“I get it. I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same.”
He grabs a tissue from the box on the wall and dabs at my face. “Easy now. Better not let you drown. Your man would have my ass.”
“Oh, he’s not my man.”
He gives me a look that says sure, sweetheart. “If he wasn’t before, he is now.”
I blink at him, speechless, which seems to amuse him even more.
“You feeling that medication yet?”
I think about it for a second.
My chest aches less, but my head is full of static and warmth. “I guess so. I feel really… in love.”
His grin widens. “Told you so.”
“No,” I insist, half-slurred. “I can’t be in love. We just met. Unless it’s science. I mean, I could be in lust—that’s chemical. Easy to explain.”
He chuckles, adjusting something on the monitor.
Boy, I’m tipsy.
“You did see him, right?” I mumble, heat blooming under the oxygen mask.
That’s not the only place getting warm.
I continue to ramble. “What woman wouldn’t be in lust when a real-life action hero drags her back from death’s door and carries her to a flying chariot?”
He’s still grinning when the skids touch down.
The last thing I hear before a swarm of nurses takes over is his voice in my headset: “I’ll be expecting an invite to that wedding.”