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The ice in my veins wasn’t unfamiliar, but it was painful. The first sound I heard when the world started coming back to me with all its lights and colors was my own scream – not a totally reassuring sound that I’d made the right choice.
“It’s working! I knew it! I’m here, love. Don’t worry. We just had to do something to wake you.”
I winced at the leap from total darkness to too many lights and sounds. My eyes squinched shut as the ice tore at my insides, raking a path along my ribcage that froze me in my supine position.
“Take the corroded soul out slowly,” I heard Ezra command Von. “Work in layers, otherwise you’ll put her under all over again. We need her awake, even if she’s in pain.”
It was as if the cold was being peeled back like single pages from a notebook, not giving me much relief as I shouted incoherently.
Von’s hand was warm, spreading heated honey through my arm that slowly trickled into my torso, taking over the real estate the ice had claimed. Mason’s grip on my other hand was reassuring, letting me know that no matter where I ran, they would come for me.
It was incredible, and I didn’t deserve it. “No,” I protested, trying to slide my hand out. The pain was my penance, and I wouldn’t beg out of it.
“It’s me, October! You’re safe here. We’re in the hospital, and everything’s going to be alright.”
More warmth. More honey. More love that only made me feel sick inside that someone so wonderful was wasting his love on me. Two someones I didn’t deserve.
When I was sat up, I found myself in the same hospital room as Allie. Through the too many bodies jammed into the space, I could see her still lying motionless in her bed. She’d done nothing wrong, but I was the one who got to live. I couldn’t think of a worse injustice.
* * * *
I STAYED AS QUIET AS I could throughout the examination performed by too many doctors and nurses, answering the bare minimum and staying in the bed while my limbs tried to figure out what the crap was going on. Ollie, Mason, Levi, Ezra and Von stayed with me throughout, asking plenty of questions that I didn’t care about the answers to.
“A coma?” I asked in disbelief. I fiddled with the thin blanket that covered my lap. The hospital gown was drafty, but I welcomed the discomfort of the chill. “Are you sure?”
“For a week,” Ollie confirmed. He had a haunted look in his eyes, his hair was sticking up in the back and he smelled like he hadn’t showered in days. He was sitting in the chair next to my bed, leaning forward to face me with his elbows on the edge of my mattress.
“Oh, Ollie. I’m sorry!” My heart broke for my brother who’d buried his mother and had to watch both his sisters lie lifelessly in the same hospital room. I was encumbered by an IV sticking out of my hand, but somehow I managed to hug him when he stood to grip me.
Ollie’s rare display of tears fell into my hair, his words coming out angrily through gritted teeth. “Don’t you ever put me through that again! You left in the dead of night, and no one knew where you’d gone! Then you come back half dead? I don’t deserve that!” His hug shook my body so I could feel his frustration with the cards I’d dealt him.
“I’m sorry, Ollie! I needed it to be over. I couldn’t take one more day of it!”
“Then you take me with you. You never go off on your own like that! This is just like you, always crossing the street without holding our hands! Allie and I are here for a reason. You have to stop running headfirst into traffic! You have to stop throwing yourself away!”
I let my pride fall by the wayside and clung to my brother, sobbing incoherently into his unwashed polo. He held onto me with trembling arms, and I began to regret each minute I spent wallowing and hiding in my dark escape. “I’m sorry, Ollie.”
“I’m freaking out!” he admitted. Then remembering we weren’t alone, he barked at the men in the room. “Get out of here! Can’t you see we’re having a moment?” Ollie was never great at breaking down. He usually got surly to cope with his vulnerability, hence his many forays into Anger Management support groups.
Mason kissed my forehead, then Ezra followed suit before they exited. Levi bowed his head respectfully and brushed his knuckles to mine before he ducked out of the room, but Von didn’t budge. In fact, he pulled up the chair Ollie had occupied and crossed his arms over his chest. “Carry on. I’ll not stop you yelling at her. But she’s also not allowed out of my sight. Ezra’s orders are that either Mason or I are watching her at all times. You know the rules.”
Ollie grumbled and went back to hugging me. “You brought back that guy, that dad guy. Levi? What’s his deal?” I could tell Ollie was trying to move on from his tears, but a few still leaked out.
“I saw him, Ollie. I watched him transform from Sandy into that dude. Sandy’s been with us our whole lives. He tried to kill Sama to save me.” Ollie released me and sat on the side of the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. He was patient with me while I laid out the entire story as I remembered it, from the moment I decided I was fed up waiting for Sama to mind-warp me, to waking up in the hospital bed.
I stared at my knees as I muscled my way through the admission of everything that had happened with Finn, not sugarcoating it for the two viewers, who both hissed through clenched teeth at all the right parts. I expected Von to get up and leave, but he didn’t. He sat with his hands folded over his stomach, taking in the story that punched him in his sore spots with nary a word.
I couldn’t believe how much we’d both grown. I wasn’t running from the truth and hiding it, and he wasn’t running from me. We sat in the room after I’d finished the retelling, too shaken for eye contact.
“Is that everything, then?” Von’s voice was cool, which meant he was furious.
I swallowed hard, and I sorely wished I’d just let Bruce Campbell chop me to bits with his chainsaw. “What else could there possibly be?” I couldn’t look away from my hands that were too clean now. They deserved to be filthy, still coated in Finn’s blood, but the spotlessness mocked me. I was the filthy one.
Ollie leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “I love you, kid.” When he stood, I panicked that I’d finally pushed Ollie too far, and somehow I’d managed to max out his infinite patience.
“No, Ollie! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! Please don’t walk out. Please don’t leave me!”
Ollie paused, tapping his hand to his heart like I’d shot an arrow through him. Then he patted my arm gently to reassure me that he was my brother, and he wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m just going into the hallway to tell Ezra and the guys everything. This way you don’t have to relive it all. I’ll give you two a minute.” He slapped Von on the shoulder twice before shutting us in the room with no witnesses other than Allie, who wasn’t exactly a solid buffer.
I wasn’t going to be the one to speak first, since there was nothing else for me to say. I’d broken us, and I knew there was nothing I could do to fix it. I deserved to lose the man I loved – both of them.
Von broke our stalemate with a level, yet tense, tone. “I was thinking of going off to find Danny. See if I can’t sort him out and get him to give up Mariang.”
I kept my eyes lowered. “Okay. Makes sense.” Makes sense that he would leave. I deserved it, and had seen it coming. At least he had the decency to tell me to my face this time. It was growth that came when it was too late to make much of a difference.
Then Von said something that shocked the crap outta me. “I think you should come with me. Just the two of us. Give us some time to sort this mess out.”
I was sure I’d heard him wrong. My chin lifted slowly to look at him, tilting my head to the side to assess whether or not I’d hallucinated. “Sort this out? You mean us?”
“Who else would I mean?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to sort anything out. I thought you’d be gone. I’m kind of surprised you’re still in that chair. Thought there’d be a Von-shaped hole in the door by now.”
“I’m going to be a married man. Ezra had a good sit-down with me while you were off falling in love with Finn.” His words cut us both so badly that we winced in unison. Von licked his lips before continuing. “He said that marriage was in sickness and in health, for better or worse and all that. I can’t imagine things getting much worse, but I figure if you can forgive me for running out on you and September before I knew she was mine, then I can eventually forgive you for Finn.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t even be truly angry at you both, though I want to be. Finn was more committed to you than I was in the beginning. I’m almost glad for him that he got the girl in the end. Went out a victor.”
My face soured. “You don’t mean that.”
“No, I don’t. But I want to be the kind of man who does. I know you resisted him as long as you could. I know you sent him away and stayed faithful until this all blew up in your face.” He chewed on his cinnamon stick. “I also know that you went to him with this whole Sama business, and didn’t come to me.”
I scoffed. “You really think I’d let you near Philip? After what he did to you, turning you against me when he stole pieces of your hair? You think I’d let him within a thousand miles of you? You’re the one person I would never, ever take with me. You protect what you love, and I love you, Von. I’m just really, really bad at it.”
Von was quiet for a minute, his hands still folded over his stomach. “Occasionally you are quite terrible at loving me, yes. But then other times you’re exactly what I need. So here we are.”
“Here we are. No one would blame you if you left.”
“Do you want me to leave you?”
I looked deep into his crazy gold and blue eyes, knowing that no matter how my heart got twisted, it would always come back to Von. “No. I want you to stay, even when I push you away. I want you to love me, even when you hate me.”
The corner of Von’s sculpted lips turned upward. “Darling, don’t you know? That’s our specialty.” He leaned forward and scooped up my hand, pressing his lips to the tips of my fingers. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the engagement ring I’d left in Ezra’s shirt pocket. “Do you still want to be my wife?”
I nodded so vigorously, my eyeballs felt like they rattled around in my head. “I do. Von, so much. Do you really still want to marry me?”
“Always and only you.” With a steady breath, Von slid the giant diamond I didn’t deserve onto my finger. “I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about on our trip.”