And now he was going to hold her as her body grew colder and she drifted away from where he was going to stay.
The separation was going to last longer than the number of days he knew her.
Taking her slick palm, he flattened it once more. And then with his free hand, he signed against her skin in slow, precise positions:
L. O. V. E. U. 4. E. V. E. R.
Chapter Sixty-eight
Death was messy and painful and largely predictable. . . except when it didn't feel like behaving and decided to exercise its bizarre sense of humor.
An hour later, as Xhex opened her eyes a crack, she realized she was in fact not in the foggy folds of the Fade. . . but in the clinic at the Brotherhood's mansion.
A tube was being pulled out of her throat. And her side felt like someone had parked a rusty spear in it. And somewhere over on the left, gloves were being snapped off.
Doc Jane's voice was low. "She coded twice, John. I got the bleeder in her gut. . . but I don't know--"
"I think she's awake," Ehlena said. "Are you coming back to us, Xhex?"
Well, apparently she was. She felt like hell, and after having sliced open a variety of stomachs over the years, she couldn't believe she still had a heartbeat. . . but yeah, she was alive.
Hanging by a thread, but alive.
John's pasty white face entered her line of vision, and in contrast to the ill cast of his skin, his blue eyes were like fire.
She opened her mouth. . . but all that came out was the air in her lungs. She didn't have the strength to speak.
Sorry, she mouthed.
He frowned. Shaking his head, he took her hand and smoothed it. . . .
She must have passed out, because when she woke up, John was walking beside her. What the hell--oh, she was being moved into the other room. . . because they were bringing someone else in--someone strapped down to a gurney. A female, given the long, black braid that swung off the side.
The word pain came to mind.
"Pain is in here," Xhex murmured.
John's head whipped around. What? he mouthed.
"Whoever's there. . . is pain. "
She passed out again. . . and came to feeding from John's wrist. And passed out again.
In her dreams, she saw parts of her life going all the way back to a time she didn't consciously remember. And as in- flight movies went, the drama was pretty depressing. There were too many crossroads to count where things should have been different, where fate had been more of a grind than a gift. Destiny was like the passage of time, however, immutable and unforgiving and uninterested in the personal opinion of those who breathed.
And yet. . . as her mind churned beneath the leaden weight and still surface of her unconscious body, she had the sense that everything had worked out as it was supposed to, that the path she had been set upon had taken her precisely where she was supposed to go:
Back to John.
Even though that made no sense whatsoever.
After all, she'd met him only a year or so ago. Which hardly justified the sprawl of history that seemed to unite them.
But then, maybe that did make sense. While you were unconscious on morphine and teetering on the brink of the Fade. . . things looked different. And time, like priorities, shifted.
On the other side of the door to Xhex's recovery room, Payne blinked hard and tried to ascertain where she had been moved to. There was naught to inform her, however. The chamber's walls were tiled in a pale green and gleaming fixtures and storage casings abounded. But she hadn't a clue what it all meant.
At least the transport had been slow, careful, and relatively comfortable. But then something had been put into her veins to calm her and ease her--and verily, she was grateful for whatever potion it was.