Wait for me, he implored. I’ll find a way to come back to you.
“Don’t go! Don’t you dare leave me!” It was Sari’s voice, and it wasn’t in his head. “Fight, David.”
He opened his eyes, expecting to see Sari, or perhaps Ayesha, but both were gone, and all he could see in the darkness was a brightly illuminated doorway.
Endless love and peace waited for him on the other side. If he made it past the doorway, all his worries and struggles would be over. It beckoned to him…
“David! Stay with me!” Sari sobbed.
I’m sorry, my love, but I have to go. I promise to return to you.
As his spirit detached from his body and floated toward the light, a thin tendril remained attached, tethering him. Looking back at it, he realized that it would take only a light tug to sever the connection, but David hesitated. What if the tether was Sari?
The sound of the door slamming shut had his spirit head turn sharply toward it. A silhouette floated in front of the closed door, framed by the light seeping through the seams.
“You are not going anywhere, David. It’s not your time yet.”
He would have known that voice anywhere. “Jonah?”
His brother’s form solidified. “Surprised to see me?”
“You’re damn right I am. How many nights have I stayed awake, begging you to make an appearance? And you come now? When I’m ready to join you?” David floated toward his brother. “Let me pass.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’m dead, Jonah. Let me through.”
His brother’s ghostly hand slammed on his chest, pushing him back. “You’ve always been whiny, weak, and so damn self-righteous. You are not dead yet, but you will be if you don’t fight.” He gave him another shove. “Fight, damn it. Don’t accept death when you have so much to live for. Do you want to devastate your mate? How will she go on without you?”
As David turned to look down at his body, he didn’t expect to suddenly see everything so vividly.
The darkness was gone, and he could easily read his vitals on the monitors. There was a short redhead with Steven in the room, but it wasn’t the goddess. She wasn’t wearing a doctor’s coat, but the efficiency of her movements indicated that she was a physician.
They were putting him on a ventilator.
Jonah floated next to him. “As you can see, you are not dead.”
“It’s obvious that you have no medical training, Jonah. Those readouts are bad.”
“I know that you are not flat-lining. Not yet, anyway. You need to hurry.”
David shook his head. “Where have you been all this time? Is there a heaven? Did you make it there? Or are you in hell?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not in hell.” Jonah shook his ghostly head. “You’ve always had such a low opinion of me.”
That wasn’t true. David had thought the world of Jonah, and his brother knew that. But their teasing banter felt so familiar that he slipped into it as if Jonah hadn’t been gone for the past five years. “It seems like they let anyone into heaven these days.”
“Who said that I’m in heaven?”
“Then where are you?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“We are losing him!” Steven lifted a pair of worried eyes to the other doctor.
Jonah gave him a push. “Get back in your body, David.”
“I just found you. I can’t let go of you yet.”
“You have to. It’s not your time to go.”
“On one condition.” David lifted a finger. “Promise me that you will come to talk to me again.”
“I can’t promise that. It’s not up to me.”
“Then I’m not going back.” David was bluffing, but hopefully, his brother’s ghost couldn’t read his mind.
Jonah chuckled. “Of course, I can read your mind. How do you think that we are communicating? I’ll tell you what I can do. I can come as long as you are unconscious.”
“It’s a deal.” David closed his spirit arms around his brother and pulled him against his chest.
Neither of them was corporeal, and the embrace didn’t feel like two bodies connecting, but it felt real nonetheless.
"I missed you so much.”
“I was never far.” Jonah’s ghostly form liquefied and then solidified again next to David’s prone body. “Get in here, now.”
Jonah was right. It was now or never.
“Come talk to me.”
“I promised, and I will.”
As soon as the decision was made, David’s spirit slammed back into his physical body, and then the darkness returned.
34
Sari
It seemed like hours had passed since the alarm had gone off, and the doctors had rushed into David’s room, but Sari’s watch claimed that it had only been minutes.
Bridget and Steven were fighting for David’s life, and all she could do was pray. Regrettably, Sari wasn’t a great believer in the power of prayer. If she were, she could feel as if she was helping in some way, instead of feeling so damn useless and helpless.
When the door finally opened, and Bridget stepped out looking like she’d been to war, Sari’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. “How is David?”
“Stable.”
The relief turned Sari’s legs into twin soft noodles, and she collapsed onto one of the chairs. “Thank the merciful Fates.”
“Thank Steven and his foresight to get a ventilator.” Bridget sat down next to her. “David’s lungs just stopped working for no apparent reason. It has never happened before to a transitioning Dormant.”
“Are they working now? Or is he artificially ventilated?”
“He’s contributing breaths of his own.”
Sari didn’t know what it meant, but Bridget seemed encouraged, so it must be good.
The door to the waiting room opened, and her family spilled in.
Annani entered with Alena first. Behind them were Kian and Syssi, and the last was Amanda.
“Is David alright?” Annani asked.
“He is stable,” Bridget said. “We had several scary moments, though.”
As Sari’s chin started quivering, her mother spread her arms wide. “Come, my child. Let me comfort you.”
She practically shot to her feet and rushed into her mother’s arms. “I was so scared.”
Annani’s small hands caressed her back as Sari cried on her mother’s slim shoulder. “It is alright, my daughter. Let it all out.”
Amanda and Alena joined them in a group hug. Only Kian stood next to the bundle of females looking unsure.
“Come.” Amanda waved him over. “Sari needs your strength as well.”
He wrapped his long arms around the four of them. “This feels incredibly awkward.”
Chuckling, Syssi joined the group. “How about now?” She put her arms around him.
“Better.”
For long moments, Sari let herself fall apart while her family held her together, shoring her up with their warmth and their strength.
Eventually, her tears dried up, and she took a shuddering breath. “Thank you.” She lifted her head off her mother’s shoulder. “I’m okay now.”