Chapter Thirty-Two

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THE COMA BROKE ON the third week.

And I wasn’t there.

The phone call came at four in the morning, ripping me from sleep and racing me in my night shorts and pink singlet all the way to Dr Campbell’s surgery.

Cal was already there.

His eyes stuck on Jess as if she was the only woman alive, his hand wrapped around her small one, his body slouched in a chair beside her bed.

I crashed into the room, unable to stop my speed, ripping both their attentions to me.

Sully had written a new Will and Testament to include the three of us. He’d gone after me knowing he wouldn’t survive, and it didn’t matter that for the past week I’d done my best to erase the fate that he’d written and scribble completely different things, I couldn’t seem to stop his choice.

I hadn’t told Cal that he was the new CEO of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. I couldn’t wait to tell Jess that she was a wealthy woman—earned by sacrifice and tenacity.

That part was happy.

The fact that she was awake was happy!

Yet as Jess licked her cracked lips, blinked her hazel eyes, and beamed a great big smile, I burst into noisy tears.

I couldn’t stop the ache for Sully. The guilt at his suffering. The pain of our separation.

Why won’t you wake up!

My tears exploded harder as Jess murmured, “Come here.”

Sniffing with no grace, I stumbled to her bedside and kissed her warm cheek. “You’re back.”

“I am,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just so glad you’re alive.” I forced a watery smile. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. I was just asking Cal where you were.” Her voice was different. Husky and hazy, the slight shadows of wherever she’d been still slinking through the syllables. “He told me that you freed the other goddesses. That we’re the only ones left.”

This was conversation.

This was a life raft from my sudden drowning in misery missing Sully.

I clung to it and ripped my thoughts from death to life. “We are. The island feels empty.”

Cal grinned up at me, his skin flushed and green eyes glowing. “I haven’t told her what you did with Euphoria yet. That there’s already a menagerie installed, and the tile is covered in hay and god knows what.”

I squeezed his shoulder, shaking with relief that at least one of us had gotten our happily ever after. My knees threatened to buckle with relief and envy.

As grateful as I was and as happy as I was that Jess had survived...I couldn’t ignore the hooks and splinters that Sully was still unresponsive. No matter how much I whispered to him by night or kissed his cheek by day, I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t entice him to twitch or reveal any sign that he still existed.

Jess had woken, but Sully...

God, I couldn’t breathe around the fact that we’d already ended.

We’d ended with a broken heart.

In some cracked place inside me, a piece of depressed psyche began the process of acceptance. Grief was a sneaky, slithery thing—self-preservation beginning the task of erecting a wall around my soul for the inevitable. It did what Louise had told me to do and prepared for the day when the heart monitor no longer beeped cheerfully like Jess’s did but slipped into a single monotone.

I didn’t want it.

I’d never accept that Sully was gone.

He’s not gone.

Not yet!

“Ah, Jinx...I’m sorry.” Jess’s eyes filled with matching tears. “Cal told me about Sullivan.”

I slashed at the wetness on my cheeks and ducked to kiss her again. “Don’t. Now that you’re awake, I’m sure he’ll follow. You’ll pave the way back for him.”

She held my stare and so much was said. Our strange sisterhood. Our unlikely bond. It was all there, familiar and steadfast, and I was so, so grateful that I had her because she would hold me up when I fell.

Because I would fall.

I would plummet if Sully chose death and not me.

Dr Campbell came bustling in, his elderly face etched with sleepiness but thrilled at the same time. “Don’t you two tire her out.”

“I’ve been sleeping for weeks, Dr Campbell. I won’t get tired.” Jess smiled. “Don’t make them go. Not yet.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Cal squeezed her hand. “You sure know how to run from a guy. If you didn’t want to chase whatever this is, you didn’t have to try to die on me.”

Her cheeks pinked. “So...you still want to see where this goes?”

I shouldn’t be here for this.

I was the third wheel. The unwanted watcher.

Swallowing past the ball in my throat, I backed away only for Jess to snap, “Don’t you think about leaving, Jinx.” She untangled her gaze from Cal’s and looked at me. “I’ve been dying to share, and I’m annoyed that Cal told you instead of me.”

Her face spoke of flirty, fanciful things, but her gaze was sympathetic and understanding. This wasn’t an overshare when she’d literally just woken from a coma, but her attempt at distraction.

Fine.

I needed a distraction.

I needed her to help me stay sane when that sanity had frayed to the point where I could no longer hold on.

I glanced at Calvin. He sat stiff and chilly, but a smirk teased his lips. He was in on the attempt, both of them pitying me, pitying Sully, pitying us.

Bracing my shoulders, I met their courage with my own. “Okay, tell me everything.”

He nodded, accepting my agreement to be distracted and looked from me and back to Jess, speaking to her. “Sinclair guessed. He gave me hell.”

Her eyebrows vanished into her blonde hair. “He guessed? How?”

“Said I’d never provided aftercare before.”

“Ah, yes well. That wasn’t exactly planned.” She blushed again. “But I’m glad you finally opened your eyes and saw me.” Her gaze sought mine, and her face glowed as if she’d woken full of vitality and gossip instead of a body weak from sleep and drained from haemorrhaging from Drake’s bullet. “I’ve been kind of in love with him since I arrived. Men, huh? Blind as bats.”

I hugged myself, attempting normal conversation when this was anything but a normal topic. “But...serving in Euphoria with different men and—”

“I’d rather not be reminded, thanks,” Cal muttered.

“When?” I asked. “How?”

“The night I slept with Markus Grammer as you,” Jess said. “Cal came to check on me after he helped Sully put you to bed.”

It was my turn to blush.

The caveman fantasy.

The first time Sully took me, wearing his masks and telling his lies.

I’d fallen that night and never gotten off my knees.

Sully, goddamn you, wake up!

“Elixir hadn’t quite finished with me.” She laughed, only to stop suddenly, wincing at the pain no doubt in her lower belly. In her womb that no longer existed thanks to fucking Drake.

“Hey, it’s okay, you can tell me later,” I rushed. “Focus on yourself instead of—”

“I kissed him when he tried to tuck me into bed.” Her eyes glowed with pure affection as she glanced at Cal. “He didn’t kiss me back, but...it got him thinking.”

“You were high,” Cal muttered.

“I wanted you.”

“Elixir wanted me.”

“No...I did.” She looked at their joined hands. “Every guest. Every Euphoria session...I was with you. When you didn’t notice me, I figured I might as well make everyone else happy because that way...maybe I could make you happy. Maybe we could all be happy.” She flicked me a glance. “Maybe I could make Sullivan happy so he’d give me the opportunity to sleep with the one guy who I actually wanted and to be his equal.”

Her motivation.

Her hidden agenda.

So much simpler than her sinister plots that I feared. The age-old fatalistic hope of matchmaking in order to find her own freedom.

“You’re a brave, brave woman, Jess.” I smiled.

She blushed. “Just stubborn.”

I pushed away tears that still leaked, attempting a joke. “And to think I ever suspected your motives.”

“Well, I was rather persuasive.” She grinned but then turned serious. “I knew how you were feeling when you first arrived because I was feeling it too. You wanted Sully, but he kept refusing you. I wanted Cal, but he didn’t see me. I figured...if I could help, then someone might help me.”

Cal stood and bent over her.

He kissed her hard.

Hard enough to make the heart monitor spike and Dr Campbell to growl from the next room. “Get your tongue out of her mouth, Moor.”

Cal pulled away, his nose nudging hers in sweet affection. “I see you now, woman. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Once again, the intimacy in the room was a dagger to my heart.

It took a mallet to my legs and swept them from under me.

I tripped and rubbed at my chest.

The craving to be next to Sully cracked my bones with need.

I needed to touch him, kiss him, murmur to him, even if he couldn’t reciprocate.

“I...I—” I choked on a sob and swallowed hard. “I’m unbelievably happy for you guys, but...I have to go.”

Jess looked tired, her body no longer willing to ignore her injuries. “I’m so sorry, Eleanor. He’ll wake up...you’ll see.”

“Uh-huh.” Blind with tears, I backed toward the door.

Cal stood as if to help me, but I held up my hand. If anyone touched me right now, I’d scream. The urge to bolt fizzled down my legs, but a single question drilled into my head. Loud enough to stop my tears and freeze my heart.

I halted.

I locked Jess in a stare. “Can I ask you something?”

She shivered but nodded. “Of course.”

“When you were sleeping...what was it like?”

Cal turned to face me, his features stern and tight.

Jess took her time answering, knowing why I asked and deliberating on any help she could give me. “It was like...a long dream. I wasn’t aware of the outside world, but I knew I was dreaming. For a while I was on the beach, just standing there. The sun rose and the sun set, but I couldn’t move. My skin burned from exposure, and a magnifying glass concentrated the rays onto my belly where it burned a hole right through me. I remember looking down and seeing the ocean turning red with my blood.” Her face clouded over. “Dark things happened after that. Things I don’t really want to discuss and will work on forgetting, but it wasn’t a nice place. I was back with my parents and the uncle who...anyway.” She shook herself and clutched the sheet. “I’m sure each person is different. Some might be in a dream. Some might be in heaven for a time. Some might be in limbo and not remember a thing. Don’t take my experience as something Sullivan might be enduring.”

I shivered, saving what she said to comb over and dissect later. For now, I needed to know another important thing. More important than all the rest. “And how did you wake up? Was it a choice? What sent you back?”

She waited for a moment, her thoughts flittering over her pretty face before she said softly, “The dream ended, and whiteness wrapped around me. And I just knew. Go left and I’d travel to whatever came next. Go right and...I’d be given a second chance.”

“So, you made the choice to wake up?”

She nodded but then backpedalled when she saw my face crumple. “But, Jinx...it might not be that way for everybody. He might not have a choice. He might not be aware he’s even alive—”

I bolted.

I ran all the way back to Nirvana and bowled through Sully’s villa not caring that I woke Louise on her cot by the deck.

I didn’t stop until I slammed my hands on either side of Sully’s head and pressed my fists into his pillow. Rage poured through me. Injustice and fatigue and thwarted tangled love.

With my lips hovering over his, I growled, “Make the choice, Sully. Make the damn choice and return to me.”

His eyes didn’t open.

My anger boomeranged into me, making me bleed. “Please, Sully. Come back to me. I’m begging you.”

My plea fell into a void.

Tumbling like a copper penny to plink into an empty well.

A spent wish that would never come true.

I fell to my knees and cried.

* * * * *

Sully didn’t wake.

Not that night or the next night or the week after.

By week four of his excruciating silence, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I needed off the island. I needed some space to scream or sob. I needed to be free from the twitchy hope that he might wake up followed by the dismal darkness when he didn’t.

As the sun broke through the rainclouds that’d drenched the island in a thunderstorm last night, I summoned Pika to stop harassing the sparrows on the bird table outside Sully’s bedroom and plucked Skittles from her place on my pillow.

Today, two things were going to happen.

One, my special friend would fly again, and two, I was leaving this mausoleum and embracing life.

Carrying Skittles into the bathroom, I glanced at Nirvana as it spilled its crystal droplets into the clear pool. My skin often craved the coolness of its waters, but I hadn’t had a swim. Yet another thing I couldn’t do because I’d done it with Sully, and I didn’t want to colour over our memories together with ones only of me.

“Sit still,” I commanded as I turned on the vanity lights and cast Skittles in illumination. Her green feathers fluffed, and her apricot and black head cocked. But she didn’t move as I carefully grabbed a pair of sharp scissors for personal grooming and concentrated on snipping away her splint.

Dr Campbell told me her wing should be healed two days ago when I visited Jess on my daily rounds. I’d been afraid to remove the brace in case he was wrong, but I couldn’t deny her flight anymore.

The second the splint fell away, she chirped and hopped to the sink. Pika shot into the bathroom, landing beside her and skidding from his speed. He nipped at her, his eyes cheeky and goading her to chase. He took off again, doing his best to instigate a game of cat and mouse.

Skittles watched him flap around like a green tornado before looking at me and squeaking.

“It’s okay. Give it a try.”

For a moment, I thought she would. I wanted her to soar into the sky and swoop around the island because that would mean another invalid of Drake’s evil had healed. Cal was better, Jess was better, everyone was better apart from Sully.

But Skittles hopped to my hand and scrambled her way up my arm using her talons and beak.

I sighed as she settled into her place on my shoulder and chattered nonsense into my ear.

“Not today, huh?”

She squeaked again, and I balled my hands.

The anger I felt toward Sully hadn’t left. The fear I felt had become a mutant, polluting my entire body with a crawling, cloying madness.

I didn’t want to be angry.

This wasn’t his fault.

None of this was his fault.

But I couldn’t stop the taunting voice inside my mind.

He didn’t choose you.

He’s not going to wake up.

He’s gone.

My rage turned into a dagger.

I was either going to destroy this bathroom or destroy myself.

Dropping the scissors, I backed away from the mirror showing an unhinged, heartbroken girl with wild eyes.

I need to go.

I need to breathe...just for a little while.

* * * * *

Skittles sat on the throttle of Singa Laut.

I’d told Cal I was borrowing Sully’s speedboat, Sea Lion, and he’d followed me to the wharf to show me how to operate the craft. After his lesson and stern warnings not to be too long or go too far, I glowered at him until he’d left.

I was hanging on by a thread, and company would only cut me loose and not in a good way.

I was so black inside I didn’t even appreciate the colossal differences in my life since arriving in Goddess Isles. Previously, this had been my prison cell. Now, I’d inherited every parrot and property. I was free to go where I wanted. Free to use Sully’s toys and call them my own.

However, I’d gladly go back to being imprisoned if it meant Sully would open his damn eyes.

Stop thinking.

Just go.

Pika flew beside me as I added speed and learned how to navigate a rudder instead of a car. Not that I’d driven in a long time, what with travelling and then kidnapping, but it was nice to be in control of something, even if I couldn’t be in control of Sully’s decision to wake up.

It took longer to cut across the turquoise sea and skim over peach coral reefs than when Sully had captained us, but I found some resemblance of peace.

Another banded sea snake slithered through the wake. A pod of dolphins out to sea sprayed water, transforming droplets into blinking rainbows. Jewelled fish darted beneath the hull, and the sun massaged my tense shoulders with thermal fingers.

This was still utopia...even if the devil in its midst was dying.

Damn you, Sully.

I love you dammit! You can’t die!

The urge to turn the boat around and hammer on his chest until he woke up was crippling.

Breathe, Ellie.

Just...breathe.

Pika did an air roll, and Skittles twittered in a sweet song. They kept me grounded. They helped commandeer my worry, and I did my best to appreciate everything I had. There was so much to be grateful for. So much to live for.

I forced myself to inhale properly and not the ragged sips of the past few weeks. I drank in air and leaned my head back, letting the sun colour me and soothe some of my heartaches.

Can you feel me, Sully?

I’m still here.

I’ll wait for however long you need.

Pika landed beside Skittles just as I pulled into the small bay of Lebah.

I tied the boat like Cal showed me, adding an extra knot to be sure it stayed secured, then stepped onto Sully’s garden grove.

The atmosphere was different here.

His main island no longer held prisoners or greedy guests and had turned into a reflective, peaceful paradise, but this island...it burst at the seams with life.

Determination from freshly planted seeds to break through the soil. Aspiration from seedlings to sweep as high as they could toward the sky. And the bounty of fruits and vegetables as they transformed sunlight into nutrition that kept so many things breathing.

This was what I needed.

To see life in progress.

To witness the stubbornness of existence and inhale fresh oxygen from their leaves.

I strolled through the orchards and helped myself to sun-warmed berries. I collapsed beneath a hazelnut tree and watched Pika attack a nut while Skittles practiced flapping her newly knitted wing.

I stayed on Lebah until the enraged helplessness loosened its net of despair and dismay around my heart, just a little.

Skittles took her first flight from the almond grove to the berry greenhouse, and I once again focused on being grateful instead of fixating on what I’d lost.

Sully...

Please, I need you.

I’m not ready to say goodbye.

Drawing my knees to my chin, I buried my face into my hands and wept.

At least, these tears were cathartic. I was able to purge instead of suffocating beneath torment.

I cried for Sully and for me.

I cried until a gentle hand touched my shoulder and ripped my head up.

Self-consciousness made me swipe at my tears, and propriety made me stand in a rush. My navy dress fluttered around me as I made eye contact with someone I never expected. “You.”

“You not dead.” The girl who’d been on the boat with her grandfather and brother, who’d brought me back at Drake’s command, eyed me in the dying sunlight. Her pinched disapproval had faded, and an openness in her dark eyes hinted she felt pity for my tears.

Ignoring her curiousness of my state of existence, I rubbed dirt from my dress and glanced around the orchard. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be in the—”

“Is fine. You not in the way. No worry.”

I let my shoulders drop and wiped away my final tear. “Are you harvesting?”

“Harvest all time. Crop rotation mean always ready.” She eyed me, her body language hinting that she didn’t know how to address our past and preferred to just focus on the now.

There was history between us, but it seemed as if we both wished to forget how we first met. I wanted to ask how her grandmother was. Did she have enough for the medicine she needed? But instead of dredging up painful things, I merely asked something simple. “Do you enjoy working here?”

“Yes.” She smoothed her olive uniform with its logo of a banana leaf over the breast pocket with the initials SSG. “It...eh, English word? Relax.”

I nodded, glancing at the edible greenery all around us. The splashes of colour where fruits hung and the glossiness of vegetables waiting to be collected. “It is relaxing, I agree.”

“Why alone?” She smiled as Pika and Skittles darted over her head and descended onto my shoulders. “I change my question. Why you not with him? My boss?”

Pika chattered and chirped, and Skittles puffed from exertion, her endurance weakened from healing. I flinched and looked away. I’d come here to escape pain, and instead, I’d run straight into another version of it. “He’s not well.”

“No?” Her forehead furrowed. “He should eat more fruits. Make better.”

I smiled sadly. “He’s not capable of eating much at the moment.”

“Need make him eat.” She put her hands on her hips, reminding me of the fierce girl who’d told me I would die if I jumped overboard and fell into Drake’s hands.

I hadn’t died, but Sully...

Please, Sully!

Make the choice to stay.

Moving away, the girl plucked a blackberry off a vine that’d crept across the ground in the nut orchard. “Feed him this. Big vitamin. Good for body.” She placed the oozing berry into my palm. Pika promptly fluttered down and smeared the black sweetness all over his beak. Skittles joined him, squabbling over the dessert.

I sighed with a worn-out smile. “He can’t eat.”

“Then drink?” She mimicked squishing the berry and making wine. “Liquid many vitamin.”

“He can’t swallow. He—”

I froze as ideas unravelled.

Plans concocted.

Fate once again intervened.

Senses.

Flavours.

Reasons to live and indulge.

I’d forgotten the most important thing.

The rules of Sully’s Euphoria were based on changing perception with sensory deception. Sound, taste, smell, touch, and sight.

Sully was locked in a Euphoria of his mind’s making. It’d blocked him from sensation. It’d muted and deafened his world.

But what if I could break that?

What if I could slip past the deadening of his mind and give him a final taste of what he was giving up?

He couldn’t drink or eat or move.

But...there were ways.

There has to be.

I have to try.

My fist closed around the sticky berry.

Pika and Skittles took wing with a squawk.

And I ran.

I didn’t say thank you.

I didn’t pick holes in my flimsy plan.

I ran and sailed and flew back to Sully’s side.

But on my way, I made a detour to the kitchens.

I grabbed blenders and berries, ice and tropical delights.

I was a witch making a potion.

A witch with one last trick to try.