In the distance I heard the beep, beep, beep of a machine. “Goodbye, Em,” I whispered. “For now.” I’d see her again; I knew it.
I wish I could tell you all will be well between you and your Cole, but I can’t do that, either.
“Ali. I know you can hear me. Your fingers are twitching.”
I pushed my sister’s words away, and concentrated on the boy who’d helped bring me back from the dead. I knew refusing to worry wouldn’t save me from hardship, but it would save me from ruining the moment. I’d take each day as it came, and deal with whatever obstacles were thrown into my path, but one thing I knew. The toxin had been completely neutralized. I knew because I was alive, my mind clear of evil.
“Come on, sleeping beauty,” Cole said. “You’ve been out for days, and it’s time to stop punishing me and wake up.”
My eyelids fluttered open and closed, every blink clearing away some of the fuzz. Cole sat in a chair next to my bed, his elbows propped on the rail, and his shoulders just kind of sagged with relief. Maybe it was the drugs clearly working through me, because I felt no pain, but I could have stared at him forever. He was a beautiful sight. Scabbed up, bandaged, but clean and total warrior delicious.
For a moment, I wondered if this were a vision. But, no, that came next— —we were sitting on a porch swing, holding hands, talking softly, laughing. My head rested on his shoulder. The sun was in the process of rising, lush colors sprinkling gold and pink through the sky.
“No questions for me today?” he asked.
“Of course I have questions for you. Actually I have thousands.”
“Let me have ’em.”
“First up. Why aren’t you kissing me…?”
I wasn’t sure how long the vision lasted, but when it faded to black, tears had fallen and dried on my cheeks. A happy ending for me, I thought. Or better yet, a happy beginning.
Finally.
See? Everything would be all right.
As for Anima Industries, they had already played their best card. My father. And they’d already lost. I’d mourned the loss of him, and they could no longer use him against me.
And okay, yes, what I’d had to do still hurt. My father had tried to battle through for me, because he loved me that much. Yet still I’d destroyed him. I’d destroyed his second chance. Me. No one else.
I would have to live with that.
I comforted myself only with the knowledge that what had happened had been necessary. He’d fought the evil but the evil had won. He would have hurt my friends over and over again if I’d allowed him to live.
“I liked that vision,” Cole said, fingers tracing gently over my hand.
“Yes.” The single word was no more than a croak, my throat raw.
He lifted my hand, kissed my knuckles. “I almost lost you, Ali. Twice. Your heart stopped. But you came back.”
“Stubborn,” I said.
“And thank God for that.”
We shared a soft smile. “How much butt did we kick?”
His expression turned serious. “Most of Anima escaped, but all of the zombies that were there were killed. We didn’t even have to fight them. They just began to drop, one by one. They stopped moving, and we were able to light them up without any problems.”
Maybe because my spirit poisoned them. I’d tell him about my suspicions—later. Right now, I wanted answers, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to stay conscious. “How did you find me? How did you make it out of my house?” The bomb! How could I have forgotten about my grandmother? I tried to sit up. “Nana is—”
“Fine. She’s fine and with my dad, waiting to see you.” He gently pushed me back to the bed. “Ankh had to sew you up. I don’t want you to tear your stitches. And before you ask about the carnage, you’ll be happy to know my dad and your grandmother went through the rubble and managed to salvage some of your things.”
“Like what?” If I’d lost the photos of my family…if I’d lost the journal…
“I don’t know. I haven’t left your side.”
“Sweet of you.”
“Not really. I was determined to fight you if you decided to die.”
It would have hurt my side to laugh, so I focused on getting the rest of the answers I wanted. “What happened?”
“At your house?”
I nodded.
“Your grandmother had gone to her room. One of the Anima employees tossed in a mini grenade. I dove for cover. When I came to, my dad was there and the suits were gone. We found your grandmother, and she’d been knocked around pretty good, but all of her injuries were treatable. Then, Justin showed up. He told me what was going down, told me where to go.”
Dr. Wright had lied about the bomb—big shocker—and Justin had helped us. Why? That made no sense, not fitting what I knew about him and his co-sleezeworkers. “Did everyone make it out okay?”
His attention dropped to his feet. “No. Haun is…”