by Gina Ardito
In other words, they were going to cut him off from Isabelle except for dreams, but not allow him to explain why. Cute. “Fragile” Isabelle would think he’d abandoned her—like her mother, like her ex-husband, like her agent and all those Hollywood phonies—he’d have no way to contradict her assumption. “What if I don’t comply?”
“You’ll condemn not only yourself to punishment, but Xavia, as well.”
Christ. Who came up with this shit? The Board, the supreme ruler here, had to be some kind of demented old despot. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and Ivan the Terrible rolled into one.
While Verity glared at him, he managed a curt nod. Disappointment settled inside him, but he refused to let her see any change in emotion on his face. Instead, he stole a page from Xavia and studied his nails before glancing at the cruel woman across the table, his banal mask in place. “Are we done now?”
“Go. “ She sighed and waved a dismissive hand. “But, Sean? Be very careful. Your insubordination has placed you dangerously close to reaching the end of our patience.”
He rose again, headed to the back door that, in life, would lead to the narrow patch of dirt yard between his parents’ house and the neighbors’, but now gained him access to Sherman and the exterior of the auditorium.
“Ditto.”
Once in the midst of the crowds again, he struggled to process all the info he’d just gathered. Between what was said and what wasn’t said, he had a lot to digest. As he meandered through the queue of the walking dead—those who’d yet to be processed—a dark head with hair cropped short caught his eye. The kid. Again.
This time, he planned to follow. Find out what he was doing here.
He turned in the kid’s direction, gaze pinned to the lanky figure striding away until someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he whirled to face the concerned look in Sherman’s wizened eyes.
“Let him go, Sean. For your own sake, as well as Xavia’s. Don’t pursue him.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Sherman shook his head, his expression solemn. “Don’t ask. Just heed my words. Please.”
“Forget it.” Sean shook him off. “There’s a reason he’s here and a reason I keep seeing him. I need to find out what those reasons are.”
“You’re assuming he knows.”
“Are you telling me he doesn’t?”
“I’m telling you there are forces in play that you don’t know about. Please, Sean. Don’t. Do. This.”
“Sorry, Sherman. I have to.” But when he turned around again, the kid was gone.
Chapter 13
“I know it sounds scary, but gamma knife treatment is not a surgery at all.”
Isabelle sat across from Dr. Regalbuto in the neurosurgery office suite, fingers gripping Justin’s hand tight enough to crush his bones.
Behind the doctor’s shiny bald head, a corkboard held pinned photos of smiling patients, some with thumbs-up, others held in loved ones’ embraces, all happy and healthy-looking. Did she dare think she might join that wall of joy someday soon?
“We use gamma radiation in targeted doses to attack the tumor and nothing else.”
She tore her gaze and hopes away from the corkboard to gauge the doctor’s expression behind his watery blue eyes. He had his hands—steady hands that held her very life—spread wide over his immaculate desk blotter. The entire consultation room reflected a sterile organization she’d come to appreciate in the man. Aside from the photographs, no knick-knacks or personal items cluttered the shelves; not a speck of dust marred the polished wooden furnishings. Every leather-bound book stowed in the floor-to-ceiling shelves stood in an even, regimented line.
She liked that the doctor seemed so...meticulous. She wouldn’t want a sloppy brain surgeon. “How do you...how can you be sure you won’t miss and fry my frontal lobe?”
If her question insulted him, he didn’t show any reaction. The neurosurgeon remained in professionally placid mode. He didn’t even blink. “The radiation is actually quite focused. Here. Allow me to explain…” He lifted a plastic figure of a person’s head, the left half sliced away to show a cross-section of the brain, placed it on his desk, and used his pen to poke at the center top. “Your tumor encompasses this area here. Because of all the healthy tissue surrounding the tumor, gamma knife is the best option to get at the malignant cells without damaging that healthy tissue.”
“You said the tumor is deep?” Justin asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Regalbuto replied. “Which adds to the delicacy of the situation. At first glance, we had assumed the malignancy was all surface, but the more recent images we’ve taken show us a series of glioma penetrating nearly to the cerebellum.” He pointed his pen about four inches down on one side, to a garlic-bulb-shaped red blob near the bottom rear of the plastic head. “This complication had us rethinking the original resection Isabelle and I discussed at her initial consultation. I’d like to give you the details about the procedure, if that’s all right.”
Isabelle nodded her permission, and Justin added his own, “Yes, please.”
“On the morning you’re admitted, you’ll be administered a mild anesthetic—just four local shots. Here.” He pointed to one side of the plastic forehead, then the other. “Here.” Turning the figurine around, he pointed to two spots on the back of the head. “Here and here. We’ll then attach a lightweight frame to your head.”
“Attach?” Isabelle gripped Justin’s fingers tighter, and he sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t let go. “How?”
“They’re screwed against your forehead and the back of your skull. That’s what the locals are for,” the doctor replied, too unperturbed for her peace of mind. “It’s relatively painless. No drilling, no incisions, I promise. Once the frame is in place, we’ll bring you in for another MRI to work off the most recent image we can get. This MRI will be uploaded into a computer in the radiosurgery room. Your surgical team, including myself, a radiation oncologist, and a physicist—”
“A physicist? Like...” She swallowed a lump that might have been her heart. “...a nuclear physicist is treating me? Am I in any kind of danger? I’m not gonna wind up radioactive or start glowing in the dark, am I?”
Dr. Regalbuto offered an indulgent smile, as if he understood her dread or had heard that specific fear thousands of times before. “Dr. Willard is a medical physicist. He’s part of the surgical team, one of the best in the field, and will help us pinpoint exactly where the rays need to go to do the most damage to the tumor. Once we’ve collected all the data, we’ll attach a helmet like this one to the frame on your head.” He showed a photo of what looked like an enormous space-age colander. “This keeps the tumor immobile while we’re blasting the gamma rays.”
Her imagination pictured some laser light show inside her skull, and she winced. “Will it hurt?”
The doctor shrugged. “Some patients experience pressure when the frame is first applied, but it’s a momentary discomfort. During the rest of the procedure, you shouldn’t experience any pain.”
“What about my hair?” She released her death grip on Justin and, with trembling hands, ran her fingers through the blond ends. “Is it all going to fall out? And will it grow back?”
“There might be some hair loss, but it’s minimal.”
“And the recovery time?” Justin interjected.
“I’ll want to keep her overnight, based on the intricacy involved in her case, but that’s just a precaution. After that, she’ll be ready to go home. I assume she’ll be staying with you after the procedure?”
“Yes, mmm-hmm.” Justin nodded.
Oh, good. The triple acceptance. Nice to know her best friend was so totally on board with this bizarro treatment plan. Especially since she was still skeptical. She didn’t care what good ol’ Doc Hollywood here said. “Gamma knife” sure didn’t sound painless to her.
“That’s good,” the doctor said. “We prefer she not be alone. Not that we expect any complications, but it’s always better
for a patient to have someone close by, just in case. One of the team’s nurses will review her aftercare with you both before she’s released.”
Just in case. Just in case, what? She wanted to ask, but Justin beat her to the punch, posing his own version of the question. “Should we be worried about anything?”
She shot him a scathing glare. Worried? Him? No. The worst thing that would happen to him is she might expire while lying on his five-hundred-dollar sheets, requiring a full makeover of that hideous pink bedroom. No great tragedy.
Her? Hell to the yeah. She had a lot to worry about.
A thousand what ifs buzzed in her head. What if she had a seizure? What if the procedure didn’t work? What if he missed and hit her healthy tissue? What if she wound up in a coma due to some screwup? What if the radiation hit one of her old silver fillings and set her mouth on fire?
“The procedure is fairly simple, and since there’s no actual cutting, there shouldn’t be any complications,” Dr. Regalbuto said before her imagination could conjure up other worst case scenarios. “But, again, we’ll know more after the procedure. Any other questions?”
Yeah. The Big One. “What are my chances?”
Aha. The perfect professional veneer finally cracked as Dr. Regalbuto frowned. “There’s always a chance of failure or success in every procedure. I can’t stress enough that your particular tumor is fairly large and invades deep into the brain. I will say your chances are significantly better if you undergo the gamma knife rather than not.”
“Meaning...?” Justin probed.
The doctor glanced at Isabelle. What? Now she had the answers? Just because she’d read the pamphlet he gave her at her last visit didn’t make her an expert in the field.
Then again, she did know the answer. Knew what the good doctor didn’t want to say.
So, okay. She’d tackle this one. “Meaning, if I don’t have the gamma knife thingy, I’ll be dead before next Christmas.”
Justin’s jaw dropped, and he whispered a choked-up, “No.”
“Yes.” She sighed. Cripes, she could practically see him planning her funeral in his head already. And knowing Justin, he’d begun with the guest list, trying to figure out how to get people who didn’t really know her to attend. He bit his lip, and she swallowed a sob. Which was better? Having someone who cared enough to go into emotional overdrive at the thought of her pending demise? Or having no one so she didn’t have to see the pain of her loss in his expressions?
His teary eyes narrowed in her direction. “I don’t care what you say. You’re definitely going through with this gamma knife thingy.”
No matter how many times they’d discussed this, he still didn’t want to face the truth. “All this procedure does is buy me time, Justin,” she murmured in a pacifying tone. “It’s not a cure. Not in my case.”
Clutching the desk’s edge, white-knuckled, he pulled his chair closer and veered his attention to the doctor. “How much time?”
“That’s hard to say,” Dr. Regalbuto admitted. “I’ve known some patients with similar...circumstances...who’ve lived up to seven years after the procedure.”
Hope lit up Justin’s eyes, but Isabelle pulled him back into her reality. “Or it could do nothing for me and I can still be dead within the year.”
The doctor nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s true. We’ll have a better idea on your prognosis as we monitor your progress after the procedure. But let’s think positively for now. A healthy outlook is just as important as any treatment plan we develop.”
Justin cleared his throat. “When do you plan to do this...knife thing?”
“Gamma knife. I’d like to schedule the procedure before the end of the month. The sooner, the better.” The doctor nodded at Isabelle. “Okay?”
With two pairs of eyes boring into her, she squirmed in her cushy leather chair. Like she had any choice.
She stifled another sigh and folded her hands in her lap. No choice. Little chance. Not much hope.
“What do you have open next week?”
~~~~
“What’d they tell you?” Sean slapped the sunny yellow orb against the wall, watched it rebound toward Xavia.
She side-stepped and sent the fireball sizzling back. “Same as they told you, I’d imagine. That we had no business using your sensory link to Isabelle Fichetti for our own agenda.”
“Yup.” He returned the orb with ease—and just a hint of spin. Let’s see her return that missile.
“And I’ve been placed on probation. How ironic is that? The supervisor of the Afterlife’s Probation Department is on probation.”
“That’s my fault,” he replied. “I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess.”
“It’s not your fault. Not your mess. I dragged you into my mess with Nicole. So we’re equally at fault.” Wham! Another slam toward the wall by Xavia. This time, the ball zipped into a corner, boomeranged upright, and collided with the ceiling where it shattered into a rainfall of sparks. She oohed as she watched the light show, then turned to Sean with an apologetic shrug. “Whoops. Your point, I guess.”
“No, that’s just a fault. Two of those equal a point—except when it comes to the Elders. Then it’s one fault and you’re out. My serve. Again.”
She crouched, gaze fixed on the wall. “Go.”
But he didn’t form a new orb. Instead, he relaxed his stance. “Can I ask you something?”
Straightening, she faced him. “What?”
“During the meeting with my EC,” he said, “she showed me a bit of what was going on in your meeting with Ukiah.”
“Uriah,” she corrected.
“Yeah. Right. Anyway, you were telling him that you used my sensory link because you were ordered to get close to me or something.”
A guarded look fell over her eyes. “Uh-huh...”
“When were you told that and why?”
Her lips tightened into a grim line.
“If you’re worried about insulting me, don’t sweat it. I stopped caring what the Elders thought of me a long time ago. Just spit it out. I can take it.”
“The first time was during my consultation before they transferred you to Probation. Your arrival in my department caused a huge stir.” She ducked her head, gaze pinned to her feet. “Which probably explains why I gave you such a hard time when you first showed up. Uriah really had me on edge.”
“Why? What’d they tell you about me?”
She shook her head. “It’s not what they told me about you. It’s what they wanted me to do about you. I already told you most of my staff handles ten times the caseload you’re carrying on any given day. That in itself is odd. But you were assigned Isabelle and no one else, and Uriah stressed that you’d prove difficult, but I was to stand my ground with you and basically give you hell. His exact words were, ‘Hold his feet to the fire at every turn.’ What do you think he meant by that?”
He muffled a curse with a whiff of exasperated breath. “That they’re testing me. I should have known. I did know. Samantha in Reception tried to warn me.”
“Oh, it’s more than a test, sugar. They’re playing games. With you, with Isabelle, with me. And nothing as fun as this orb ball. I don’t know what they want from us, but whatever it is, we’re all in it together. Like we’re linked somehow.”
Which explained what Verity had said during their last consult. Something he should probably warn Xavia about. “My EC told me if I tried to contact Isabelle outside the normal channels, the Board would not only punish me, but you, too.”
To her credit, she didn’t freak out. At least, not in a frightened way. No, she got downright pissed. So pissed, fire blazed in her eyes and turned her aura lava red. “See what I mean? That’s not the way things usually go down around here. And I, for one, don’t appreciate playing somebody’s lab rat.”
Was she right? Was there something going on they didn’t know about? Well, hell, yeah, that much he knew was true. But, what else was happening? Were they linked somehow? All thr
ee of them?
He remembered how Luc and Jodie had shared some kind of link he’d never understood. But unlike Luc and Jodie, Sean could meld with Xavia without getting sucked into the Afterlife’s version of sex—a fusion of souls. Too bad, now that he considered it. Luc, although tight-lipped about personal stuff, had let slip that his melds with Jodie were damn near nuclear in power and scope. He could easily believe that kind of fusion with Xavia was what ultimately created the cosmos. Talk about a Big Bang.
“None of this makes sense,” Xavia announced, drawing Sean’s thoughts back from fantasy to the reality of the situation at hand. “I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly getting shit from my counselor for refusing to take responsibility for my own actions, for always looking for shortcuts to avoid repercussions. So, how am I supposed to react to this?”
“Is that your big flaw?”
“No.” She smirked. “My big flaw is I tend to take matters into my own hands.”
“No shit,” he retorted.
“What’s your big flaw?”
“I have a pissy attitude.”
“No shit,” she rejoined with the same emotionless tone. His laughter mingled with hers for a minute or two before she sobered. “What are we gonna do now?”
“Toe the line, I guess.” He shrugged. “I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t give a shit what they do to me, but I won’t risk you or Isabelle.”
“Touching, but don’t play nice on my account,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “They’ve already taken away my only reason for going on: my son. Without him, I’m damned anyway. And I don’t care what happens to me now.” Crouched on the floor, she folded into herself, back against the burned wall. “You worry about Isabelle, not me. I’m a hopelessly lost cause.”
Well, there was one link they had in common. Him, Xavia, and Isabelle: three lost causes.
Chapter 14
Isabelle was pissed. Not that he blamed her. The limits Verity had placed on him made it impossible for him to speak directly to her. Oh, he still watched her—awake and asleep. And when she was awake, every once in a while, she stopped whatever she was doing to listen in silence. She obviously still felt those prickles on her neck that told her he was around.