by Keary Taylor
“Wake up,” I beg, feeling around his neck, trying desperately to find a pulse.
But his lips are so blue.
He doesn’t stir.
“Help!” I scream out into the morning. Frantically, I dig, unearthing him from the snow. He wears only a white t-shirt and his jeans and boots. His lower half is half in the car, half out.
A woman darts over, a gasp and half a scream. She kneels beside me, digging the giant out. “What happened? Was he…was he shot?” she guesses at all the blood.
“I don’t think so,” I say as the first tears prick my eyes and then immediately fall onto my cheeks. “I…I don’t know what he was doing out here.”
But as my eyes drift up, I see his right foot balancing on the drivers seat. And half covered in snow, sits Jack’s pocket watch.
I know exactly what he was doing out here.
The scream of sirens blares through the morning, and relief and fear saturates my body as I see the flashing lights draw nearer and nearer.
In just a minute, I’m being gently pushed aside as the paramedics hoist Sully up and out of the snow, away from the car. They fire a million questions at me, and I only just have enough time to grab the pocket watch before they’re ushering me into the ambulance with Sully.
“Is he alive?” I whisper as I huddle in one corner, staring at him as the two men work on him, checking and pumping and radioing to the hospital.
They don’t answer me immediately, and listen to his heart with a stethoscope.
And the tears flood onto my cheeks when he finally gives a slight nod yes.
It only takes three minutes to reach the hospital. I jog alongside the stretcher as they race into the emergency room, and gasp in pain as they disappear through some doors, telling me I have to wait until the doctor comes to get me.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, just staring at the doors. Probably a few minutes. But eventually a nurse comes to my side and asks me to take a seat. She offers reassuring words, none of which reach me.
I look down at Jack’s watch in my hands.
Sully went to get answers. He went outside where I wouldn’t hear him speaking to Jack. He looked for privacy and dark.
And along the way, something had gone terribly wrong.
Along the way he had nearly died.
Sully’s blue lips flash through my head once again, and my heart fractures.
If he doesn’t make it, if he dies, that’s on me.
He did this for me.
I ask the nurse five times if there’s any update yet. Each time she tells me no, and to please sit down and wait for the doctor to come out. I pace. Ruin my blouse as I twist and twirl the hem of it with worry.
And finally, three hours later, a man in a doctor’s uniform comes back through those doors. There is a smear of blood down his chest.
“Are you the one who found Sully?” he asks, unsure, looking in my direction.
I leap to my feet, nodding.
Heavens, my chest is so tight. I can hardly breathe.
“Are you his wife?” the doctor asks, extending a hand back to the chair I just evacuated, slipping into one himself.
It can’t be good if he wants me to have a seat.
I shake my head. “We’re…” I hesitate. What do I even define us as? “We’re just friends. He doesn’t have any family left. He was visiting me when this happened.”
The doctor nods, begging me with his eyes to sit down.
I don’t want to, with every fiber in me, but I do.
“Sully suffered from hypothermia,” he begins to explain. “His internal temperature fell to ninety degrees. That may not sound too serious, but had it fallen any lower, he would have suffered some long lasting, serious physical complications.”
“So he’s going to be okay?” I ask, and my voice cracks.
The doctor gives a tentative nod. “He’s incredibly lucky. We checked the temperatures last night. It got down to twenty-nine degrees, and it sounds as if he was outside all night. He probably shouldn’t have survived. I credit it to his size, and well, that mane of hair might have helped save his life.”
The doctor chuckles, and I can see why. He himself wears no facial hair, has short, neat hair, and dainty glasses upon his nose. They’re certainly polar opposites.
“What about the blood?” I ask. The tension in my chest won’t release.
I’m not shocked when a somewhat puzzled expression tugs on the man’s face.
“We still aren’t sure about that,” he answers honestly. “It came from his lungs, almost as if they were punctured. But there’s no signs of physical trauma. Besides the hypothermia, he seems perfectly healthy. The man’s as strong as an ox.”
Tears once more prick the backs of my eyes. I press my lips together tightly and give a slight nod.
“We’ll keep trying to find an answer to why there was so much blood,” the doctor says. “But he’s going to be fine. We’ve warmed him back up. I’d like to keep him here in the hospital overnight for observation while we do some more testing. But I expect he will be able to leave tomorrow morning.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, forcing a tear out onto my cheek.
“Would you like to see him now?” the doctor asks. “He just woke up.”
My eyes fly back open, and my heart breaks out into a sprint. My lips still pressed together, I nod.
Through the sterile smelling halls, I follow the doctor. We pass so many doors that I begin to grow impatient. And then he turns into one of them, pushing it open for me.
Sully lays there, his head turned slightly to the side, but the moment I walk in, his head perks up, looking at me with wide, unsure eyes.
I let the door fall closed behind me.
And I linger by it, just looking at Sully.
I hug my arms tight around me. My chest is still tight. My emotions are a hurricane right now.
Sully just lies there with his insane hair and beard. Wearing a hospital gown that barely fits him. Looking far too solid and heavy for that poor hospital bed.
He’s pale. He looks tired. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Tears prick back into my own.
“Iona,” Sully breathes.
I hug myself tighter. I bite my lower lip. I shake my head.
“Iona, I’m so sorry.”
My vision swims. Before I give them permission to do so, my feet move me across the room, my arms wrap around him the best they can, and I bury my face in his neck.
I sob.
I sob and sob and sob.
Sully pulls me in tight and I should be worried about hurting him, but he’s so solid, such a bear, that all he feels is huge and protective.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathes, running his hand down my hair. There’s something stiff and awkward about the way he holds me, but he doesn’t recoil from my embrace.
I force my breaths to slow. I make the tears stop. I calm the shaking in my chest, in my hands.
Slowly, I sit back up.
And a hot ember of anger lights in my veins as I look into his green eyes.
“You broke your promise,” I say flatly.
It’s there in his eyes. He knows he broke it. He knows it was deliberate, what he did.
“I know,” he says. He brings a giant hand up and wipes away a stream of tears from my cheek. “I was angry. I wanted answers. But it wasn’t my place to make that call.”
“And somehow it nearly cost you your life.”
And I realize this is what I’m actually angry about.
Sully nods. He drops his hand, an exhausted move. His head falls back to the pillow, and he turns his head toward the window, gazing outside.
“It was Roselock, punishing me,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes just keep looking out the window, to the gray skies. The clouds are dark and thick, but for now, the snow is held at bay.
“I’ve never tried to speak to the dead outsi
de of Roselock,” he finally continues. “I told you I left Roselock for six years. I tried to pretend the town and everything associated with it didn’t exist. So I never tried to summon the dead while I was away. Last night was an experiment I didn’t know I was conducting.”
My chest tightens once more. I look away from him, anywhere but at the man who my chest is fracturing over.
“I never,” he says, “never would have guessed that would be the reaction to trying to open the gate anywhere but in Roselock. They’re running tests, to see what happened. But they won’t find any answers.”
It makes my hands tremble, thinking of this normal, mundane hospital, and the true answers of Roselock. The trail of pennies through the town. The grave of the lovers. The blood that seeps out from beneath the church.
“We need to get you out of here,” I say, and then turn my eyes back to Sully.
“Yes, we do,” he says, and he meets mine once more.
“Are you okay to move soon?” I ask. And I don’t even think about it when I reach forward and grab his hand in mine. “How are you feeling?”
His eyes drop to our hands. “Tired. Really, really tired. But I’m all right. I can move.”
I nod, even though he isn’t looking at me. “We’ll never get you out of here like this. And your old clothes are covered in blood. I’m going to run to the department store a few blocks away, and then I’ll be back.”
“Alright,” he says. He watches me as I stand and go to the door.
I pause when I pull it open, looking back at him, holding his eyes. I’m not sure what I mean to say. Something angry and vengeful. Something forgiving. All of those words and emotions are caged in my chest without a logical, sensical way to escape.
So I don’t voice any of them.
I walk out, closing the door behind me.
Chapter Forty-One
SULLY
That was genuine terror and fear on Iona’s face.
Those were devastated tears she sobbed all over my hospital gown.
As soon as she leaves, I just keep staring at the door, a hand over my chest. I rub it, as if I can push her tears into my skin, all the way down to my rewarmed, beating heart.
It’s been a long, long time since anyone cared if I lived or died. It’s been since before my mother passed that anyone cried over me. Iona’s reaction was something real and soul bending.
I tell myself that it’s a sign of hope, of progress. That even in her grief, her obsession, Iona is still capable of that kind of concern for another.
I have to push that aside.
I remind myself that I’m in the midst of an escape plan.
I ring in the nurse and ask if it’s okay if I take a shower. After confirming with the doctor, she helps me into the bathroom and starts the shower. She returns a moment later with seven tiny bottles of shampoo and two towels.
I’m about to shut the door to the bathroom, when I catch her eye, giving me an appreciative look from behind.
I smirk when the door closes, and rid myself of the hospital gown.
The act of cleaning myself is an exhausting one. All my muscles still feel cold and sluggish. The doctor explained to me that they used a machine to draw my blood out of my body, rewarm it, and then put it back inside me.
I feel a little like an alien at the moment, remade. Engineered.
The tiny comb waiting on the bed when I finish showering is just a joke. I get through the bottom inch of my hair before giving up. Shuffling to the window, I look out, and find that the snow has once more broken free from the sky.
I’m worried about Iona driving in these conditions, and I shouldn’t be. There should be a line here, between keeping her alive and worrying over her in hour-to-hour moments, but it’s beginning to blur.
I huff a sigh of relief when twenty minutes later, the door to my room opens once more, and Iona walks in with two bags in hand.
“I’m not sure if everything will fit,” she says, and I notice she doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “I had to guess. So…”
She kind of shrugs, setting them down on the bed.
I’m certain now, she’s not looking at me deliberately.
“Thank you,” I huff, pulling the items out. She dismisses herself outside.
The jeans are a little tight in the thighs, but surprisingly they are long enough. The long-sleeved shirt, however, is perfect. I pull out a thick coat, taking note that she ripped the price tag off of it before giving it to me.
I should repay her. I can’t stomach being a financial burden. But I am a man who has had no use for money in years. I’ve been living off of the small stash in the church for years, on a strict budget, allotted out to last me exactly until May seventh.
I pull my boots back on, the only item of clothing still usable from before last night. I hobble over to the door, pulling it open just slightly, and Iona steps back inside.
She looks me over, taking note of how the clothes fit. But still, she doesn’t meet my eye. “Looks like everything will work.”
I nod, looking down at myself. “Thank you,” I say again.
“Let me help you with your hair,” she says, crossing the room, grabbing for the comb. “Other than it, you look ready to walk out of here.”
I’m a little startled, taken off my guard. She tells me to sit on the bed, and she kneels behind me, running her fingers through my hair. She gently pulls and tugs through it with her delicate fingers, pulling it back and up. Finally she releases a hair band from her wrist and ties it back.
She climbs off and stands in front of me, assessing her work, but not looking me in the eye.
“You still stand out, but at least you don’t look like you just crawled out of a cave.”
And her words actually make me smile. And it’s the sun dawning in the pit of my heart when she smiles, too.
“Come on,” she says, reaching for my hand. “Let’s break you out of here.”
My hand swallows hers as I take it. She pulls me forward and sticks her head out the door, looking up and down the hall.
She tugs me forward after her, into the hall, and down it we escape.
It’s kind of ridiculous, how easy it is to leave. We simply walk down the hall, past the reception desk, and out the doors.
“Your sister, she’s a nurse,” I say as we begin walking. And I realize Iona’s car isn’t here because she probably rode in the ambulance with me. “Is this the hospital where she works?”
Iona nods. “She works in labor and delivery, though. She won’t see anything.”
I just nod in return.
It takes us thirty minutes to walk back to her apartment. In thirty-degree weather, through light snow, it’s quite the journey. By the time we make it back to the building, I’m a dead man walking. Iona actually puts a hand under my elbow and helps me up the two flights of stairs.
She unlocks her front door, and steers me straight for her bed.
I only just manage to peel my new coat off before flopping down into the bed, my still-booted feet hanging over the edge of it.
It’s not one minute before the heavy blanket of sleep washes over me.
Chapter Forty-Two
IONA
I watch Sully sleep for a while, just staring at his gigantic form on my bed. He dominates the entire thing. Even if I wanted to, there would be no room for me to crawl into it and curl up against his side.
I swallow hard, pushing that thought away, and turn from the room.
The phone rings, and I already know who it is going to be before I answer it.
It’s my boss. I explain that there was an emergency with a dear friend, that’s why I wasn’t at work today, either. I’m still not feeling well, so I don’t think I should come in tomorrow, but I promise him that I will be in to work on Monday.
This is my last chance, the man says with a tone that tells me he doesn’t want to fire me, but I’ve taken too many personal days lately. If I don’t show up for work, on time, on Monday, I shouldn’t both
er coming back in.
I need this job. If I lose it, I might as well pack up and go back to Roselock with Sully.
But the thought sends a shiver down my spine. I recall that yipping laughter in the woods as it grew dark. The many, many graves that rest behind the church. I think about all the bodies Sully told me lie trapped in the mountain.
No, I could never.
I have to keep my job.
Over the next hour, I spend a generous amount of time putting together some oven-baked chicken for dinner.
“That smells amazing,” a voice cooed from behind me. A set of arms wrapped around my waist, and a chin rested on my shoulder. “Look at you, my domestic goddess.”
I smiled and laughed as I cut the potatoes. “Apparently you’ve forgotten last week’s burnt pork disaster.”
“Just added more flavoring,” Jack said, kissing his way up my neck, from my collarbone to the hollow behind my ear.
Someone knocked on the door as Jack spun me around, grinding his hips into mine.
“Ignore that,” he growled into my neck, a gentle bite into my flesh.
“It’s gotta be someone important if they’re showing up at my door,” I said through a playful smile, attempting to force my eyes open.
They knocked again. “Iona?”
Cressida’s voice cut through the door, stabbing me with a jolt of panic.
Jack growled into my skin, brushing his cheek against mine as his lips rose up to take mine, possessive and with force. “She can come back later.”
“Jack,” I chuckled against his lips.
“Iona, I can hear you two,” Cressida demanded impatiently. “Let her answer the door, Jack.”
My brows furrowed at that. Let me answer the door?
What the hell did she think was going on?
I raised my hands to Jack’s hair, running my fingers into it, pulling his face harder against mine. His hands came to my backside, forcefully grinding my hips into his as he pulled my dress up over my thighs.
Forget answering the door. Forget my eldest sister.