Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
brETT
Ghost closes his eyes, and I shake as painful sobs wrack my body. There’s nothing—nothing I can do.
“But you did,” I whisper, pushing his hair off his sweat-lined brow. “You did return the favor,” I sob. The snot bubbles from my nose, making my words unintelligible. “You-you’re everything to me. Please don’t… don’t….”
I don’t care that Kain watches me fall apart. I can’t care. Shouldn’t, especially when he’s going through a similar loss as me. Horrible, choking sobs bounce off the arched stone hallway, each one growing in strength and desperation. There’s a hole where my heart used to be—a black, rotting, awful thing—and I want nothing more than to reach my hand in and tear out the necrosis. I’ve lost him. Lost the only man I’ve loved—will ever love. And I never even fucking told him.
“Brett…” Kain whispers, sounding unsure for the first time since I’ve known him. “Brett, he’s?—”
Ignoring Kain’s words trying to coax me back to reality, I rock back and forth, cradling his head to my chest. “I love you,” I choke, the words breaking my rib cage wide open. “ I love you. I love you. I’m sorry I never said it. I swear, I’ll say it every damn day—I’ll scream it from the rooftops. Just… please come back. Please, I… I can’t do this without you.” I peek down at his pallid face, but no matter how much I want it to be, he doesn’t move. Not even so much as a flutter of his eyelids.
“No,” I moan, every bone in my body bursting, filling me with a deep-rooted pain. “ No, please. Please, please, plea?—”
A scuffle to my left has my last thread of lucidity snapping to attention, and my desperate ramblings die in my throat. I raise my head, eyes wildly scanning the rows of doorways for threats. I start to think I imagined it—that the sound was just a product of my shattering mind—-but then I see her. A girl.
About fifty paces away, crouched behind the archway is a girl no older than sixteen, her snow- white hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate twisting braid. Tiny flower clips adorn the updo like constellations, their golden hue eerily matching the color of her large, wide-set eyes. Long, flowing white robes drape her body, the thick bundles of fabric drowning her petite frame and making her seem impossibly frailer.
At her feet are two white fluffy tiger cubs, their bright blue eyes piercing and wary as they watch me from behind the corner, assessing the threat of the situation.
The girl lifts a hand to wave, and the light seems to shine right through her translucent skin, giving the girl an ethereal, ghostly quality. Fearing this is some stress-induced hallucination, I try my best to ignore her. That is, until she suddenly appears crouched beside me, her piercing gaze focused solely on Ghost.
“He’s dying,” she says, an even stranger, melodic voice accompanying the girl's looks. “So is she.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Kain demands, trying to push himself off the floor. “Don’t you fucking touch him! I’ll?—”
I raise a hand, cutting Kain off as I meet the girl’s gaze. “Who?” I ask. “Who’s she ?”
The girl raises her head, looking over my shoulder toward the Madam’s personal quarters. “Oh…”
She nods, dragging her eyes to mine, their golden depths devoid of emotion. “ Ding dong, the queen is dead. Ding dong, the bell doth toll. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong… ” She looks off to the side, seeming to see something that’s not there. “And why should I help her? Such is the natural order of things.”
“Who… who are you talking to?” I whisper, looking around wildly for a sign of another person.
The young girl just shakes her head, the glassy sheen in her eyes clearing as she brings those golden orbs onto my face. “They want me to help you.”
“Who?” I demand, clutching Ghost tighter to me. “Who wants you to help me? Who are you?”
“ Ding dong. Ding dong. I must work quickly, ” she murmurs, reaching into her pocket. “ Where the blood flows, life goes. To stop the stream, we must dam the river.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I screech, past the point of caring if I look like a crazy person. The man I love is dying in my arms, and this creepy kid is talking nonsense, conversing with ghosts. “What are you talking about?”
The girl sucks her teeth like my questions are irritating her, lowering a small syringe-like device toward Ghost’s wound. My hand shoots out to her arm to stop her, and I’m surprised at the coolness of her skin.
“ The blood is leaving. I must work quickly,” she murmurs, looking confused as to why I stopped her. “ He will die ? — ”
“I know that!” I snap, taking a deep breath before starting again. “I know that… but what are you doing to him? How do I know that stuff isn’t going to kill him?”
“ Silly woman.” She sighs, ripping her arm from my grip and proceeding toward the wound. “It will stop the bleeding. For a time.” Kain remains surprisingly silent as she presses the handle of the syringe, and a milky-silver substance pours from the tip into the wound. Within seconds, the bleeding stops, and the girl sits back with a haughty expression.
“I told you.”
I shake my head, unable to take my eyes from the ashen skin on Ghost’s face. “Can you… could you help me get him out of here?”
When she doesn’t answer, I raise my head, but the girl is gone. What the…
“Brett! Kain!”
Orion’s footsteps race down the hall toward us, and a few moments later, he’s crouched by Ghost’s head. “Is he…?”
“He… I don’t think so,” I whisper. “ He… he doesn’t have much time left, though.”
“Fuck!” He rakes his hands through his hair, looking distraught until he realizes the blood has stopped seeping through Ghost’s wound. “Did you find something to help?”
Kain and I exchange glances, our eyes asking the question our mouths won’t. Should we tell him about the girl? For some reason, I don’t think we should. Something in my gut is stopping me—something telling me that keeping her a secret is very, very important.
“I found… I found some kind of syringe thing in his pocket,” I lie. “It stopped the bleeding, but it won’t last for long.”
Orion nods. “Let’s get him out of here—come on,” Orion orders, hauling Ghost’s arms up and over his shoulders like a backpack. Being taller than the teenager, Ghost’s lower half drags across the ground as he stands, but it’s the best we can do right now.
Orion takes the lead with Ghost on his back, Rupert pacing back and forth nervously, occasionally offering a lick of sympathy to Ghost’s limp form. Meanwhile, I stand at Kain’s side, helping hold him up as much as I can as we slowly traverse the myriad of corridors and stairs.
“Once we get out of here, we’ll take him to my house,” Kain says, wheezing heavily. “Lillith is a gifted surgeon—well, surgeon in training. She can help him.”
My stomach turns at the in training part, but I try not to think about it as we finally emerge through the secret back hatch and out into the alley. My lungs expand as I take in the stale night air, and I can’t help but look up at the night sky, wishing for stars. Wishing for something extraordinary to happen—to show me that those things still can.
“Come on,” Orion whispers, wheezing slightly as he leads us toward Ghost’s truck. We make him as comfortable as we can in the back seat, and then I help Kain into the passenger side while Orion starts the engine. I squish myself between the floor and the seats in the back, if only to be closer to Ghost. And also, so I can check his breathing every few seconds.
The truck jerks into motion, and I clutch Ghost’s gloved hand as we speed away from the gold-hued building. Carefully, I remove the leather from his hands, trailing my fingertips over each dip and crest of the mutilated flesh. He’s cold—colder than he usually is. And it sends a shock of despair straight to the marrow of my bones.
Suddenly, a massive blast breaks out in the distance, and I whip my head with such force that I crick my neck. Thick black clouds of smoke billow from the flame-filled building as the ground quakes with the aftermath of the explosion. Glass shatters, careening down to the pavement below in a violent flurry of debris as the stone begins to crack and crumble from the heat of the flames. Faint screams pierce the air, followed by the wail of fire trucks as the rest of the city reacts to the terrible eruption.
And there, on the sidewalk in front of the flaming building, is the girl.
Her frail body sways eerily as she looks up at the flames with the smallest of smiles, those two white tiger cubs are cleaning themselves carelessly at her feet. As if sensing my stare, her head whips toward our disappearing car, and her smile drops. Turning fully, she raises a translucent hand, her skin glowing red with the flames at her back—like a terrifying omen.
But when I blink, she’s gone.
I sit in the living room of Kain and Lillith’s apartment, twisting my fingers nervously as I watch the clock. It’s been three hours since Lillith whisked him into her private operating room—something Kain had installed so she could treat the Hellfyre members' injuries discreetly—and I can’t shake the dread sitting like a stone in my gut.
Kain reassured me that Lillith was a gifted trauma surgeon—and had even saved his life back when she was just starting her residency—but the amount of blood he lost… the way his body looked like a limp rag doll as Kain and Orion hoisted him onto the table…
I fight the bile rising in my throat as the images swarm my mind, trying and failing to blink them away. I don’t know how anyone could survive such a thing. And from the look on Kain and Orion’s faces, they don’t seem to have high hopes.
An eternity later, the door creaks open, and Lillith emerges, dark bags under her eyes and enough blood on her scrubs to make me sick all over again.
“Is he…” My words get caught in my throat, and I know I’m not brave enough to ask the question I need to. Is he dead?
Lilith peels the mask from her face to reveal her mouth set in a deep grimace. “He’s alive. But…” I sit up straighter, wanting to strangle the rest out of her. But is never a good thing. But could mean anything from he lost his leg to he’s now a vegetable.
“But what? ” I demand, dutifully ignoring the murderous look Kain throws my way. “Just… tell me.”
“He’s in a coma,” she whispers, reaching a hand up to tug at the golden locket dangling below her collarbone. “I’m so sorry, Brett… I did everything I could, but he’s just not responsive.”
My fist tightens at my side as I try to ignore the screaming inside my own head. Coma. Ghost is in a coma. “Will he… will he ever wake up?” I ask, not knowing if I’m brave enough to hear the answer.
Lillith looks at Kain, who gives her a small nod. Taking a deep breath, she simply shrugs. “I don’t know. The brain is a strange thing. He could wake up in the next couple of hours, weeks, or never again. I do think he needs to go to an actual hospital, though,” she adds, placing her hands on her hips when Kain opens his mouth to disagree. “I’m not even an attending yet, Kain. He needs to see a specialist or at least someone with an actual license.”
Kain sighs, raking a tattooed hand through his dark hair. “I know, flower. But we can’t. They’ll lock him away for good.”
“Better that and he has a chance of recovering than staying like this!” Lillith whisper-yells, shooting an awkward glance at where I’m crouched on the floor, my head in my hands. “Kain, this is too much for her. She’s going into shock—I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
“I’m fine,” I say, raising my head to give them both a hard stare. “And Lillith is right. Ghost needs to go to a real hospital.” I straighten, looking at Kain this time. “No one knows what Ghost really looks like—plus, for all the bureau knows, they still have the real Phantom in custody. Lillith and Orion can take him in, and as long as I vouch for you, the police shouldn’t give you any problems.”
Kain studies my face for a long moment, seeming to think over my plan. “Okay,” he relents, turning and taking Lillith’s face in his palm. “If anything happens, you call me and?—”
“And you’ll be parked around the corner ready to murder anyone who tries to get in my way? I know.” She grins, pressing on the balls of her feet to plant a lingering kiss against his lips.
While they have their moment, I go into the room where Ghost lies motionless on an operating table, a thin blue sheet covering his torso and legs. A thick plastic tube protrudes from his throat, breathing air into his lungs because he’s not even able to do that on his own. Seeing so many wires protruding from his already tortured skin breaks my heart, and when I reach up to touch my cheek, I realize I’ve been crying.
“Oh, Ghost,” I murmur, stepping closer and brushing his arm with my fingertips. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. I wish—” I choke on whatever I was going to say as ugly, heaving sobs wrack my shoulders.
What I want to say is that I wish the world wasn’t so cruel. That I wish there wasn’t so much misery, and that I didn’t have to hold on so tightly to those rare, golden seconds of happiness. That I wish life was what was promised—that there was some good left in the world—or at the least, something more to live for.
And there was. My heart cries. There is. He’s right there—reach out and touch it. This little gift, this strange, unfathomable thread tying your souls together.
Yet the longer I stand here, the more that bond weakens. Vanishes to a puff of white smoke before my eyes, carried off by the breeze as the next moment replaces the last .
“Are you ready to go?” Lillith asks, breaking me from my thoughts. She rests a wary hand on my elbow, and I have to hold my breath to stop the tears from flowing. I nod, letting Orion lead me outside as Lillith calls one of her coworkers to help transfer Ghost to the hospital.
I stop in the middle of the clearing, squinting as my eyes adjust despite the clouds covering the majority of the sun. I look up at the dark gray skies, listening to the wrens sing their morning song, welcoming a new day despite the state of the world.
It’s a dark, gloomy morning, and it tugs strangely at my insides, wrenching my chest open like an invitation for those happy birds to feast on my barely beating heart.
I watch as a cloud the shape of a phoenix forms in the vast gray. It sails across the sky, forming into a misshapen lump before long, causing my heart to sink for some inexplicable reason.
“Isn’t it strange?” I ask.
Orion toes a patch of grass with his sneaker, not paying much attention to what I’m saying.
“Huh?”
“It’s strange…” I repeat, reaching a hand up to my heart to cover the source of pain. “I did ev erything I could. I did everything I was supposed to, yet it’s still raining. Why—why is it always raining?”
Orion meets my eyes, his worried blue pools mirroring the weight resting on my soul. Such a deep, haunting color that resonates my deepest, most kept fears.
“I don’t know,” he says, simply. “I really, truly, don’t know.”