Winters (Book Five)

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Grabbing Avi's hand, the beeping of all the machines in the room is loud and makes my head ache. Holding her cooler hand in my mind, I see all the machines in the corner, they are doing everything they can to keep their muscles from atrophying. We won't even know if it is working until they wake back up, which is the worst part of it all.

Closing my eyes, the beeping echo's around in my head as I rub patterns on the back of Avi's hand and just try to think. It's been about a month since she was put into the coma and the world is getting restless and I am running out of excuses for them and soon enough people will put together that the missing heroes are the missing people from Voyager and our entire worlds are going to explode. Is this part of what she wanted? To destroy us inside and out? To make us all suffer for letting her come into existence?

The beeping and whistling of the machines make my heart rate jump and I have a hard time reminding myself that this isn't ten years ago. This right now, I am not the one in the bed this time, but it doesn't help.

The lights were so blinding as the sound of machines awoke me from my drug-induced state. The stitches in my wrists made me bolt upright as the pain burned its way up my arms. Wiggling around, I found that my arms had been restrained to my body but the jagged double lines on each wrist haunted me. Fear was the only thing I felt as the doctors rushed into the room. Looking into Xander and my mother's face I started to panic, the look in their eyes told me everything. I had finally snapped, after years of not being okay and telling myself it would be better next term, I had snapped and destroyed the person I cared the most about. Xander's face held nothing but heartbreak as he tried to soothe me, but I couldn't breathe. I had hurt her, and I hurt him just as bad by hurting the person he loved the most in the world.

When I made eye contact with my mother, I was already frantic and looking for someone to console me, for someone to tell me I could fix this, that I would be able to fix it. But her eyes held nothing, she hid all her emotions from me. She approached but her presence wasn't comforting, it only terrified me further. I tried to keep away from her, I couldn't handle it, I couldn't handle the nothingness in her expression and the pain in Alexanders.

I screamed and cried; I don't even remember what I said but the room grew too warm. Dr. Hayes was trying to talk to me but the calculating look in his eyes only made me more afraid, I didn't need them to game plan this! I needed some to tell me I could fix this! But there was a pinch in the crook of my arm and suddenly the lights weren't so bright. I couldn't focus on their faces, and I was thankful I couldn't see their expressions anymore. It was only making it worse.

I am brought out of my memory by a seat being placed against my back and Click sitting down facing Hadley's bed. I hear her grab Hadley's hand before leaning back in the chair. I feel her hair brush against my bare shoulders and I lean my head back and it rests on hers and we sit in silence, only listening to the sound of the hospital around us.

"Please talk to me," Click says softly and I swallow. What does she want to talk about?

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask her.

"Whatever is eating you inside right now Lena. You and Hades have the same tells when you are too far inside your own head, your shoulders have sunk and your energy is just off," Click says and I smile to myself. I wonder if Click learned to read people as well as she did from Hadley's stubbornness or years with her dad.

"I'm so tired," I say but stop and bite my lip.

"Tired of what?"

"I'm tired of being afraid," I say quietly as I clutch Avi's hand tighter. Have I fooled her into falling for someone who doesn't even exist? Does she see through my front and know how scared I am?