Keeping Secrets (Book 1)

Chapter 11: Researching

"Don't you have air conditioning in this place?" I whined, trying to fan myself with my hand. It wasn't doing much good.

Nina didn't bother looking up from the medical book she was still studying. "Don't you own pants that aren't jeans? Shorts do wonders for days like today, you know, especially when you're in an old building that considers air conditioning to be opening the windows and hoping a breeze floats through."

I sighed, leaning my head back against the arm rest of the couch I was laying across. "I don't own shorts."

Not anymore, at least. After the accident, I had thrown them all out, deciding I was never going to wear them again. Why would I when I hated the sight of my prosthetic to begin with? Unfortunately, that had been in the early spring. Now that it was summer, these ninety-degree days were making me pay for that stupid decision.

"That's a shame," Nina said, her nose still buried in the book. "Find anything yet?"

I let out another sigh, dropping my phone onto my chest. "Nope. This guy is nowhere on the internet. It's like he doesn't exist."

"Well... at least we have the one book by him. And this one." Nina finally looked up at me for the first time in at least an hour. "I figured out how to die successfully."

"That's a sentence I never thought I'd ever hear someone say so cheerfully."

But it was good news. This was going to end up happening, so it was a good thing she knew how to not stay dead. As long as it worked.

I carefully pulled myself into a sitting position before maneuvering my leg off the couch. I hadn't realized Nina was watching me struggle until she said something.

"What's wrong with your leg?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing." Technically, that wasn't a lie. The prosthetic was in perfectly good shape. She didn't have to know that it wasn't a real leg. "Now what was it that you found out?"

"Adenosine."

"Bless... you?"

Nina burst out laughing. "No. Adenosine. It's a drug used to stop the heart. Adrenaline will restart the heart and, if done within four to six minutes, no brain damage will occur. It should be relatively safe."

I gaped at her. "Relatively safe? What happens if talking to Death takes more than six minutes? How are you even going to get that drug thing, adeno... whatever it was called?"

The other question I had - the one I didn't ask out loud - was who was going to be taking this drug. I didn't want to say that I was afraid to take it, but I kinda was. There was only four, maybe six, minutes to go into the spirit world, find Death, figure out what he's doing to the ghosts and why, and get him to stop. That wasn't nearly enough time!

But, did I want to be the one responsible for keeping Nina alive? Having to inject her with adrenaline was sort of terrifying. What if I waited too long and she never woke up? What if she does wake up, but with brain damage? What if I do it too early and she doesn't get the answers we need?

"We'll be fine," Nina said. "Haven't you ever talked to the ghosts about their deaths?"

I shook my head. It wasn't something that I wanted to think about, since I've only ever talked to my grandma and my sister. I didn't want to hear about them dying.

"It apparently feels like it lasts a whole lot longer than it actually does. If I have six real minutes, it'll probably feel more like an hour or so to talk to Death."

"And what if you can't find him?"

Nina smirked. "Oh, he's going to find me."

I felt conflicted. Nina had so much confidence about this - about nearly killing herself - when I was terrified. But I couldn't back out of this. Sure, I wouldn't be the one to take the drug, but that didn't mean I wanted to watch Nina die, if something were to go wrong.

"You look worried," she said.

I shook my head. "I'm not." Lies, so many lies. Secrets. Why can't I just tell people the truth?

"It's written all over your face, Dylan. If you don't want to do this, fine. You don't have to."

"Yes, I do. For Jenny." I took a deep breath. "I need to save her. My grandma. All the others... I need to."

"I know. You keep saying that, but you seem... I don't, scared."

I shook my head. "You're not? You're the one who's basically going to die and you're depending on me to bring you back safely."

"Should I not trust you?"

"That's not what I said." I sighed, shaking me head a bit. "I'm just worried that something is going to go wrong. What if you're wrong? What if, despite following everything exactly, it doesn't work?"

Nina didn't say anything for a moment and I figured she was finally thinking through just how many things could go wrong. Eventually, she shook her head and met my gaze.

"If there's one thing I learned from my job," she said, "it's that nothing will work or prove itself if you don't believe it will. I've seen the most skeptical people come in here - usually dragged by someone who does believe - and even if their loved one is here with me, they won't believe it, no matter what the ghost was saying. Dylan, if you aren't a hundred percent confident that this is going to work, the way I am, then yeah, something's going to go wrong. But if you trust me - trust yourself - then this will work and we'll save the ghosts."

I never thought about it that way before, and I guess she did have a point. I needed to believe that this would work. We've spent hours researching all we could. At this point, we were practically out of time - who knew if we were already too late or not. But what really matters is that we try, without any hesitations, because we were the only hope these ghosts had to save them. I couldn't let them down.

I nodded. "Yeah, okay. Let's do this."