Chapter 86

I’m a rain cloud, floating above the trees and the river below. I watch while Ansel holds me, crying, before I slip away.

I’m a spirit in the darkness. In the deep, velvety black.

I am not alone. I’m with the Divine. She’s the bringer of dreams and She speaks in riddles.

A wolf howls nearby and I shudder. Then she appears. Her fur is white, like snow. She’s strong, fierce, and wild.

I’m frightened, but she makes no move to harm me. The Moon Goddess whispers, so I go to her. Slowly, I reach out my hand. I run it over her soft fur. She watches me with wise eyes.

I’m not wise. Why do you want to come with me?

I stroke her head.

I’m not wild. You won’t be free with me.

She nuzzles my cheek.

Will it be painful? Will there be a price to pay?

“Have you learned nothing,” she asks.

But I have learned.

You are the gut feeling. You are ballet. You’re the bittersweet memory and the dreams that fill my head at night.

You’re the love and the rage and the in between. The passion and the drive.

‘Beep… beep…’

I wake to an electronic song. I scrunch my eyes to shut out the light.

Ada is with me. I don’t know how to describe her presence, except to say there’s a weight to her, a fullness. I’m not hollow anymore. I’m not broken into two halves. I’m whole.

For the briefest of moments, I simply feel her with me again, and I’m happy.

“Karin?”

I open my eyes. The memories flood back in and the reality of the situation hits. I’m in a hospital bed. My legs and back feel stiff. My arms are taped with IV ports and the tubes run up the length of my arms, so that I’m caught, like a fish on a line.

Joy is sitting next to the bed. Her eyes brighten. “Oh my gosh! You’re awake!” She stands. “I’ll get Doc!”

She’s halfway to the door, but as if on cue, Doc enters. A nurse in gray scrubs follows him.

“Welcome back,” Doc says, and explains that he has hospital privileges.

“I wormed my way in here, though,” he says. “You already had a whole team - and you’re in the finest hospital in the Werewolf community - but I wanted to look after you.” His face reddens and his eyes look moist.

He does a neurological exam. “Can you feel this,” he asks, lifting the blanket to touch my toes.

I guess I’m doing fine. He nods as I perform each task.

“Track this pen with your eyes… Good.”

He asks me for my name and date of birth, if I know where we are, and what year it is.

How bad was I, if he has to ask me all of this?

“How much pain are you in?”

I automatically look down at my wrists. They look like a mangled mess, held together with sutures, but the morphine drip is doing its job.

The nurse records everything and gets my vitals. She finishes her charting, quiets my heart monitor, and steps out.

“Where’s Ansel?” The question’s been playing on a loop in my mind since I opened my eyes.

Joy and Doc glance nervously at each other. My stomach starts to twist into knots.

“There’s a lot we have to catch you up to speed on,” Joy says.

I shake my head. “I don’t care about anything else.”

The scent of fresh flowers in a vase next to the bed permeates the air. It’s sickeningly sweet. The afternoon sun streaming through the window reflects off of Doc’s glasses and Joy’s emerald green fingernails.

“Ansel was shot twice in the chest,” Doc says. “With silver bullets.”

My heart jumps into my throat. I choke out the words. “Is he -“

“He’s alive,” Joy says. She reaches over to take my hand. She claps just my fingers, gently, so as not to hurt me.

“He’s in the ICU,” Doc says. “He had surgery to remove the bullets, a procedure to remove the silver toxin from his blood, and for now, he’s needing life support to help him breathe.”

The world seems to flip upside down on its head. My brain struggles to process it. A cart rolls down the hall outside. Joy’s eyes are glistening with tears.

“He’s lucky to be alive. He went into cardiac arrest and the silver weakened him far beyond what a ‘normal’ gunshot wound could have,” Doc says. “You are both incredibly lucky to be alive.”

My heart is still speeding like a jackrabbit.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Doc swallows. “It doesn’t look good.”

Son of a bitch.

I toss the blanket off of me.

“I have to see him,” I say. I sit up and start looking at how I can break out of this bed, and this claustrophobic room with its cloying floral fragrance.

“Hang on, Karin.” Doc stands over me as though he’s afraid I’ll yank out all my IV lines, and he’s not wrong, because I’m thinking about it.

Doc sends for a wheelchair. He helps untether me as much as possible from the IV lines. I’m off the morphine drip and the fluid, at least.

Joy hugs me. “I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.”

Doc wheels me and a nurse wheels what’s left on my IV rack, down a long hall. We pass by medical staff and patient rooms with their own electronic, beeping, songs.

They get me into an elevator. The nurse presses the button for the fourth floor.

“I should tell you a little about what you’ll see,” Doc says, as the elevator door closes.

I take a sharp inhale.

“He had to be intubated. You’re going to see a tube placed down his mouth and the ventilator connected to it. That’s the machine breathing for him. He’s positioned on his stomach. That helps more oxygen go to his lungs.”

“Is he awake?” I feel nauseous.

“No,” Doc says. “He’s being kept in a medically-induced coma.”

“Why?” My voice cracks.

“It’s not tolerable. It’s the kindest thing to do.”

My eyes fill with tears. I try to steel myself.

Don’t cry, Karin, don’t cry.

But when we get into the room, I begin to crumble.

The man in the hospital bed doesn’t look like Ansel. His face is swollen and puffy. He smells different. He’s covered in wires and tubes. The room is filled with the beeps of his heart monitor and the whir of the ventilator.

Doc wheels me next to him. My chest feels tight and my hands are trembling.

“You can talk to him,” Doc says. “He can hear you.”

I shake my head and wipe away the tears. “Okay.”

Doc leaves to give me privacy.

I don’t know what to do or say. Should I hold his hand? He looks fragile - and I’m afraid.

I’m afraid to hurt him again.

I’m only alive now because of him. Because he found me and caught me before I fell. Because, I guess, he mindlinked or called, or somehow got me help for me before -

Before someone did this to him.

My stomach churns with guilt and I feel sick with grief.

Ada stirs inside me. You both made a sacrifice.

I know she’s right, but it doesn’t erase the past, and maybe now, he’ll never know that I do love him.

Ada nudges me and, for once, I just let her guide me.

Slowly, I put my hand on the back of his shoulder.

“Ansel, it’s me, Karin.”

He lies motionless, except for the movement from the ventilator, forcing his lungs to expand in and out. He’s spread out on his stomach, but his head is turned towards me.

As delicately as I can, I stroke his hair. I caress his cheek.

“I love -” My voice breaks. I gulp and try again. “I love you.”

His eyelashes are thick and inky black. His blond hair curls a little around his ear.

“I know I don’t deserve - I know that I hurt you.”

‘Beep, beep, beep.’ The beeps and the whirs continue their steady, metronome rhythm.

His hand is laying against the head of the bed. Carefully, I take it. His skin feels cold, which scares me. I put my other hand over it, to warm it. I lace my fingers with his and I try to memorize this piece of him. This hand.

In my mind, he’s 19 again. We’re sitting together on the piano bench. He’s trying to teach me “Heart and Soul,” but I’m not getting it.

“Like this,” he says, leaning near to show me. I breathe him in, only noticing the way his hands strike each key - not the notes he’s playing. He draws his hands back, but lingers close to me.

“You’re not paying attention at all, are you?” His blue eyes sparkle in bemusement, but he feigns a frustrated sigh.

“No, no,” I say. I clear my throat and sit up straighter. “I got this.”

“Okay, let’s try it. Take… fifty-six, I think.” He smirks.

“Action,” I say.

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“No, it’s not. You’re the clapperboard guy.” I giggle.

“Come on,” he says. “We’re going to get through it this time.”

He turns his attention to the piano. I focus on hitting the bottom chord of the song, but when he comes in with his part, it’s hard not to just watch him.

I screw up a few times, but he slows down for me, and we find our rhythm again.

I burst out laughing when we make it the whole way through. He knuckle bumps me. Mr. Cool. I’m a sucker for it, too.

“My turn,” I say. I take off running outside. “Come with me.”

He hops up and follows after me. The sky is dark with rain clouds. I continue past the playground for the younger children, through the meadow, down to the big oak tree. I scramble up.

“What are you waiting for, Ansel?”

He looks up at me from the ground. “I don’t know if I can, Karin.” His voice is breathless. “Let me just rest for a minute.” He slides down to sit at the base of the tree, his back pressed against the trunk.

I shimmy back down and sit next to him.

“Sorry,” he says. His chest is breathing fast.

I lean in and kiss him.

His lips taste of mint.

Rain drops begin to fall from the sky. We both look up. The rain falls harder.

He looks at me with a wry grin and shakes his head. “You had to drag me out here.” We stand hurriedly, and start running to get out of the rain, sloshing through the quickly waterlogged meadow.

It’s pouring now and our clothes are becoming soaked. Rain drops run down our faces.

“Over here,” Ansel yells through the heavy sound of the downpour. He pulls me to the garden shed. We flatten ourselves against the building, to shelter ourselves from the rain.

Rain is pummeling the earth and the sound is louder now, as it hits the roughtop. The wind changes direction and it begins to blow the spray of water more heavily onto us.

Ansel laughs. He looks over at me. I break into a shivery grin, teeth chattering. He draws me to him and wraps me up in his arms to keep me warm.

I press him against the wall of the shed, forgetting the chill and the rainshower pelting us. His face and hair are wet and dripping with raindrops. I kiss him and he kisses me back with such sweet abandon that it takes me by surprise.

“Make love to me,” I say into his ear. Our first time. Our only time before… Before we meet again.

‘Beep. Beep.’

My eyes fix on the ugly tube from the breathing machine. I hate the way it looks. I hate the way part of it is strapped across his face like a muzzle.

I look away and find focus on his hand. I find the freckle that dots his pointer finger and I pray to the Moon Goddess, over and over again. Please, don’t let him die.