Astrid comes closer, twisting the ends of her sweater. “She’s with Kellan, sweetling. You know this.”
I close my eyes. Force air into my lungs and then back out again. This is ... it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s got to be okay. One breath. One heartbeat. Jonah tells me I can survive anything if I just take it one moment at a time. His fingers in mine remind me ... it’s cold in here. Here is something we can fix immediately. “Will? Can you turn down the AC? It’s ... he’s too cold. It needs to be warmer in here.”
Will doesn’t move an inch. He just stands there, staring at me like I’m a stranger. Or, worse yet, I’ve lost my mind.
“Callie, go and get a Shaman,” Astrid says firmly.
“You’re bleeding, hen.” Cameron grabs a box of tissues off the floor. “Your nose. It’s bleeding.” He hands me the box, but I simply set it on top of Jonah’s legs.
I wipe the back of my hand across my nose, blood smears across my skin. It isn’t the first time I’ve bled today, not by a long shot.
I think I’m laughing. And then screaming, “WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING ME?”
Cameron grabs hold of me now, forces me to look at him. “Of course we will tell you everything, but you need to—”
“I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE, DO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU TELL ME.”
Will says, “Dad. She deserves to know.”
Oh gods. Oh gods.
My head lolls toward Jonah, toward his beautiful face, as Cameron says quietly, “The Shamans have been doing their very best to keep Jonah alive, hen. But he was hurt very badly the day you were kidnapped. It’s a miracle he’s alive. A bloody miracle. And only because a Shaman found him in Karnach moments before it was destroyed.”
All of the hope and joy in my chest fizzles right out.
“How many days?” My lips taste like blood.
Will says flatly, “Eight.”
“Jonah is very strong.” Cameron presses a tissue to my nose; I don’t fight him. Not when I need to save my fight for something far more important. “Despite everything his body has gone through, he is still here.”
The room spins. “Has he ... has he woken up?”
“No, darling,” Astrid says softly. “Not yet.”
It’s déjà vu, I think as I slide down in the bed next to him. Our positions are now reversed; just a few months ago, Jonah sat by my bedside, hoping against hope that my eyes would open.
I made it back to him. He’ll make it back to me.
I close my eyes, wishing I could pull his arms around me, but my right arm is useless. I will have to just content myself with listening to his steady heartbeat. He’ll come back to me. He will.
“It will help having you here.” Tears paint Astrid’s words. “And having his brother back, too. I know it will help. He just needs some more time to recover.”
They say other things, but I don’t want to listen to them anymore. I tune them out and focus on the steady thumping below my ear. Eventually, they stop talking when a Shaman shows up to fix me. He’s forced to work around where I’m laying.
It’s petty and childish, but I just can’t leave him. Not now. Not ever.
When my arm is finally healed, I wrap it around my husband and let myself fall asleep.
“Hen? There’s a little girl outside the room with her mother who wants to talk to you. Shall I let them in?”
Cameron is standing next to the bed, gently shaking me awake.
“Normally, I’d tell them to bugger off so you can have your rest, but since Astrid tells me you were found with a little girl, I assumed you wouldn’t mind the interruption.”
Jonah’s mother is standing in a doorway between this room and Kellan’s, watching us carefully. Once I was healed, we were moved into a suite down the hall. Astrid insisted on her sons being next to one another so she didn’t have to split time between floors. And here’s another piece of déjà vu, because once upon a time, Jonah insisted on the same thing for his brother and me. The hospital must hate having me as a patient; it seems I’m always ruining their beautiful rooms. It’s okay, though; I’ll fix what I’ve destroyed. I just need to make sure Jonah is okay before I do so.
And Kellan, too.
I haven’t physically gone and seen him yet, but Astrid leaves the door open between our rooms for me. And late last night, when everyone went home but me, I erased the wall between us and just stared at him—another piece of déjà vu. Like his brother, he’s still asleep.
I thought I felt the cruel specter of hopelessness when Enlilkian had me in that house, but it’s nothing compared to what I feel right now. There’s nothing I can do, nothing at all but wait: wait to see if they wake up, wait to see, once they do, if they’re okay.
Waiting is the most torturous action of all.