Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“You could just try it—”
“Lydia,” he cut in. “You have no idea what this has been like. I don’t doubt being on the sidelines sucks, but you haven’t lost your faculties—”
“Oh, no, you’re right. I’m just losing the man I love by inches. It’s a goddamn cakewalk for me.”
He looked away. Looked back. “How much time did Gus give me? Six months? Nine?”
When she didn’t meet his eyes, he swallowed a sickening feeling. “Less?” he choked out. “How much? Jesus Christ, Lydia, of all the things to keep from me—”
“A month. Two, tops.”
Daniel closed his eyes again. He’d had a feeling they’d get to this point eventually, their roads going left and right, hers toward more intervention, his solidly to no mas.
“I’m done with the treatments,” he said. “I’ve rolled plenty of dice and only managed to waste what good quality of life I might have had.” He pointed to himself—and pointed out what seemed like their only thing in common. “On my end, I’m losing the woman I love by inches, and I just want a chance to reconnect with you. Vita-12b is a novel agent, unproven outside of lab slides and computer models, and I am not willing to squander what little well-being I have on a hypothetical. I’m just not going to do it—and this choice feels like the only thing I have control over.”
There was a long silence. Then she exhaled and all-four’d her way over to him. When she took hold of him and eased him into her lap, he mostly kept the groaning to himself, and as he stretched out on the black carpeting, he did what he could to get comfortable, dragging his arms and legs into a position that ached less.
This was just so absurd, he thought. There was a bed probably fifteen feet away. But that was too far for him.
His eyes watered, but he refused to let things devolve further with the misty shit. “I would do anything to change this. For you. For us. Anything.”
“Then talk to Gus,” she said hoarsely. “One last time. If you get weaker, you may not even be a candidate anymore and then there’s no going back. Please—and afterward, I promise, I’ll never bring it up again.”
As a wave of exhaustion crashed into the shores of what little energy he had, Daniel kept the cursing to himself—but then looked over at her blue suitcase.
When all this was over, she was going to have to go on without him. And her memories of him and how this ended were the final gift he could give her.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll talk to Gus.”
The tension that eased out of her gave him a surge of strength, a shot of resolve.
“Thank you.” With a gentle hand, she stroked his back. “Thank you…”
Memories of the beginning of them returned, and he smiled. “Remember when we used to joke I had no sense of humor?”
She sniffled, and then laughed a little. “I was the one who said you had one. You were the guy who thought you had a congenital comic deficit.”
“Spoken like a true biologist.” Daniel gathered her hand in his own, her trembling stopping as their palms and fingers merged. “Well, I can’t think of anything unfunnier than this.”
“Is that a joke,” she said roughly.
A bad one, he thought to himself.
Then he recalled how she had once laughed. “Knock, knock.”
Another sniffle, and then she wiped under her eyes with her free hand. “Who’s there.”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
Daniel eased over onto his side and squeezed her hand. Looking into her glowing whiskey eyes, he said sincerely, “Don’t cry. I’ll always love you… even when I’m gone.”
As her tears intensified, she took a shuddering breath. “You were supposed to do a punch line that fell flat. Not one that leveled me.”
“Well, as cheesy goes, it’s just north of a dad joke.” He coughed and tried to hide the sound by talking through the grab of his throat. “But I do love you, Lydia Susi. And I always will. Even if my body gives out, that’s the eternity I’m going to give you, ’kay?”
His beautiful wolven nodded and then pressed her lips to his. Which was what you did when you had loads of words to communicate… and no voice with which to say them.
“I love you, too,” she choked out.
FIVE
IN THE CENTER core of her mansion, in a study that doubled as a bulletproof panic room that was capable of withstanding a chemical weapons attack as well as one involving conventional bombs, C.P. Phalen hung up her secured landline, but kept her hand on the receiver. Feeling as though she should do something, anything, she released her hold and turned her leather chair around to the floor-to-ceiling, reinforced glass wall behind her desk. Nothing to see, given the hour.
Not like she would have been able to focus on much, anyway—