“Because if you know you have a pair or an Atmá out there destined to be with you forever, you won’t bother going to the gym. You’ll just sit on your ass all day long watching football and eating Doritos or streaming Sandra Bullock movies and eating Doritos, depending on your proclivities. Imagine if Zevs put on calories like normal people. It would be horrific.”
I burst out laughing, my hands trembling against the bandaged chest beneath me, and I could feel that Quillan was pleased. His heartbeat flipped against mine, a small, happy flutter to take my mind off the task before me.
“You should never try your hand at comedy,” I informed him, still putting off the inevitable. “You have a really weird sense of humour.”
Quillan’s hands slipped from my shoulders and down my arms, skimming my forearms to finally rest over my own hands. “No,” he said. “I’ll stick with what I do best.”
His chest settled against my back and I couldn’t help but lean into him, tipping my head a little to bask in the warmth he provided.
“You used to pull away from me,” he whispered against the back of my head, “but now you always lean into me. It’s… it’s clouding up my head. I can’t think straight when you do it.”
“Because you’re not used to it?” I wondered out loud.
I shouldn’t have been used to it either, but everything was different now. I couldn’t hold back from my pairs even if I tried. I was aware that I wouldn’t survive in this world without them, and not just because our lives were tied together. It was because they had redefined me as a person, and without them, I would be nothing more than a single miserable heartbeat attempting to draw breath beneath a sea of remembered pain, imagined terror, and dreadful premonition. With them, however, I was going to redefine that past into a lesson in pain, fight that terror into the ground, and raise a garrison to march into that horrible future.
“Because I’m not used to it,” he finally echoed, though it didn’t sound like a confirmation. It sounded more like a question.
I didn’t wait for him to elaborate, because I was aware that time was dragging on, and the comfort provided by his body hovering over mine had finally brought enough peace to my mind for me to release the valcrick. How he had known that it would work, I had no idea, but I whispered my thanks to him as I closed my eyes and settled into the feeling. I drank up the sensations brought on by Quillan and pushed them into my valcrick, urging the little web of light onward. Quillan made a pleased humming sort of sound, and I figured that he was being given the sensations as well, so I didn’t open my eyes to check that it was working.
He nudged closer, fixing me between himself and the side of the hospital bed as his hands curled around my wrists. I could feel Silas’s heartbeat better all of a sudden: the uneven beat having kicked its way into my chest with a ferocity that left me gasping, even though the body beneath my hands remained as still as a corpse. I started to grow weaker, the healing that Silas required rapidly drinking from my energy reserves, but Quillan was there to prop me up as I began to slump, and by the time my eyes flickered open, the colour had returned to Silas’s sleeping face. My hands slid from his chest and Quillan caught me before I melted to the ground, my limbs feeling oddly boneless. He pulled me into his arms and turned for the door, leaving me to grapple with the sensation of being pulled away from the dancing sound of Silas’s heart.
It felt like mine was being left behind.
Quillan stopped by the door and I realised that Hans and Andrei were both too shocked to move, their astounded eyes flickering from me to Silas, and back again.
“You healed him,” Andrei said, shock dripping from his words.
“She did,” Quillan answered for me. “And now we need to get her back to the car before someone figures out what happened and who did it.”
They hastened to get out of our way and I caught them sneaking a last glance at Silas before moving to follow us back through the hallways of the ward. By the time we piled back into the limousine, I was fighting to remain conscious. I didn’t know whose lap I was bundled into, but I clung to them and surrendered to the darkness as the limousine began to move. I didn’t wake up until it stopped again.
“Let’s take her past Weston so that he doesn’t send up a search party or anything stupid,” Noah grumbled, the voice rumbling right through my body. He was clearly the one carrying me.
I tried to pry my eyes open, but barely succeeded before I was falling under again. It must have been a while later that I heard someone’s voice declaring that Weston had gone back to Seattle, but it only seemed like minutes had passed, and then I was being tucked between the silky sheets of a bed that smelled of Cabe.
“Do you want to change clothes, little ghost?” The whisper sent a chill of familiarity down my spine, and I finally managed to peel my eyes open.
I stared at the two people standing beside the bed, my mouth falling open as I struggled to sit up.