Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Air huffed from her mouth on a soggy chuckle, and she sniffled. “Of course, I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, God, it’s terrifying. Terrifying to think of those scars littered all over her body and how she sustained them. Terrifying to think of what you’ve seen and what you all endure. Terrifying to think that any of this is real.”
“I wish it wasn’t,” I admitted.
She shifted a fraction as she processed what she’d witnessed both while Aria had been in the facility and tonight. The magnet that had refused to let her go in the time between.
“When it was clear that janitor had been after her, I knew what I had to do.” Her head bounced slightly.
A reaffirmation.
A bolstering that the choice she had made had been the right one.
“And after that?” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “It was like that single act had tied me to her in some way. As if a tether between us had formed.”
“You saved her.” The words were gravel. “Twice.”
Silence stretched between us for a moment before she spoke, her voice broken when she asked, “What does it mean for me?”
I blew out some of the strain on a long exhalation. “Only thing I know is, you were meant to be a part of her life. A piece of this. How or why?” I shrugged, though it wasn’t casual. It was heavy. Weighted with all the questions of this life. “I don’t understand it any more than I’ve ever understood why we were chosen. How it is possible. But I know it’s important. That it matters.”
“Can you stop . . .” Her entire face pinched before she forced out, “Can you stop whatever is happening? This merging of two worlds?”
Stop the end.
She didn’t need to say it aloud for me to hear it. For me to feel it.
Because it was out there, the awareness of what we were coming up to.
The end of this life as we knew it.
Maybe the end of humankind altogether.
“I don’t know.” Despondency filled the words. “Not without her.”
“She’s going to be okay. I can feel it. Like you said, there was a reason I was drawn here. I have to believe it made an impact. Changed a path the way it changed mine. A wrong that was righted.”
“Thank you for listening to it. I don’t know what would have happened if . . .” It died on my tongue, the trauma of it too much to bear.
It’d been close.
Too close.
Since the day I’d come to her in the flesh, Aria had said over and over again that she didn’t know how much time we had. Had urged that we couldn’t waste a moment of it. While I’d refused to give her end any consideration.
But it’d been right there, dragging her into the nether. One second from stealing her away from me.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
Jill shifted on her feet. Sadness flooded the movement when her shoulder came up to touch her ear. “I’m not sure. My nursing days are over.”
“But it doesn’t seem your saving days are.”
Tenderness weaved through her demeanor, and the words were soggy when she answered, “Maybe they aren’t.”
Then she cleared her throat, picked up the bag from the floor, and placed it on the bed. She pulled out the stethoscope and the blood pressure cuff. She checked them both while I waited, antsy for even a bit of good news.
I breathed out some of the angst I was holding when she delivered it.
“She’s stable, and her heartbeat sounds even stronger than the last time I checked. I’m going to give her a shot with an antibiotic to keep her from getting an infection.”
She pulled a syringe from the bag, uncapped it, then filled it from a small vial. She pulled the blanket down far enough so she could tug the hem of Aria’s sleep pants down to her hip and gave her the shot. Then she set an orange prescription bottle on the dresser.
“If she wakes up in pain, give her two of these. She can have two every four hours. I’ll come check on her tomorrow, but you . . .” Her eyes were intense. “Stay close to her. She needs to rest, but I think she needs you more.”
My nod was tight. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.”
Then she packed her things and headed for the door, pausing for a moment to look back at us.
Emotion brimmed in the space. The tether that tied her to Aria stretching taut.
Then she turned and disappeared down the hall.
A minute later, Dani came in with Aria’s duffel. “We should clean her up.”
I gave a tight nod, and Dani helped me undress Aria, ridding her of the soiled, tattered fabric.
Dani balled all of it up and stuffed it into a plastic bag, which she tied off to be discarded.