Darkest Day (17 page)

Guilt ripped through me. “Thanks.” Ridge moved past us, brushing his shoulder against Mac’s. She spun around, but I grabbed her before she could haul off and punch him. “He’s not worth it. Let’s go.”

We followed the path back toward the exit as Suze appeared within the door.

“Why are you here?” Mac asked. “I didn’t call you. You’re supposed to—”

“They’ve made a decision.”

“What do you mean,
they
and
a decision
?” A rush of adrenaline barreled through me.

Suze’s eyes sparkled but not from excitement. Instead, a sheen of tears filled them.

I took off running toward my car through the bright sunshine that would normally make the day beautiful with its increasing warmth. At my Jeep, I struggled with the fob. It wouldn’t unlock. I tried for the key, but with shaking hands, I couldn’t manage the lock.

Mac’s arms came around me, sliding down to my hand. “Suze said he’ll drive.” She took the keys.

A rumble behind me made me turn. Suze’s Hummer stood there, the passenger door open. I jumped in, Mac taking the back, and Suze took off down the road.

• • •

Dr. George met us again, taking us to a larger consultation room, where Josie joined us, too. She sat next to my dad, Mac and I together, and Suze towered over us all, a sentry to our pain.

Once settled, Dr. Roberts appeared. I’d only met him one other time, his grey hair giving off serious vibes. He cleared his throat, settling into a chair next to Dr. George. The older doctor took a folder from Dr. George and opened it on the table, turning it around so we could read it right-side-up.

The five of us leaned forward.

“This is a scan of her brain activity from Sunday when she first arrived. We had hope because of this wave here.” He pointed with a pencil to a graph across a long sheet of paper. He flipped a page over. “This is Monday morning.” The wave had shrunk. “And this is this morning.”

Barely even a dent.

He pulled the folder closer to him and went through a few pages before landing on a colorful image. “I’d show you this on the computer, but they’re all tied up and the reality is, this is static.” With pencil again, he pointed to various quadrants on the image, explaining what they expected to see from her brain and what they really did see. “So, as you can see, Zoe is not improving, and we believe, at this time, her prognosis leaves her no more than a half-percent chance of survival. Beyond that, her quality of life will be nothing like what she’s had in the past—if she makes any recovery at all.”

Tears filled my eyes at the idea my sister could die. Would die. Wouldn’t be able to bug me in the mornings or steal my laptop or talk over me when I tried to have conversations with Mac.

“And your recommendation is that we … that we …” Bernie sucked in air.

“That she be removed from life saving devices.” Josie finished for him.

“This decision is yours, as we said earlier, Mr. Thomas. But in this case, we have no reason to believe she will recover, or recover in such a way that would leave her anything more than a shell of the girl she once was. She’ll need round-the-clock care. She’ll never be able to walk, talk, express herself.” He pointed to the scan again. “In this part of her brain that controls so many facets of our daily lives we see absolutely no activity. And—” He closed the folder. “Her organs are systematically shutting down. Her kidneys have failed as of this morning, and we see signs her liver will follow.”

I turned to Suze. “You said a decision was made … when you picked us up.” To my dad, I said, “Did you already—are you about to—Dad?” Panic took hold of me. “Dad? Tell me you’re not giving up.” Mac squeezed my hand, but I refused to look at her. If I did, I’d probably burst into tears.

“I already talk with the doctors this morning,” he said as I continued to stare at him. “I wanted you to hear it from them, but yes—”

“No!” I jumped up from my seat, knocking it over. “You can’t do this! She’s only fourteen! Her birthday is coming up. She’ll be okay if you give her more time.”

Mac tugged on my hand.

I yanked it free. “No! None of you understand. She’s
my
sister.” I whirled and raced from the room.

16

Mac

Chasing Winn took no effort. He went straight toward the ICU doors and pressed the button. I caught up to him as he entered and stopped him. “Calm down before you go in there.”

He jerked away, but the wetness on my hand told me he didn’t leave because of me.

Winn kept going, walking his way toward Zoe’s room. The nurses didn’t stop us. No one did. Together, we made our way in and stood at the foot of her bed.

“She can’t die, Mac. She just can’t. It’s not right.”

I wrapped my arm around him. “I know. It hurts me, too.” It did, but I’d been trying not to show it. Winn had a history with Zoe that I didn’t. He had to hurt worse than me, even though the knives cutting away at my heart dug further in.

He heaved air, shuddering as it released. “I don’t want her to go. I know I wasn’t the best big brother, but it’s just not right.”

“I don’t want her to either. Someone asked me the other day, if I’d ever thought about what I’d want if this happened to me.”

Winn wiped his hand under his nose.

“Zoe wouldn’t want to be a vegetable. She’d want to run and dance and sing and eat chocolate and love. She’d want to go to the prom and act silly and stupid. She’d want all of that, don’t you think?” I asked.

“But maybe she can—if they just wait—and with physical therapy—”

“Did you see the lines on the report?” How had I become the logical one?

He nodded.

“Do you really believe there’s hope?”

He leaned forward and grabbed hold of the bed. “It’s just not her time. It’s not. She has decades to be around us still. She’d want to be able to talk to her mom. I mean, god, Mac. She just met her.”

Mary. Her Mom. She can have her mom.
I hadn’t told him about her visit in case I’d breached the barrier of insanity.
Now, I get her visit.
“Winn?”

“Huh?”

“What if … what if I sent her to the in-between?”

He turned to me. “What?”

“I can—I can send her soul there, but because she’s human, her body will stay, and she’ll … you know … die here, but she won’t die-die. She just won’t ever be able to … return because her body will be dead.”

“But—”

“She’d like it, I think. She told me how much she loved hanging out with our Mom. She—she—” Emotion hung me up. “She’d get—she’d—”
She’d get exactly what I’d want if this was me.

“To be with her mom.” Air broke from Winn’s lips in spurts. He hung his head, knuckles white on the bed frame. At the slow nod, I knew we agreed.

“You have to leave for me to do this.”

“What about my dad?” Winn turned and faced me, his cheeks glossy.

“He’s already had his moment, and if he changes his mind, I’ll go get her before her body gives up. But if we don’t do this now, and she dies first, I can’t send her soul. She’ll be gone.”

He nodded again.

“You have to leave.”

“I want to stay.” His lips firmed. “I want to be here—”

“You can’t. I don’t know how to control it, and anyone in this room is going to go.” I took his hand in mine. “I’ll go in and get her if anyone changes their mind. Okay? I promise.”

His eyes widened. “But you renounced it! You—”

“Rules are made to be broken, right? Didn’t one of the Council members say that?”

“You read my email?”

I gave him the best smile I could produce even as every nerve ending in my body screamed at me to walk away, to hope Zoe would be okay. If I went back into the in-between, I’d give up my seat on the Council.

Would I give it up for Zoe?

Maybe.

“Go,” I said.

Winn stepped forward. “You promise?”

“Yeah.” My heart hurt more with each beat it took.

“Thanks, Mac.” With that, he walked away.

I slid the door closed and pulled the curtains. Standing at the foot of Zoe’s bed, I said, “I hope this is what you want, Zoe. I’m sorry no one could do anything for you. Tell Mom I love her, and I miss her, and …” The tears I’d held in check for so long began to flow. “And I’ll—” I sniffled. “I’ll miss you until the day I die, which is going to be thousands of years from now, and that’s a really long time to miss a crazy sister like you.” A small smile creased my lips even as more tears fell, knowing Zoe would have loved to hear me call her that.

I held out my arms, tilted my head back and said, in Greek,

Spirit guides, I ask you, lend me focus and clarity.

Light in the room extinguished.

Take Zoe to the place beyond.

Wind kicked up, sending everything in the room swinging.

Where life and death know no form.

A tornado of light spiraled down from the ceiling.

Give her wisdom. Give her strength.

Zoe rose from the bed, her body, flat and parallel to the floor as if being pulled by a puppet master.

And return to her body by the Ides morn.

A flash of light so bright I could see nothing but white forced my hand up in front of me as the power of wind blew and, in an instant, died.

Zoe’s monitors blared. The door behind me slid open on a rush, the curtain pulled back. Nurses moved me out of the way, calling out words and yelling to each other in codes I didn’t understand, until I heard the words, “She has a DNR!” and I knew.

I ran.

Out of the room.

Down the hallway.

Through the doors.

Down the interior stairs.

Out of the hospital.

Suze and his Hummer waited in the front circle as if magically called.

I jumped in and on the darkest day of my life, cried like I’ve never cried before.

Winn

Blue skies and sun couldn’t brighten my day. Even as the temperatures reach past seventy, I shivered. With my eyes closed, I leaned back in the chair in a side room of the chapel.

Outside the door, people had begun to enter, but I still hadn’t found the power to move my feet toward them. Toward the end. Toward Zoe’s prone form in the closed coffin my dad and Josie picked. The one with the raspberry colored lilies across a white outer shell.

She’d died on Thursday. Ten minutes after I agreed with Mac to send her soul into the in-between.

I hadn’t told my dad.

I didn’t know if Zoe made it or if she’d disappeared forever.

Nothing in the world seemed right. Mac had disappeared, too, for about a day, but showed up with Suze at my house. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t asked me anything. She just clung to me for a few hours. In silence. The sound of ticking clocks in my house louder than anything else, including my own heartbeat.

“Hey.”

I sprung up from my closed-off perch to find Mac standing in the doorway. Moving to her, I wanted to ask her if we were in the midst of a dream instead of a horror movie, but I knew the answer. From the moment the doctor had walked into the room, where I’d gone to wait with my dad and Josie, I’d known.

“Hey,” I said from the far side of the room.

Dressed in all black, Mac-style, with a black shirt, black pants that flared at the feet, a black jacket and black heels, I could only wonder if Alina had chosen for her.

“Sorry I’m late.” She moved closer in. “I—I wanted to get something.”

“What was it?”

She tiptoed toward me and held out her hand, fingers extended. “This.”

“Your hand?”

She shook it. “No. On my finger.”

A silver band with a pattern etched into the top graced her right ring finger. In all the time I’d known her, she’d never worn jewelry—except for the necklace I’d given her for Christmas.

“I thought it would be appropriate.”

“They’re burying the other with Zoe.” My eyes opened wide. “Should we not?” I stepped toward the door. “Maybe we should go get it and keep it. You know—maybe we shouldn’t—”

Mac took my hand and pulled me back into the room, closer to her. With a headshake, she said, “No. It’s right to be there with her. It was hers.”

“But—what about …” I didn’t even know what to ask. It just seemed appropriate to question it. Like it would give me something to do besides wallow in her absence.

Mac’s eyes welled. “Just let her have it, okay?” She pulled me against her, our arms wrapping around one another.

“Did she make it, Mac? Inside?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m not allowed to ask about it, remember? Not until after.”

“What about Suze? Can’t he—” My hands instinctively moved up and down her back.

“You can ask him. I’m sorry, Winn.”

I held her face between my palms. “For what?”

“For bringing her into all this.”

“But you had nothing to do with it. She was killed by a teen-aged driver who was
texting
, Mac.” Anger replaced my sorrow.

Clara’s sister had offered to take them out for midnight ice cream and decided to text friends to join them. She missed a curve at twenty miles over the posted speed and wrapped her car around a huge tree. Not only did the car bounce off and catch fire, the tree split in half, right down the middle of the trunk.

“What the hell was she thinking?” I stormed away from Mac. “She couldn’t take the ten minute drive without picking up her damn cell phone? She couldn’t focus on driving without telling others where to go? Drive. Arrive. Text. Dammit!” I hadn’t ever cursed so many times in one tirade of emotion.

Mac slipped her hand against mine. “And you wonder why I don’t care for technology.”

I glared at her but softened as a tear slipped from her lid. A gentle swipe with my finger made it disappear. “I can only wish she were more like you. That all of us were. Two lives—gone. One—who knows?” Clara remained in the ICU.

At the knock on the door, we both turned. Josie slipped inside, her face the perfect picture of grief-stricken hostess. “They’re ready.”

I didn’t want to be ready. I wanted them to all go away, for the scene to swirl to nothing and me to wake from the worst dream of my life.