Chapter Seven The Nova
Chapter Seven
The Nova
Two thirty-five in the morning.
My knees ached no matter how I shifted the weight from side to side. My limbs were cold, specifically my fingers. They wouldn’t stop shaking. I could not bring myself to cry.
My husband was pale. Well, he usually was pale; that was his complexion. For once, the pallidity didn’t suit him. This time, he was also cold. My Dorian was never cold.
“Ma’am?”
Lifting my gaze was hard, like dredging up the river, an anchor buried in the mud. It hurt to keep my eyes open.
“No.” I covered my mouth with a cloth.
“No? Is this not your husband?”
“I’m not ready. If I say yes, you’ll take him from me.”
“I understand, ma’am, but we can’t keep him out of the ice much longer.”
“He’s not going to disintegrate before our eyes,” I snapped, pressing the cloth harder against my face. My lip wasn’t just trembling; it was fighting the cry that nipped at the back of my throat. The strain became tighter the longer I held it in.
“Do you know what caused the collision?” It was even harder to keep my tone than I thought.
“A woman ran into the road. We are still trying to locate the suspect.”
I heaved, pressing my hand back to my mouth, my fingers curling into a fist as I leaned over Dorian’s chest.
This isn’t real.
I am going to wake up.
Any moment now.
My knees buckled, my head resting on his chest. I held on to him. Hard as stone, a sterile smell of alcohol. I held his hand; it was so unfamiliar, no matter how I laced our fingers.
“Oh, Dorian, what have they done to you?” I whimpered, looking up to his face. I removed my hand from my mouth to wipe his forehead with the handkerchief. “They couldn’t find the decency to clean you up.” I stood to get closer.
I wiped and wiped, but the marks were still there under the blood.
The cuts in his face were deep, like the floor of my library, splintered and misshapen, past the point of reconstruction. The carnage had taken one eye. The other was badly misshapen.
The doors swung open.
“Why would you show her alone?” my brother scolded.
Suddenly Maxim’s hands were around me, turning me to his chest as if that would shield me from the sight. He pulled the edge of his coat up to block the slab from view.
“You should have waited until she had more family present. Shameful!” he barked at them, holding me tightly.
“Maxim, this can’t be him,” I cried. “It can’t be! This is a mistake.”
“Lucia, please,” he begged.
“He was supposed to come home!” I screamed, but he just held me tighter.
I was so angry, I bit into his shirt, but he didn’t let go; he just kept his coat over my head.
“Calm yourself,” he said strictly. “I will handle this.”
“Sir, we need to put him away—”
“Do it. It’s him, I can confirm that,” Maxim said. “Do not embalm him, it’s a matter of the family’s wishes.” His hand rubbed up and down my back in a soothing motion. “I have to take her home now.”
There was no stopping the shaking—my entire body was frozen like ice. My bones and joints rattled together like a stalling steam car. If I let it go on any longer, my fingers might suffer frostbite or some other ailment of the cold. No amount of blankets would ward off the chill from my bones.
What remained of my husband was stored in the morgue of the county. But Dorian lived on, in me, as guilt. A final declaration of my luck running dry.