Chapter 82
No one truly knows what happens when we die.
Sure, there are claims from those that walked the line between life and death, even kids that claim to remember their previous lives before being born anew.
I’ve heard the stories, even dug into the research behind it that science can’t totally explain.
I didn’t know what to expect, but of all the things to experience, this is the worst.
Ripley breaks apart before my very eyes as I hang limp from his embrace.
The paramedics force their way in, trying to pry him from my body.
He relinquishes his hold as Bucky’s arms band around his chest, dragging him across the room while he wails a mournful cry.
It shreds me apart as I watch from the sidelines, my soul separated from my body.
The paramedics place my body in the only area free of carnage, as Rip’s doctor friend strides into the room.
The sight of her flickers some sort of recognition in my brain.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m dying that I can’t remember her, or that I was an empty husk when she and I met after escaping Bleakcrest.
She drops to her knees opposite of the man performing CPR as another worker taps my vein for an IV.
Holding her palm up, “Stop,” she instructs, and he ceases compressions.
She presses her fingers to the side of my neck as her ear hovers above my lips.
“Get the defibrillator,” she says to the man.
He spins in place, taking the machine from the woman waiting patiently at his back.
The doctor preps the paddles while the paramedic cuts my shirt up the middle. The machine whirrs electronically as it charges up, a bright orange light flashing.
Ripley clings to Bucky, whose grip is unwavering despite the struggle tremoring through his arms.
Chelsea watches on from the side, sitting on the bloody floor against the cabinets. Her knees are pulled up, arms wrapped around her red stained legs, eyes vacant—borderline catatonic. Just as she was when Brad was finished with her. The sight breaks my failing heart.
Moving around the room, I step over Karson’s body.
What’s left of his face is swollen and missing skin.
There’s a tube protruding from his throat.
Chelsea’s emergency attempt at keeping him alive with an on-site tracheotomy snuffed out by the bullet that splattered his brains across the dark grey stone.
I wonder if he would’ve lived had he not shot me.
“Clear!” the doctor shouts before pressing the paddles to my chest. My spiritless body doesn’t respond. The man immediately starts CPR as Rip roars my name from the corner Bucky’s corralled him into.
I cross the remaining distance, coming up beside him. There’s no way he can see me, but with the way his breath hitches, body stilling, I wonder if he can sense me.
Time passes, jolts shooting through my body, and still I don’t wake, don’t leave this limbo between existing and not.
I take my remaining moments to memorize the contours of his chiseled face. The scar beneath his chin, the Cupid’s bow, the myriad of colours in his dark eyes when the light hits them just right.
The doctor drops her tired arms. “Call it,” she says to no one in particular.
“No!” Ripley bellows. He unleashes himself, shoving Bucky like a leaf in the breeze. He pulls my gun from his friend’s waistband when he hits the floor, pointing it at my sister.
Fear grips me, though part of me knew this was inevitable.
“Please, don’t. You’re better than this,” I whisper to only myself, no one can hear me.
Ripley swings the glock from Chelsea to the doctor. “Again,” he growls, voice cracking, tears breaking free. “Go again.”
She raises her hands. “It’s been too long, Mr. Morgan.”
“I don’t fucking care, Phoebe! Again!”
“Very well,” she says, prepping me for another zap. “Clear!” she calls out, and the paramedic who was frozen in fear lifts his hands from my torso.
I feel the current as it travels through me, the sensation not at all enjoyable.
“Another two minutes, Harvey,” she says quietly to the man who has to be exhausted from chest compressions.
Swinging the gun on my sister, a snarl contorts Ripley’s handsome face. His foot connects with her shoulder, knocking her into Karson’s stiffening leg. “This is your fucking fault.”
“Do it,” she says, voice hollow, eyes looking but not seeing. “You can’t possible hate m—”
Bang!
He doesn’t hesitate. Not a single moment passes where he second guesses the curling of his finger on the trigger.
I wail an unheard woeful sob as Chelsea crumples to a dying heap next to her lover, a steady flow of crimson running from the hole in her neck transecting the carotid artery.
Bucky looks on in shock, a string of stutters falling from his lips as he loses the ability to form words.
I watch as the strongest man I’ve ever known paces through bloody puddles. With each passing second a tether to his sanity snaps. He’s dropping down into a cavern where nothing and no one can reach him. “Come on, flower. Come back to me. I know you want to. I can fucking feel you.”
That’s impossible.
Isn’t it?
A tug in my gut pulls my attention away from Ripley. Deep down, I know I’m fading. Maybe this is the last line to my corporeal form holding strong, letting me know it’s now or never.
Time to decide.
Do I stay?
Or do I go?
What will I face by returning? How hard will the road to recovery be? Would it be worth it? Or will my existence be near-vegetative, a burden on my love? Could I stand to live like that?
I know the answer.
Wiping my tears, I cautiously approach my corpse.
It can’t be as simple as a touch. Can it?
“Ripley…” Bucky says, getting to his feet, as I crouch in the pool of my own blood. “It’s time to let her go. She’s gone.”
“No, no, no,” he says like a plea. Dropping to his knees, he crawls to my body.
Phoebe looks to him, destroyed beyond repair. “One more time, Harvey,” she murmurs to the first responder. The paramedic nods, lifting his hands as the bolt of power rips through me.
Immediately, Harvey starts CPR. He doesn’t miss a beat, doesn’t falter once. His rhythm is perfect, precise, as his hands force my blood to move through my empty veins.
Reaching out, my fingers graze my cold arm. Pain shoots through my back, breath suctioning in and out of the wound. All of the agony comes roaring back as I rip my hand away.
I have to let it in, feel it all over again, to rejoin my body.
Ripley wails a sorrowful sob, uncontrollably falling through his emotions.
Taking a deep breath on this side of the veil, I wrap my fingers around my wrist on the side of the living. The pain’s so acute it steals everything, my breath, my words, my consciousness.
With a snap, I’m no longer divided. I’ve been stuffed back into my limp, useless body on this side of the world.
“Ripley, calm down!” Bucky shouts as something crashes. “Stop!”
An anguished scream reverberates through the house, guttural, raw, and broken.
“Rip, don’t do this. It’s not what she would want.”
“What I want,” he growls, “is to be with her. I’ll follow her wherever she goes.”
“Ripley! Rip, stop!”
“We’ve got a pulse!” Phoebe calls out, but no one can hear her, hear my first full intake of breath in an eternity.
Bang!