The Shadows(189)

Pushing his way inside, he recoiled. Selena was on the table once again, but seeing her all contorted was a stab in the heart.

Trez was right by her head, his eyes staring into hers. His lips were moving as he talked to her softly against a backdrop of beeping medical equipment and wires and tubes and cuffs. The clothes she’d been wearing had been cut off, and a thin white blanket had been spread over her.

Nodding at Ehlena, Jane, and Manny, iAm went over and crouched down. Trez jumped and then looked around as if he’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room.

“You’re here,” the male said.

“Yeah, I am.”

Trez turned back to Selena. “Look who’s here, it’s iAm.”

That normally strong voice was reedy and choked, as if being funneled through a synthesizer.

“Hey, Selena,” iAm said.

As her eyes shifted over to his, he forced himself to smile against a tide of sorrow and fear. She was terrified. Utterly terrified.

Why wouldn’t she be.

Trez began to murmur again and iAm glanced over at Manny, cocking an eyebrow in inquiry. The healer slowly shook his head.

Shit.





SIXTY-EIGHT


Trez waited for a miracle.

For the next six to eight hours, he waited and he prayed and he talked until he lost his voice. He even blanketed his beloved with his energy not once, but twice. And still she remained where she was, trapped inside her frozen body, her vitals slowly fading … her eyes beginning to shut from time to time.

Only to have them pop open and her gasp through her ever-paling lips.

Later, he would remember the moment when they reached the point of no return.

It was when the medical staff turned off the alarms that had at first been beeping with warning every now and again, but which had subsequently begun to go off constantly.

“Is it—” As his voice cracked, he cleared his throat. “Time for more X-rays?”

Jane came around to him and spoke quietly. “Trez, I think we’d like to speak with you.”

Manny nodded. “Maybe out in the hall.”

“No, I’m not going to leave her.” He smoothed his beloved’s hair back and was relieved when her eyes focused on his. “I’m not leaving you, my queen.”

iAm bent in and said into his ear, “You want them to talk to me?”

It was a while before Trez answered. He didn’t want to hear what they were going to say. Even though in his heart, he knew … he knew that things were not changing this time … he didn’t want the words out in the air.

But the cycle of gasping and fright that kept happening to her was wearing on him.

“Yes, please,” he said politely. “Thank you.”

The bunch of them, including Ehlena, went into the room next door.

And it dawned on him that he and Selena were alone with each other. Leaning into her, he stroked her hair and brushed her mouth with his.

Shit, her lips were so cold.

He wanted to close his eyes, but he was terrified he’d miss something. Instead, he let a couple of heartbeats go by.

I want to be free. The thing that scares me most is getting trapped in my body.

“Selena,” he said in a voice that was as thin as his skin. “Selena, can you focus on me? Can you hear me?”

She blinked twice, which was the code he’d established with her for “yes.”

“I need to know…” He swallowed hard. “I need to know if you want to go … do you want to go?”

In response, her eyes … her magnificent blue eyes … welled with tears, and he began to cry, too. With a sense of profound pain, he reached up with his free hand and brushed the wetness from her nose and her cheeks. He left his tears where they were.

“My queen, is it time for you to go? Tell me if it is.”

Her stare never left his.

She blinked once. And then … again.

Oh, God.

“Do I understand you correctly?” he said. “Do you want this … to end?”

They were both crying in earnest now. And she didn’t have to blink it out again, because he knew in his heart and soul what she wanted—and yet, he waited for the signal one more time. This was one of those moments when he had to get it right.

Or he would never be able to live with himself.

“Is it time?” he whispered.

She blinked once … and then again.

Now he shut his lids and found his body swaying as if a tremendous weight had been set upon his shoulders, and not balanced well.

When he opened his eyes, iAm and the physicians were back in the room. One look into his brother’s stark face and he knew that whatever had been said had not been marked by much if any optimism.

As iAm came over, the male was careful to acknowledge and smile at Selena—which Trez really appreciated. Then he leaned in and whispered, “There’s nothing they can do. The anti-inflammatories aren’t working, and the last set of X-rays exhibited a change that the first episode didn’t have. The joints—or what should be the joints—are showing bright white on the films, with the kind of intensity metal would have. That wasn’t the case before. Her vitals are not good and getting worse, even though they’ve given her things to help with her slow respiration and heart rate. Their sense is … this is the end.”