CHAPTER ONE
Ronin
The voice.
A light.
I waited for the end.
Hinder not the soul’s intended path unto the light, lest shards of darkness shed upon thee.
When their heart stopped, I was supposed to let them be—like a walking DNR, except EMTs saved lives. We rarely pronounced someone dead in the field. We didn’t deal with souls; we dealt with human bodies.
I compressed chests, shocked hearts, and breathed air into lifeless lungs. I did this knowing that less than half of CPR recipients regained a heartbeat, and only ten to twenty percent of those patients lived to be discharged from the hospital. I did it because I made the choice to be a superhero in spite of the risk of suffering eternal death.
The end came for me. My time to die. No more saving lives. An end to perpetual suffering.
Only, no light greeted me.
No voice.
The familiar ringing chimed in my ears, my connection—that energy—I shared with the soul I hindered. The life I saved. The ringing stopped when that person died. But Lila didn’t die. That ringing should have stopped when I died.
The feathery pine tree branches framed the patchy, gray clouds. I blinked as those clouds spit droplets of rain onto my face. I wasn’t dead.
“Lila …” I whispered, running my fingertips along my neck. It ached, tender to touch. Rolling onto my side, I groaned while climbing to my hands and knees, letting my head hang like a ten-pound bowling ball between my shoulders. I took a few labored breaths of the damp air, thick with musk and pine. And life.
Yes. I was alive.
Glancing up, I scanned the narrow trail for my phone. It taunted me, just feet out of reach. On another groan, I stretched my hand across the wet dirt to grab it and lumbered to my feet.
“Lila …” I wiped my dirty hand on my shirt and tapped her name in my contacts.
After several rings, it jumped to voicemail. Then I tried Graham.
On the second ring, he answered. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”
“Graham, where’s Lila?”
“Are you okay? You don’t sound so well.”
I cleared my throat, trying to steady my breathing. The words flowed on a wave of panic, strained and shaky. “I just …” Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Evelyn was trying to reach Lila, but she couldn’t, and she was getting worried.”
Graham chuckled. “Lila’s in the shower. Should I have her call Evelyn when she gets out?”
“Uh … no. It was nothing really. Is she … okay?”
“She’s great. Why do you ask? Are you sure you’re okay? Is Evelyn okay? The kids?”
“No … I mean, yeah. We’re fine. Just, forget I called. Don’t worry Lila. It was just Evie being Evie. You know.”
“Yeah, I know. She worries about everything, but rightfully so since Madeline died.”
“Yes.” I ghosted my fingers over my neck. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No problem. Give Evie and the kids big hugs from me.”
“Will do.”
Graham disconnected the call before I could bring the phone away from my ear. How could she be fine? What the fuck happened to me? She was it. She was the life I saved. I felt her and no one else. If that wasn’t her, then what was it?
Living Lila. Constant tinnitus. The cloud of eternal death following me everywhere. Talk about un-fucking-familiar territory.
Why did my heart stop after she coded? What did that mean for her? For me? For that little thing I wanted to keep called my sanity?
I thought I knew the rules, but maybe there were no rules to a phenomenon I couldn’t explain and a voice I couldn’t prove. All signs pointed toward insanity, but I knew I wasn’t crazy, even if everything about it felt crazy.
Did that happen? Could I truly not breathe? Or did I feel something that wasn’t actually happening to me? But if I felt what Lila felt, and it was happening to her, it should have been worse for her. It made no sense that I nearly died while she was in the shower and—perfectly fine?
On wobbly legs, I trekked down the trail, the cool air nipping at my sweaty skin. By the time I pushed through the back door, the panic and discomfort subsided. Evie and the kids had already left for the library. After experiencing the scariest, most painful moment of my life, I tore off my clothes and grabbed a shower, trying to make it to my meeting on time. Wiping the condensation-covered mirror, I inspected my neck.
No redness or bruising. Nothing.
Cringing at the residual tenderness, I swallowed past the discomfort like someone had stepped on my neck and crushed my trachea.
“How was your meeting?” Evie maneuvered Anya’s squirmy legs through the holes of the highchair at the restaurant.
Franz crawled into the booth next to me, pulling out library books from his cloth bag and piling them onto the table to show me. I scooted the water glasses away from the books and smiled at my wide-eyed, young boy.
“It was good.” I didn’t remember anything from the meeting. When called upon to speak, I had to shake myself out of a daze, and after that, I couldn’t recall what incoherent words came out of my mouth.
“Are you okay?” Evie sat on the opposite side of the booth, eyes narrowed as she brought her glass of water to her lips.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You sound off. Like you’re down or something. Not your usual jovial self.”
“Just tired. The trail kicked my butt today.”
“And you got rained on, correct?” She smirked.
“I did,” I mumbled, trying to accompany my reply with a smile. She was right. I felt as off as I sounded to her. An impenetrable, invisible wall thwarted my efforts to act fine—a dozen ghosts in a room and only I could see them. They haunted me and only me.
“Well, let’s stuff ourselves on pizza, get little princess and Mr. Library Boy down for the night, and then crawl into bed early too.”
“I’m not tired,” Franz replied, flipping through one of his books.
I forced the fakest-feeling grin, an invisible gun shoved into the back of my head. The fact that it felt forced at all kicked me in the gut. What the hell was wrong with me?
Evelyn saved me by filling the dinner conversation with hopes to drive out to California to visit her dad and sister. I nodded on cue, busying myself by helping Franz with his pizza and holding his drink so he didn’t spill it. Anya kept Evelyn distracted which made my lack of engagement a little less noticeable.
After we returned home, I trudged through brushing tiny teeth, corralling wiggly bodies into jammies, and reading library books while Evelyn picked up the mess in the living room and enjoyed a hot shower. By the time she emerged from the steam-filled bathroom, my body hugged the edge of the bed, eyes closed.
“You should have been lazy with me and the kids today.” She pressed her naked body to the back of mine, ghosting her lips down my spine as her hand slipped into the front of my briefs.
I swallowed, squeezing my eyes shut tighter as my body stiffened—everything except the part of it that needed to be stiff. Over five years of marriage, forty-one years of life, and never did I have issues getting an erection.
Degrading.
Embarrassing.
Emasculating.
Un-fucking-believable.