Shadows | A Forever Fan-Fiction - Sequel to Lights

Chapter Ten: Let's Just Forget

The first thing I felt was the bedsheets around me, and the cold, steady blast of the air conditioning. The next thing I felt was the tube in my throat, the hand holding mine, and the presence of the people standing in front of me.

I began gagging and choking on the tube, and, faintly, I could hear voices around me.

"She's fighting the tube. Good. Liliths, extubate her and record her vitals," Duvall ordered. There was a faint tugging, scraping sensation, and then relief.

The morphine haze drifted away. I opened my eyes, spots dancing over my field of view as light poured into my pupils. I glanced to my right. Jo was holding my hand. I glanced in front of me. Duvall, Rayes, Sujai, and Eliza stood around me, peering at me concernedly.

"Don't fight the tube," was the first thing that Duvall said. I wanted to laugh, but tremendous relief cascaded down on me. "Try and move your hands." I formed a fist and then gave him the finger. He sighed. "I'm still your boss, LaVaughn." He turned to Rayes, and he handed Duvall a tiny flashlight. "Follow the light with your eyes." He waved it back and forth in front of my face, and my eyes flitted with it.

"She's fine," Rayes said. "Sharma, please present." Eliza glared daggers at the back of Sujai's head as he began to present.

"Lights LaVaughn, twenty-three. Suffered a gunshot the the back of the head and by some incredible chance, the bullet didn't rupture any major arteries, and did not disrupt any brain activity upon impact with the edge of the skull. A partial craniotomy was performed to extract the bullet, and it was a success. Patient is now in recovery," Sujai added triumphantly.

Duvall returned the flashlight, wincing ever so slightly. Eliza, Sujai and Rayes left, leaving me with Jo and Duvall.

"You got shot, too," I croaked, my voice hoarse, pointing at Duvall.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I won't be cleared for surgery for a while, but you certainly won't be, either."

"Ugh," I grunted.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Jo said quietly. I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed mine back. "It's like the last time you were in here."

"Sorry," I grumbled.

"The police are going to come in and take a statement," Duvall informed us. "Miss Martinez, we-"

"Oh, yeah," Jo said, getting up. "I know the drill. I'm a cop." She smiled her usual, polite, I-don't-know-you half-smile and walked into the thrum of people in the waiting room. Duvall paused his hand resting on the silvery, metallic doorframe. He glanced back at me, almost seeming troubled.

"Do you... remember it?" he implored. "That evening."

"Only bits and pieces," I lied, not wanting to revisit the fragmented reality that was filling the edges of my memory quite yet. "Only bits and pieces."

He nodded distantly, confusedly. I blinked at him, and he scowled.

"You'd better tell them anything you think of later, LaVaughn," he snapped. "I can't have insane murderers running around my ER." I sighed as the glass door slammed shut. Some people never change, even if they get shot full of holes.

Moments later, when the police walked in, I was lost in thought, trying to piece together what had happened and form a coherent and comprehensive statement.

I spoke, I spoke, and I spoke, my throat dry and crackly, the constant dripping of the IV in the corner of my eye making me want to scream. I was the doctor. I shouldn't have to be the patient.

But I bet Adam was kicking himself that I wasn't immortal, after all.

I paused, in the middle of my explanation of where Dr. Morgan had arrived, suddenly understanding why he hated his immortality.

He had to deal with all this crap, forever. Even worse: Adam was immortal, as well. He had to deal with Adam for the rest of time.

Pain and guilt jabbed through me, and me cheeks began to flush. I resumed telling the story, and when I reached the end, there was a broad, deafening silence.

"Is there anything else you would like to add, Miss LaVaughn?" the officer asked politely, as though she could sense that I wasn't telling her something.

I sifted through the silt of my thoughts, filtering it through a sieve, searching for something, anything, that could help me-

Whispered words and a sudden pressure on my lips.

I thought those words were further encouragement to keep awake, before, but I suddenly remembered what they were, and I froze, my mouth hanging open, my eyes staring distantly into space.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" the officer queried. "Did you remember something?"

I shook my head. "Only something that I should have done a long time ago, something I should have figured out, about someone."

The officers exchanged a look and said their goodbyes. Finally, they left me alone to my silence, and to the drip- drip- dripping of the IV.

Determination to live ricocheted through me, and I felt a wave of desperation prepare to bear down upon me. No, no, I refused. Fate, fear, hatred. I denied those vices their wrath, their constricting grasps around my heart, my mind. I would catch Adam, and somehow, I would find the secret to kill him. I was determined to live. I had to live. At least for Duvall, who, terrified that I was dying, had whispered in my ear that he loved me. And I hated him for it. This wasn't a little romance novel, where the girl and the boy somehow overcome their differences and just... fall in love. The real world doesn't work like that.

Oh, life. You are a cruel, endless joke.

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