But as the Destiny took a tighter hold on him, Calvin would forget.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jilly signed on to our plan by doing it herself—cutting her own arm and removing the tracking device that her Destiny farm owners had implanted beneath her skin. Like most G-Ts, she had an ability to heal superficial wounds rather quickly. Her massive blood loss, though, would require a longer period of recovery, so after she did her little self-surgery, she curled up and took a nap.
Dana and Milo were in the closet, making sure that Rochelle’s home Destiny lab would be completely destroyed in the fire, when Calvin approached me.
I was still shaking from the fight with Rochelle, but I was trying my best to help—going through the piles of laundry that were in the hallway. I pulled out Jilly’s clothes and packed what I found in a series of leopard-print suitcases. I’d tossed in the video game player, along with a small collection of games—but not enough to make anyone think there’d been a robbery. Still, I figured that since I’d recently flooded out the rebels, they might appreciate whatever Jilly could bring with her.
“Hey,” Cal said as I tucked Jilly’s sneakers in next to a pile of T-shirts.
“Did you find what you needed?” I asked. He’d wanted to cover both Ashley and Rochelle with sheets. I think the sight of them—particularly Ashley—royally freaked him out.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. Upstairs. Thanks. Although this does seem to be laundry central, doesn’t it? I guess it saves time if you can get dressed while walking down the hall.”
“You know, I didn’t want to believe you before,” I told him, just bluntly changing the subject.
Cal nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m pretty scary these days.”
He’d meant that as a joke—at least I think he did. But I didn’t laugh. Or deny it.
“She killed her best friend,” he said. And I knew he was talking about Rochelle who, yes, had jokered and murdered her bestie.
“Yup,” I agreed.
“Pretty awful,” he said. “Extra brutal, with the whole butcher-knife thing. I mean, you’d almost understand it if it were an accident. If they were arguing, and Ashley slipped and hit her head… But Rochelle stabbed her and chased her and then stabbed her some more. That’s, um…”
I nodded. It was very um.
Cal took a deep breath. “So, I called Morgan,” he said. “We’re doing the detox tonight.”
I wanted to cry at that news, I was so glad that we weren’t going to have to do with Calvin what we’d just done with Rochelle. But I was scared, too. I didn’t want him to die.
And then there was the fact that the best-case scenario put Calvin back in his wheelchair for the rest of his life. Worst and most likely case, of course, was that we wouldn’t be able to restart his heart.
Twenty-two. The number Cal had blurted out earlier popped into my head as I hugged him hard. I had no idea what it meant—or even if it meant anything at all.
“Thank you,” I said, then pulled back to search his eyes. “Does Dana know?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I told her first.”
“Of course,” I said.
“I also told her that I wanted to make sure that I don’t, you know, back out, chicken out, whatever. I’m afraid that I might,” Cal admitted. “That the D might make me, you know—be a douchebag. And I just wanted you to know that I, um, gave her permission to, um, make me. Do the detox. So if she does whatever she does? Like hold me in place or drag me to the operating table and lock me down? I want her to do that. I do. I might not sound like it in the moment, but I definitely want it. Okay? So back her up. It’s going to be hard for her, and she doesn’t need you bringing any extra doubt to the party.”
I nodded again because I couldn’t speak.
Tears filled Calvin’s eyes. “Because here’s the thing: I will not do to you or Dana, or even Milo, what Rochelle did to Ashley. I will not. I would rather die.”
“I love you,” I managed to choke out.
“Yeah,” Cal said. “I know. That’s why I’m going to say this to you, because I can’t bring myself to say it to Dana, but, Sky, if my heart doesn’t start again, after you guys stop it? It’s not because I don’t want it to. I need you to promise me that you’ll tell Dana that. And that you’ll also tell her that it was worth it. Remind her, regularly, that my life was perfect, and I regret nothing—not a single minute. And that I loved her madly.”
I was crying now, but I nodded. “I promise.”
Twenty-two. There it was again.
Cal pulled away from me, because Dana was back. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Absolument,” Cal said with the hokiest faux French accent I’d ever heard. “I was just asking Sky, would she rather have a rare condition that made her fart uncontrollably every time she saw a hot guy, or have a different rare condition that made her quack like a duck every time she entered a quiet room? And she just burst into tears at the trauma of having to decide.”
Dana knew Cal was BS-ing her, especially when she looked at me and we both said, “Duck,” and then started to laugh. It was either that or keep crying, maybe forever.
“Huh,” Cal said. “I didn’t think it would be that easy.”
As they walked away from me, hand in hand, I knew that strapping Cal onto that table was going to be the hardest thing that Dana had ever done.
“Twenty-two,” I whispered. It meant something. I knew it did. But what?
————
We were ready. And when I say we, I meant Morgan was ready.
He’d reinforced the leather straps on the operating table in Garrett’s dad’s OR with some serious-looking chains. He’d also mixed up an extra-large batch of the adrenaline he’d need to restart Calvin’s heart as well as prepping the defibrillator.
Whether Calvin was ready was anyone’s guess.
But “It’s time,” Morgan told me, and I went outside to get Dana and Cal.
Milo had gone in a separate direction after Garrett had returned with the body from Harrisburg—after we’d lit the fire at Rochelle’s house. He’d taken off on Dana’s bike to check in on our John Doe from the Sav’A’Buck. Milo and I were both in a much better place—I believed him and I definitely trusted him—but these next few minutes would’ve been a whole lot easier to get through with Milo by my side.
I paused in the doorway, just watching Cal and Dana. They were out on Garrett’s driveway, slow-dancing to an ancient, romantic big band song, in the headlights of Cal’s car.
This was it, Calvin had told her. His one chance to get to dance with Dana like this. If he survived, he wouldn’t be able to do this.
When he survived, Dana had corrected him, even though neither one of them believed it. She’d also told him that she didn’t care how he rolled.
“But I do,” he’d said.
He’d already called his parents—leaving them I love you voice-mail messages. Because he also knew that two survivors out of thousands meant he didn’t stand much of a chance.
Now, he lifted his head and looked up, as if he’d sensed me standing there. “It’s time,” he said, using Morgan’s exact words.
Cal kissed Dana sweetly, deeply. And then together, arm in arm, they walked toward me.
“You good?” Dana asked, looking up at him.
He shook his head. “Nope,” he said, as easily as if his answer had been yes. “I love you. And I need you to do your thing now.”
And that’s where it got ugly. Or it would have, had Dana not been ready for Calvin to try to back out of the procedure.
She put him in a TK body lock that must’ve felt a lot like the one Rochelle had used on us just a few hours earlier. And together, she and I hurried Calvin into the OR.
He started screaming, “Wait! Wait! I changed my mind! I don’t want to do this! I don’t
want to do this!”
But Morgan had known that he might resist, and the G-T didn’t flinch. He just calmly strapped Cal down on the table with those heavy-weight chains.
“Please!” Calvin shouted, looking at Dana. “Please! Baby, I know what I said, but I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it! I love you! I love you, don’t do this! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” But when she didn’t release him, he got ugly—cursing her out and snarling and even spitting—and trying to use his electrical powers against us.
But Morgan was ready for that, too, and he injected Cal with a sedative. And then, right before Calvin lost consciousness, his sweet self returned, and he looked right at Dana and said, “I’m so sorry. I love you.” With that, he was out.
I held Dana up as she gave in to her grief. “It’s going to be okay,” I said.
But she just shook her head.
I have no idea exactly what Morgan did during the first part of the procedure—the part where he stopped Calvin’s heart. Yes, I was there, but it all happened fast, and it was mostly a blur. I do know that I held Dana’s hands, and she clung to me so tightly, I had little finger-shaped bruises for about a week after.
I also know that the usually unflappable Morgan was sweating. He kept the medical scanners going the entire time, and he announced important moments, like exactly when Cal’s heart stopped beating and when the Destiny was finally gone from Cal’s system. He also told us what he was doing, like when he tried to jump-start Cal’s heart first by using that good old classic CPR.
He practically knelt on Calvin’s chest as he applied pressure, again and again and again. “We just need his heart to start moving; then we can use the defibrillator,” he said.
But the medical scanner delivered only an ominous-looking flatline.
Morgan didn’t give up. “Come on, Calvin,” he said. “Come back to us!”
I stared at the screen, willing that line to move, to pulse, to do something.
Twenty-two…
Morgan still didn’t stop, but now he was shaking his head. “Adrenaline,” he ordered, and Dana picked up the giant syringe and handed it to him.
“Needle going in!”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to watch. Please, please, please, Calvin…
“His heart’s still not beating,” Morgan grimly announced as he tossed the empty syringe onto the counter and went back to trying CPR. Those were not the words I wanted to hear.
Dana wildly looked around the room. “More adrenaline,” she said. “Where’s the rest of the adrenaline?”
“There is no more,” Morgan told her as he kept nearly pounding on Calvin’s unresponsive chest. “There’s a risk of brain damage if we use too much.”
“Right now, the biggest risk to Calvin is death!” Dana shouted.
Morgan shouted back at her, “We knew going in that he was probably going to die!”
“He’s already dead.” Garrett spoke up through tears that were running down his face. “You guys, just stop, because it’s over.”
“No, it’s not!” I was the only one who turned on him, and that shocked me.
But then it didn’t, because I knew that Dana and Morgan both had already lost so much in their lives that they expected to lose again.
But I still had hope, and Lord help me, but that tiny seed bloomed into something brilliant and colorful when Garrett told Morgan, “You need to stop, man, and mark his time of death. It’s sixteen minutes past—”
“Twenty-two!” I shouted, startling everyone. “Keep going,” I ordered Morgan. “Don’t you dare stop! We are going to keep doing this, we are going to keep fighting for Calvin until twenty-two after, and maybe even until twenty-two minutes after that.” I pointed to Dana. “Get that defibrillator ready, because this is not over!”
For once, Dana didn’t argue. For once, she followed my command.
“Cal is not going to die,” I shouted. “I know that he is not going to die! Not today!”
I could see that Morgan was exhausted, but despite that, he didn’t let up. Still, I could tell that he needed a break, and I’d been watching him for long enough to feel confident that I could take over. “Let me,” I said, placing my hands on Calvin’s chest.
“Press hard,” Morgan told me, watching closely to make sure that I was doing it right.
I leaned into it, feeling Cal’s muscles beneath my hands as I stared down into his slack face, imagining his heart inside him, willing it to move for me, thinking of the blood inside his body, a body that was mostly water, a heart that was mostly water, which I knew I could manipulate if I focused…
very…
very…
carefully…
“Come back to us, Calvin,” Dana whispered. “Please, babe. I don’t know what I’ll do without you around to make me smile…”
THUM-thump.
“Defibrillator!” Morgan shouted. “Skylar, move! Clear! You need to get clear!”
But I didn’t move.
THUM-thump.
I kept my hands on Cal’s chest. I wasn’t even pressing that hard anymore. “Wait!” I ordered, and they actually obeyed me.
THUM-thump, THUM-thump, THUM-thump, THUM-thump.
Calvin’s heart was beating.
“Make sure the respirator’s working,” I ordered.
“It is,” Morgan reported. “But he doesn’t need it.” He laughed his surprise. “He’s breathing!”
I looked up at the clock on the screen, expecting to see that it was twenty-two past the hour, but it wasn’t. It was only eighteen after.
Calvin was still unconscious, of course, but his heart was beating steadily.
“He’s now in a coma,” Morgan told us. “So far, so good. Now, he’ll either wake up or he won’t.”
“He’ll wake up,” I said. “In twenty-two…hours.” I was guessing. Hoping, really. I said it again, more firmly. “Cal’s going to wake up in twenty-two hours. I know it.”
No one argued with me this time. In fact, Dana did the opposite of argue. She hugged me hard and whispered, “Thank you.”
After that, we got ourselves cleaned up and then sat down next to Calvin, to wait.
————
Twenty-two hours is a long freaking time to wait for anything. Add to that the fact that I was praying I was right, and that it was hours and not twenty-two days or weeks or even months.
People could stay in comas for a very, very long time.
The first few hours passed relatively quickly because there were things to do.
Morgan volunteered to drive Jilly to Orlando, where he’d connect her with the G-T rebels. He wanted to spend a little more time with Lacey, and he seemed convinced that getting Jilly settled ASAP would be the best thing for the girl.
But before they left, he kept checking his phone, and he finally told us that Milo had called him. Apparently, Milo had a package he wanted delivered to Orlando, too, and he was hoping that Morgan would wait for him to get back to Garrett’s so he could take it with him.
When Milo finally arrived, it was in that same gray rental SUV that I’d caught a glimpse of when I’d seen a flash of his memory of putting the GPS tracker on our John Doe’s car. And yes, there in the back, unconscious and in handcuffs was none other than the man who’d nearly killed me in the Sav’A’Buck parking lot. He was Milo’s “package.”
“I was sitting outside his motel room,” Milo told us apologetically, “and all I kept thinking was: We’re going from one disaster to the next. It’s never gonna end. I know he was planning to come after Skylar, and I suddenly thought, Why wait?” He looked at me. “If we wait, he’ll find you, and he’ll be armed when he does, and someone’s going to get hurt. This way, he’s out of the picture. And I figured whatever information he’s got about the local Destiny rings, well, that G-T group in Orlando can p
robably use it.” He looked back at Morgan. “I thought you might as well take the car, too.”
“They won’t…hurt him, will they?” I asked.
Dana laughed. “What do you care? He was going to kill you—or worse.”
“I just don’t want to be like them—like the people who make Destiny,” I said, and even though she rolled her eyes, I knew she agreed.
“Whatever,” she said and went back inside, where Garrett was sitting with Cal.
Milo put his arm around me. You’re not like them. You couldn’t be. Aloud, he said, “Morgan will make sure they don’t hurt him.”
“Right! Because I’m the miracle worker!” Morgan rolled his eyes—he and Dana were more alike than either of them would admit—and climbed into the SUV. Jilly was already slouched in the front seat. “I’ll be back before your twenty-two hours are up,” Morgan said. And with that, they drove away.
I shook my head. Jilly had said practically nothing to me. Not even thank you.
Give her time, Milo told me. She’s still getting used to the idea of not being dead. Life can be scary when you’re finally free—when you move from the darkness into the light. You have to learn how to be human, sometimes for the very first time.
I knew that he was talking about himself as well as Jilly. And I also knew that he was wrong. You didn’t have to learn those things, I told him. You just had to remember.
But Milo shook his head. He had almost no walls up anymore, and I could see the way he saw himself. He believed that he’d been shaped into something severely broken by his stepfather’s abuse. And I didn’t doubt that he’d been damaged. It was hard to imagine any child surviving what he had without paying some awful cost in self-esteem or self-worth.
But everything that he was—my kind, generous, thoughtful, gentle, sweet Milo—had been part of him from the start.
He laughed at that. Gentle and sweet. I’m not sure John Doe would agree.
I didn’t try to argue. Boys can be weird when you use words like sweet to describe them, even though it was one of the things that most women looked for in a guy. I just mentally took his hand and led him, in his mind, back to a long-ago memory that I’d first glimpsed when he’d torn down those mega-walls.
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