Putting the cell back down, he realized the second he let go of the thing that the time hadn’t registered.
Where was Selena? he wondered.
Addressing the ceiling, he said, “Are you up there?”
What had she seen? Was there a Fade?
Funny, he hadn’t anticipated the fear he had now, but he probably should have. The idea that he didn’t know whether she was okay or not after death was something he was going to have to live with.
Until he passed himself, he guessed. And then if it was just a big black void? Well, then he wouldn’t exist to care.
Happy thought.
When he finally went to sit up, he gasped as pain exploded all over his body—sure as if the emotional agony in his soul had manifested itself in his flesh, his muscles stiff, his bones aching.
It was from the preparation ritual.
Maybe it would fade in a day or two.
He got up and used the bathroom. Brushed his teeth. Checked in with his stomach.
No, food was not a priority.
Drink might be good.
Yet even as those internal thoughts registered, it was from a distance, as if they were being yelled at him from across a football field.
Heading back out into his bedroom, he went over to the closet and opened the double doors. As the lights came on, he recoiled.
He could still smell her.
And two of her robes hung among his clothes.
Walking forward, he reached out to them, but ultimately hesitated to touch the folds of white fabric, especially as the raw wound behind his sternum flared up in pain again.
It was, he decided, kind of like a cut on your finger, one that didn’t hurt until you flexed your thumb—and then the thing really stung. Except on a much grander scale, of course.
Was this what it was going to be like? Him going through his nights and days bumping into random things and getting jolted back into the depths of his grief?
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said to her clothes, “without you.”
And he wasn’t just talking about getting dressed.
When there was no reply—but come on, like he expected her ghost to answer?—he took the nearest pants and shirt that he got to, threw them on his body, and walked out. For a good ten minutes, he stood in the center of the room and entertained the temptation to trash everything around him. But his body didn’t have the strength or the coordination, and his emotions couldn’t sustain the boil of the anger he felt.
He looked over at the window Selena had broken. She had been magnificent in her fury, so alive, so …
Holy shit, he was going to drive himself insane.
On his way to the door, he picked up his cell phone out of habit and then stopped in front of the exit to his room. He was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for pitying looks or prying questions. But he thought he’d seen that the shutters were still down?
Yup.
So hopefully the whole Last Meal thing would have been long cleaned up and the doggen retired for their brief rest before the daytime cleaning started up.
He thought he’d seen a seven in the time.
Yeah. Seven something o’clock in the morning, the numbers had said.
Grasping the brass doorknob, he felt like he was back downstairs at the clinic, when he’d gone to leave the examination room after all that time with Selena’s body: this was another portal he was going to have to push himself through.
With a twist of the wrist, he released the mechanism and put some weight into the—
On the bald floor across from his bedroom, iAm was horizontal and out cold in the hallway, his head on the curl of his arm, a half-consumed, fully capped bourbon bottle cozied up to his chest like a loyal dog, his brows down like even in his sleep he was dealing with shit.
Trez took a deep breath.
It was good to know the male was still with him.
But he was not waking the guy up.
Stepping with care so he didn’t disturb his brother, he found himself wanting to take this first trip out into the world on his own.
Down at the bottom of the shallow stairs, he did another brace-yourself with a door latch—and wondered how long it was going to take to get himself over that habit—then he pushed things open.
“…you bunch of photophobic freaks.”
Shaking himself, he frowned.
Lassiter, the fallen angel, was in the doorway to Wrath’s study, hands on his hips, blond-and-black hair pulled back in a braid. “You’d better show some fucking respect or I’m not going to say one damn thing about what I found out on my little trip to the Territory.”
From inside the room, there were all kinds of muttering.
“No,” Lassiter said, “I want you to say you’re sorry, Vishous.”
It was so weird. Like a camera lens that was suddenly focusing, Trez came back online, his senses sharpening, some shadow of his former self returning.