Chapter 42 Goodbye
Goodbye
The pain of loss is a reminder that we have loved deeply.
— BARACK OBAMA
Noise came first, low-pitched and rumbly, punctuated by a high beeping that made my head ache.
Pain came next. My hands felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to them. My lungs had clearly been scraped out of my body, mangled with a blender, then replaced. Every nerve ending was fire and torture. I moaned, but it emerged hoarse.
Light came last.
I blinked my dry eyes to find bright white walls. White ceiling. White curtains.
This… This was a hospital.
A real one.
Panic skewered my heart, and I tried to push myself to sitting. If I was in a hospital, that meant I’d been captured by the NAO. The Defiance had no hospitals. We had nothing.
“Well, hello,” said a friendly voice. A woman with short blond hair and blue scrubs entered the room. “Good to see you’re finally awake!”
“Where am I?” I asked, but the words barely emerged.
“Oh, try not to speak,” the woman said, hurrying to my side. “You had some pretty hefty smoke inhalation. Throat’s going to be sore.”
I eased back onto the pillows, eyeing the logo on her hospital badge.
UNITY HEALTH TORONTO
“I’m in Canada?” I mouthed.
Her friendly expression fell. “Let me get your doctor.”
She left the room, and I tried to calm the anxiety brewing in my blood. I’d been in a burning building, Lucas unconscious beside me, and now I was alone in a white bed.
Where was Lucas?
What about Adam?
How did I get here?
After a few minutes, an older woman in scrubs stepped into the room, wearing the same friendly smile. “Hello. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. How are you feeling?”
I shrugged and looked at my bandaged, throbbing hands.
She followed my gaze. “Ah. Yes. Your surgeon will be in to explain the healing process, but he expects a full recovery.”
Tears filled my eyes at the confusion. “Where am I?” I gasped.
Face strained, she lowered onto the stool beside my bed.
“You’re in Ontario. There was an attack, and the Prime Delegate of the Defiance called for emergent evacuation.
There were mass casualties, and many of the wounded were airlifted out and brought to Toronto for treatment.
You’d lost a lot of blood by the time you arrived, and your airway was swollen from smoke damage.
We had to place a tube to help you breathe, so we kept you sedated. ”
“How long have I been here?”
“Five days.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. Behind me, a monitor dinged, alerting everyone to my distress.
“There was a man,” I rasped out. “I was trying to save him. Did he make it?”
Her brow creased. “There were hundreds of refugees brought in. I can check the list. What’s his name?”
“Lucas Scott.”
She blinked at me, then glanced at the band around my wrist, where my name was printed for all to see. They must have gotten it from my dog tags.
“Right. I’d forgotten who you are. Just a moment.”
I almost smiled as the relief flooded me.
Settling back into my blankets, I closed my eyes. He’d be with me soon.
We’d survived.
Several minutes later, a soothing voice murmured my name. My eyes snapped open.
Zara sat at my bedside, dressed in a hospital gown, her arm in a sling and gauze taped along her neck and arms. A noose of fear strangled me.
“Is Lucas okay?” I asked.
She frowned. “Let’s talk about you for a moment. Are you okay? Who did that to your hands?”
I looked down at my bandages. “Miller. He and Lucas fought, and Lucas was stabbed, and I was trying to drag him out of the burning cabin. And Adam…”
My sore throat thickened with tears.
“Adam’s on a different floor,” she said, her hand on my arm. “He took a gunshot to the chest, but his vest saved him. Broke several ribs. Punctured a lung.”
A spike of relief was chased by a violent stab of debilitating fear. Why wasn’t she telling me what I wanted to know? A hot tear splashed down my cheek. “And Lucas?”
Her eyes filled. “Sophia—”
The monitor behind me went haywire. “Where is Lucas, Zara?”
A beat passed, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
I stared.
She kept talking, but the words were just white noise. My brain stalled.
I’m sorry.
That couldn’t mean…
No.
He was fine. He was recovering in another room. They’d repaired his knife wound. They’d replaced his blood.
After several moments, Zara’s words finally made their way into my ears. “Lucas didn’t make it out.”
“No.”
She paused. “No?”
“He’s fine, right? He’s… He’s fine.”
Zara hesitated, her hand squeezing my arm. “I’ve spoken with the general, Sophia. He calls here every day, checking on you. He found you in the cabin. You and Adam were still alive, but Lucas…”
Lucas what?
Lucas what?
“No. That can’t be right,” I whispered through my fried vocal cords. “That’s not true.”
“I’m so sorry, Sophia. He’s gone.”
Gone.
No…
That…
Amidst the rising chaos in my head, I tried to pull the memory of those last few moments from the haze.
Lucas had a pulse. I was pulling him to the door, but when I collapsed, he had a pulse.
… Right?
My mind tripped over the images of his bloodless lips, his lack of response to my slap.
Had his chest been moving?
A gasp caught in my sore throat as the truth crashed over me.
I never found a pulse. He never woke up. Had his heart stopped beating, and I didn’t even notice?
No air.
There was no air anywhere.
The monitor behind me went berserk, and suddenly the room was full of people, all speaking.
To me. To each other.
Nothing made sense.
A curtain fell, and everything faded to black.
When I woke again, I was already crying. I didn’t want to be awake. I didn’t want to exist in a body that hurt this much. I didn’t want to be in possession of a heart in this many pieces.
Every beat of that broken heart hurt. Betrayal and sorrow floated down, coating me in a cold blanket.
Grief is like snow…
He promised.
He promised he’d stay.
Until I die.
But I never really believed he’d die. The thought of his last breath was so unimaginable that I hadn’t believed it possible.
I tried to reason it out.
Maybe he’d woken after Theo pulled me out.
But Theo would know.
Maybe he’d been transferred here, registered as a John Doe.
They would have identified him by now.
Maybe his injuries were treated there.
With what resources?
Maybe he was really dead.
Agony sliced through my chest.
I forced my eyes open. The whiteness of the room had gone shadowy and blue with nightfall, and the space was empty again. The door stood wide. I had a clear view of the nurses’ desk. Men and women chatted around the computers, laughing.
It was like watching a movie, completely removed from my horrid reality. The beep of the monitor above me was surely a lie. I had no heart left, so what could possibly be beating in there? My chest was a dark cave I wanted to sink into.
What would my life be without him? Without all of them? Had anyone else survived?
Zara would know, but my room was empty and dark. I let my eyes fall shut again.
Memories flashed through my mind.
Are you the war whore?
If they waste you, they lose me.
Is your name really Sophia?
Are you brave or just stupid?
I wanted someone who wasn’t on the front lines so she’d outlast me.
I hear voices begging me not to kill them.
You’re mine.
Remember how scared of me you were in the beginning?
It’s what I deserve.
You deserve better.
My soul ached for him. It had been ripped in half, and the shredded edges left every nerve exposed. Pain became my existence. I forced myself to turn over and go back to sleep.
The sun had risen the next time I woke. Zara visited again, but she only brought bad news. Neither Devon nor Isaac had made it to Canada either.
“What about Theo?” I asked. “Can I talk to him?
“The general is on the move,” she said. “He hasn’t called in two days. I don’t know much.”
“And Dr. Grayson?” I asked.
Her eyes glistened with tears. “He was in the west wing when it was bombed. He didn’t make it.”
How it was possible that my heart collapsed even more, I wasn’t sure, but it managed. I gave way to the sheer hollowness of this new existence.
Empty.
After that, we sat in lonely silence together, each of us wallowing in our own brand of pain. She left shortly after, returning to her own room with a promise to visit again tomorrow.
I should have gone to visit Adam, but I had no energy.
I had nothing.
I felt only pain.
I wished for the end.
Instead, I slept.
Several days after I’d first woken in the hospital, I was picking at my dinner when the staff erupted into cheers, and a nurse ran into my room.
“It’s happening!” He turned the TV to the news, where a reporter happily announced the end of the world war.
Unified States Surrenders screamed the headline, while footage played of a familiar city skyline in flames.
The NAO had waved their white flag after a devastating battle in New York City.
Thousands of lives were lost before Haynes finally capitulated.
The terms of surrender were still under negotiation, but the feed cut to Commander Haynes orating at a podium clad in pristine white with a blazing black Brotherhood Cross.
I muted the TV, refusing to listen to anything that man said.
When the speech ended, the screen panned over vast Canadian cities, where tens of thousands of people flooded the streets in celebration.
“Freedom for Canada!” they screamed, tossing back their beers.
Canada’s battle was over, but the Defiance still fought. My country was still ravaged by war.
I couldn’t pretend to know what sort of political gymnastics the world had gone through in the past three years. I had no clue what manipulations and bargaining had happened while I lived under a totalitarian regime and a censored media.