“Really?” I say with not a little surprise.
He’s driving one of the cop shop’s big SUVs which can easily pull my car. The flashing lights make me feel like I’m going to have a seizure so I glance away from his vehicle.
He tips his hat and says, “We’ll get you out of here, Miss Crowson. Hang tight while I get a tow strap hooked up.”
Chapter Nineteen: A Life for a Life
Juliana
I’ve been in this hospital countless times. My mom has worked here my entire life. It doesn’t matter though. I’ll never be completely comfortable in the long hallways with their closed doors and the smell of sterilizing cleansers. The way people talk in hushed tones and all the staff in their cotton scrubs — it’s unnatural. And guess what? Now that I see spirits and angels, the hospital has officially become my number one place to avoid. The exception may be cemeteries, which, thank God, I haven’t had to go to — yet. I’m not sure if going to the cemetery in a dream counts or not. I don’t like to think about it.
So, here I am back inside the hospital. Where there are probably a handful of dead people lurking about, just waiting for someone like me to talk to. The last time I was here, it was pandemonium with arguing spirits and Angels of Death taking over the waiting room. It sucked big time, and I don’t want a repeat experience.
I put my head down and rush through the building, only stopping once to ask a nurse — a friend of my mom’s — where my grandmother and brother are.
Her face pales and I recognize the look of dread of having to relay bad news to someone.
“Jules, your mom is with Jared right now. They’re…,” she stalls mid-sentence and tries again. “I’ll take you to them,” she offers.
I know what she was going to say. Not because I’m suddenly psychic, but because I feel too much from people. She wraps her arm around my shoulders and scoots us toward the E.R. I get that instant reality check no one wants to cash. I stuff the tears back down into my soul where only I know they exist and say, “What about my grandma? Is she all right?”
“Jules,” the nurse gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Charlotte is doing much better. She’s in her own room near Jared. We’re keeping them close, but not together because of your brother’s situation.”
She leads me down the last corridor and my anxiety about Jared rises to a crushing level. The hideous art hanging on the walls and the noxious smell of sanitizer mixed with cafeteria food isn’t helping my stress level. Overload in three…two….one...
We pass the E.R. nurses’ station and I see my mom through a glass door sitting in a chair holding Jared’s hand. Her other hand is clutched over her mouth and there are tears in her eyes. I run to the room and slide open the door. She sees me just before we grab one another like we’re each other’s life rafts.
“Julie, he’s not….” She can’t finish her sentence. “I couldn’t get a hold of you. Chris said you left hours ago.”
We both have our eyes on Jared. He’s in the bed and there’s a nurse adjusting a bag of fluid and a doctor typing on a keyboard. Marcus is standing near one of the monitors on the other side of the bed. He acknowledges my arrival but says nothing.
“What happened? What’s going on with Jared?”
My mom’s lip quivers as she shakes her head. “His blood pressure is so low. And he has fluid in his lungs. They think it’s hantavirus, sweetie. It came on so fast. I didn’t know he was this sick. His heart… It’s not…. It’s struggling.”
She can’t say it aloud. I don’t blame her and I’m not even sure I want to know the details. I’ve never seen my mom like this. Being shaken to your core is a wake-up call like no other.
Letting go of Mom, I move around the side of the bed and take Jared’s hand in mine. Mom takes his other one.
I give Marcus a death glare. Only for a second. Just long enough for him to see that I know he delayed me on purpose. I’d like to drill him with a few questions about our little adventure, then slap him halfway to Pluto, but I won’t let him distract me from Jared any longer than he already has.
“Hantavirus?” I say. “Can’t you get that from mouse droppings?”
“Yes, you can,” Mom whispers.
I close my eyes and sigh, feeling defeated. Even at home, being extra super-duper careful, Jared still couldn’t escape the grip of death. “He was searching inside the garden shed. He said it was disgusting inside.”
“That was probably it,” she says. Tears leak down her face and she looks up at the doctor to see if he’s listening.
I can’t stand to see my mom crying so I stare down at my brother in the bed. “Jared?” I whisper. He doesn’t respond. He’s unconscious. I lean over and kiss his forehead. “You can wake up now, baby brother. You have too much to do, remember?” I stroke the side of his hair and give it a little tug like I used to do when I was really little and wanted his attention. “You’re not done, and I’m not done being your sister.”
The doctor murmurs to my mom, “If he doesn’t start to respond soon, we’ll try what we discussed earlier.”
Mom gives the faintest of nods and the doctor slips out of the room. The nurse moves a chair from over by the corner and places it behind me. I give her a weak smile and sit down.
Before leaving, she hugs my mom and says, “He’ll wake up, Diane. He’s young and strong.”
Jared is young, but he’s just not as strong as he used to be after his last near-death experience. I take a deep breath and close my eyes against the heaviness in the room.
“Mom,” I say as I look over at her.
She tears her gaze away from Jared’s face. Her fear is the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life. I dig deep, pulling every ounce of determination and faith I didn’t know I had from somewhere bottomless and profound. There must be a well of strength buried inside this body. It’s a place no one ever wants to unearth and tap into. Yet, people reach this unbearable level of pain and drink from the sacred hidden depths within themselves somehow managing to accomplish all that needs to be done. Nineteen years old happens to be my time for this bitter drink of reality.
“Take my hand,” I whisper as I reach across the cotton blanket covering Jared’s body.
The three of us form a circle. There’s still no response from Jared. The hum and beep of his monitors fill the room with the eerie reminder Jared may not make it through this one.
“Jules, his life was short, but not unacknowledged.”
I ignore Marcus and center my focus only on Jared.
“There is great value in the quality of life, not the quantity.”
I release my mom and Jared’s hands and get up from the chair. Mom hardly seems to notice what I’m doing. I walk over to Marcus and stomp on his foot. Of course, I only stamp the floor, but it helps me feel better.
“I was stuck in a ditch for who knows how long while my brother was dying,” I say as calmly as I can, but it still comes out like icy needles. Needles I hope are making their points felt in Marcus’s guilty conscious.
Marcus says, “I sent the officer to your rescue.”
“I got a ticket, too.”
Mom frowns. “Is that where you’ve been?”
“Yes,” I say with some disgust as I return to the bedside and resume my place.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m glad you’re safe,” she says.
“Me too,” I say and squeeze her hand lightly. An idea comes to me. It’s strong and clear in my mind.
“Mom?” I say, and try not to let any doubt seep in. “You know how you and Grandma like to sort of pray over Jared and me when we’re sick? When you hold your hands over us and it helps us feel better?”
“Yes, of course,” she says.
“Can we do it now? For Jared?”
“That’s perfect, Jules. We should.”
“Okay. I’ve never done this before, but I want you to promise me to keep going even if I say anything strange or look kind of weird.”
“What are you talking abou
t?”
“You have to trust me. We’re going to hold hands with Jared and each other and don’t stop sending us your good mommy juju until I’m done. All right?”
She gives me a concerned look but says, “I love you both so much. Let’s help Jared get better.”
“Right,” I say as I tip my head down in concentration and close my eyes.
At first it’s just dark, but it doesn’t take long for me to start seeing with my inner eye. I see or feel my energy field first. Then I’m aware of Mom’s. As she deepens her concentration, I really feel her. She is so strong, and soft too. She’s sharing her energy with me and Jared equally. I start to push the energy she’s sending me toward Jared. His energy is hardly noticeable because he’s so weak.
After I focus on my brother, I begin to notice other things about him besides his lack of life force. My eyelids flutter with concentration and I begin to see more. His heart isn’t beating quite right and his lungs are shrunken — no, not shrunk, they’re struggling. I feel the energy pulsing through me and Mom, so I try to direct it to Jared’s most compromised places. I see the energy like streams of colored lights. I think about moving this light to his heart and lungs, and it begins to. At first I’m shocked, but I don’t want this to stop happening so I just keep going and pray I’m not imagining all of it.
As I envision the energy moving deeper into Jared, I picture it filling up his heart and pumping through his entire body. That’s when I notice these tiny misshapen and discolored dots moving through Jared’s blood. They feel wicked and I know they don’t belong. This must be what is making him so sick. In my mind, I begin to gather them and corral them into one place. As they begin to form a dark blob inside Jared, I’m not sure what to do with them next. They can’t stay, so like sweeping them out the door with a broom, I push the virus toward Jared’s shoulder and down his arm. I keep going until the entire group is in his hand, then with an almost explosive burst of my energy, I force the concentrated mass of virus out of Jared’s hand and into mine.
“Aahhh!” I jump back in the chair hard enough it tips over. I don’t see the room tilt because my eyes are still closed, but I feel it as I crash and the frame of the chair digs into me.
“Juliana!” Mom screeches.
I start to convulse so I ball myself up and hug my knees to my chest.
“What did you do?” she says as she strokes my head.
I hear the squeak of hurried footsteps coming, but all I can do is hold myself and wait for the dark ball of energy to move through my arm and dissipate. It takes its time, but it finally disperses. The shock of what I just accomplished eases somewhat and allows my body to relax.
“Can you move? What’s happening to you?” Mom says.
I whimper a little, then make myself stop. Mom doesn’t need this. She has enough to worry about. I uncurl from the floor as a nurse and my mom help me up.
“Blessed, Juliana. This was unnecessary.”
I hear the familiar female voice from somewhere in the room. I know it wasn’t the nurse speaking, but who was it?
“Sweetie,” Mom says. “Please tell me you’re alright.”
“I’m… I’m,” I stall out, then force my voice to work. “I’m fine. Too much stress tonight.”
The nurse starts taking my vitals.
“Jules. Mom,” Jared croaks and begins to cough.
All the blood, well, any left in Mom’s face, drains to a ghostly white. She keeps one hand on my arm and reaches over and takes Jared’s hand. The nurse drops my wrist and turns to my brother. I smile at him. He’s back. Again. My shoulders sink with relief and I take a deep but shaky breath.
“Juliana.”
It’s that familiar voice again. I look over to see who’s speaking.
“Why would you do this to yourself?” The Angel of Death, Harmony Allistair, is standing next to Marcus.
I don’t answer her. I just lift myself out of the chair, move around Jared’s tubes and wires, and carefully crawl up beside him on the bed. “Don’t scare us like that again. Okay, J?”
He wraps an arm around me and squeezes as I rest my head on the pillow next to his.
∞
If they would let me sleep right here for an eternity it wouldn’t be long enough. My mom and Jared’s nurse are prodding me to move out of the bed. We really aren’t comfortable anyway. I think I fell instantly asleep, but I’m incapable of discerning how long I’ve been lying here. Minutes? Hours? I haven’t a clue. They’re getting pushier so I squirm and force myself up and over the railing.
Jared’s recovery is happening so quickly there’s a buzz of commotion in the room as a nurse, a CNA, and a doctor make changes to his treatment. Seeing them adjust monitors and equipment is an unbelievable, but welcome, miracle.
Only, I know it’s not a miracle. My willpower and I took the virus from his body. I guess it’s a miracle in some distorted way, but I don’t think of it like that. I wanted to help Jared get better so I forced it to move out of him. I didn’t know where to make it go, so I took it into myself. Now, I’m carrying hantavirus. As I sneak a peek over at Harmony who showed up in the hospital room the moment I took Jared’s illness, I have to consider what I’ve really done. Does Mom realize the virus is inside of me now? We were both holding hands with Jared, but she doesn’t see things the way I do. I wish I could discount this as craziness, but I don’t think it is. This is real. I took the virus from Jared so he wouldn’t die, and now I’m the one who isn’t going to survive. Why else would another Angel of Death suddenly be here?
A shuddering breath passes through my lips as I force my legs to work. I need sleep badly. I need a bed and every known treatment for hantavirus. I stare at my backpack. I packed all of Jared’s holistic meds before I left the house. He’s going to continue the treatments we started, but I’ll start taking them as well. How long do I have before the symptoms show up? I know nothing about hantavirus other than what I just watched Jared go through.
“How’s Grandma?” I mumble as I sit down in the empty chair.
“She’s recovering. She’s sound asleep right now,” Mom says and yawns.
“Can I see her?” I ask. Then add, “I don’t want to expose her if I’m contagious.”
This time the nurse answers. “This virus doesn’t spread from person to person. Wash your hands as a precaution and you’ll be just fine to visit.”
I blink at her like a sleepy owl, slow and wide-eyed, thinking, yeah, doesn’t spread from person to person unless you’re an oddity like me. “Okay. Umm, I really need to see her.”
“Grandma Charlotte needs to rest. She has some burns and her eardrums burst. She also had some temporary paralysis. No, no, no. Don’t panic,” Mom says as she rushes over to me and squats down so she can look me in the eye. “She’s doing much better,” she assures me.
Mom places her warm hands on my arms. My entire body started to shake as Mom told me about Grandma’s injuries. I need my Grandma. She’s not allowed to leave this Earth yet. You know what? I need all my family. Life isn’t fair. And where is my father? He was with them in the ambulance, but he’s not here now.
“Why don’t you go sleep in her room for a while? There’s an extra bed and when she wakes up, you’ll be right by her side.”
“Umm,” I say again. How can I leave Mom and Jared? And how can I not go visit Grandma? This is such a disaster.
Mom grabs my backpack and helps me to my feet. “I’ll walk you to her room.” She glances over at Jared who is awake, but resting, and is already getting some of his color back. “If anything changes with Jared, I promise I’ll come get you immediately,” she says, answering my uncertainties before I even say them.
She nudges me to the door and I go without protest. I know I’ve bought Jared more time. It’s just that I don’t know how much time. For either of us.
There’s a window in Grandma’s room and the sun is up. The shades are pulled down, but the sun highlights the edges. Harmony sits nestled in her green c
loak on the seat in front of the window. She watches me with radiant, but soft blue eyes and doesn’t speak. There’s no sign of my dad. Where did he go? I wish he was here. Maybe he could tell me about life after death.
Grandma looks old in the hospital bed. Her always tidy silver and black hair is askew with stray strands stuck to a bandage on her cheek. She looks frail in her gown, even though I know she isn’t. It’s strange how easy it is to see someone as weak and sick by only changing their clothes and their setting. I know it’s still her though, and I trust Mom when she said Grandma will be fine. I begin to shake again and have to force myself to breathe and stay calm.
After I kick off my shoes and crawl onto the empty bed, and my mom quits fussing over me and leaves, I whisper to Harmony, “You’re not here for her, right?”
She gives me a pained smile. “I’m not here for Charlotte.”
“Just double checking,” I say, and swallow my new reality like it’s a piece of hot coal. Knowing an Angel of Death is here for me doesn’t sit well.
Before I let myself lie down, I dig into my backpack and start taking all of the herbal medicine I brought for Jared. I didn’t save Jared’s life just to kill myself. I know Marcus and Nathaniel say they have never seen someone escape death, but I’m not just someone.
Chapter Twenty: Tribulations
Nathaniel
“I thought I was past having regrets in this life, but I’m not. I’m still just as fallible as when I was twenty. The struggle continues to the very end.”
“For some it can,” I admit as I watch Vivi sip at her tumbler of Scotch. “We should never stop learning.”
“Learning is one thing. Dwelling on what should have been is something else entirely. I’ll say this about regrets… don’t let them eat you up inside, Nathaniel. They aren’t worth one second of your time.”
She takes a rattling breath, lowers her glass to the arm of the chair and says, “Now explain to me how it is that I know better, and I’m still sitting here wishing I had taken my leave before this coven meeting.”
Haunting Me (An Angel Falls Book 3) Page 21