George
The love of my life had been in a coma for two days. Forty-eight hours of watching my wife lay motionless in a bed attached to machines. 2,880 minutes of doctors telling me Charlotte wouldn’t wake up. And I’ve ignored that prognosis for 172,800 seconds. They were wrong. She would come out of this. She had to.
Martin Kern had stopped by not long after my showdown with Charlotte’s father the day before, offering to help in any way he could, and I felt bad for thinking he was a douche bag, especially after he’d arranged for our families to stay in one of his agency’s furnished apartments close to the hospital. Charlotte’s and my parents were staying there, and Sniper had closed the restaurant for a few days and would be arriving this afternoon.
I was alone with Charlotte and the room felt strangely still, despite the whirring and beeping of the machines keeping her alive. Tracey and Wayne had left a few minutes prior after sitting with Charlotte while I’d gone for a run. I hadn’t wanted to leave Charlotte, but I was wound tight and needed something…anything…to take the edge off. I’d just returned after my eight-mile run, and my sweat-drenched shirt clung to my skin as I stared at her, my arms crossed, frustration making my muscles tight. She would not die. It couldn’t happen.
I pulled her phone from my pocket and brought up the app she’d last had open before she’d collapsed. I’d found the phone underneath her as the paramedics rolled her onto the backboard. In the chaos of the ambulance ride to the hospital and emergency room, I’d forgotten about it as I dealt with necessary paperwork and contacted my parents. It wasn’t until I was sitting alone in the surgical waiting room, trying not to lose my shit, that I’d remembered about it and dug it out of my pocket, hoping I’d find a clue as to why she’d gone to visit Click without me. When I’d unlocked the screen, the YouTube app had been open to a video of someone playing Für Elise on the piano, and it’d been nagging at me ever since. Charlotte played the piano when coerced, but I didn’t remember her ever listening to compositions.
I tapped play, angling the speaker toward the head of the bed and studied Charlotte for any indication of her hearing it. I knew it was a long shot, but I was still disheartened when it ended and there’d been no change in her. I tucked her phone back in my pocket before rubbing my face with both hands. Everyone had different opinions about what, if anything, Charlotte could hear in her condition, even the doctors and nurses; all I knew was it couldn’t hurt, and if there was a chance it would bring her back to me, I’d try just about anything.
“I remember the first time I saw you, Charlotte,” I reminisced aloud, my voice sounding odd in the empty room. “You had all that long hair and your eyes, babe…phew…” I winced, rubbing my free hand against my chest in an attempt to ease the constant ache that had taken up residence since she’d been hurt. “They were what got me.” I felt a smile form as I remembered her sitting on the stool by the bar, her mouth open, gaping at me.
“The way you looked at me that first time, I thought surely you were smitten with my good looks,” I chuckled. If she were awake, she’d lift one brow and purse her lips at me in response and I smiled at the thought. We always had the best playful banter. I loved getting her riled up. Of course, she’d gotten her own shot at my ego when I’d learned her reaction was merely because she hadn’t known the brother she’d agreed to help was Ike’s identical twin. That memory made my smile widen; it definitely was something my brother would do. He probably had a good laugh about it. My smile didn’t last, though, and the sadness returned with the beep of a machine and resumed its task of dismantling me by reminding me there was no riling her up because she was in a coma.
“I was such a mess that day, but when I rounded the corner and saw you…it was like the haze parted a little and then…there you were.” I grinned. “Everyone there saw it, too.”
I thought about one person in particular, cringing at the glare I knew Charlotte would give me if I said her name. Misty. I sighed at the reminder of my ultimate stupidity. Most days it felt like it happened a lifetime ago, but now, with everything that’s happened, it felt like I never broke free; that the last three years were just a hallucination to escape the nightmare.
“I thought you were nuts,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair. “I mean…you were…a little nuts.”
Again, I could just picture that glare of hers—the way her eyes would narrow and her mouth would twist. God, I’d give anything to see her look at me with her playful sass. One of the things I loved most about Charlotte, about us, was how we always found a way to laugh at the hard shit. We each had our own shame and dark secrets, but we didn’t hide them from each other. We shouldered them together, and even managed to laugh about the mistakes that would always be with us, instead of letting them define us.
“In all the drama and bullshit, you never gave up on me. Not once.” I pulled in a ragged breath, before declaring, “You didn’t leave me alone in the dark. I’m not going to leave you either, babe. I need you to wake up, Charlotte. Please.”
“Don’t think it’s quite that simple, love.” I jerked at the interruption, turning my head to the door and the source of the unexpected voice. A tall, slender black-haired woman, clad in black jeans and a tight white tee, leaned against the door frame.
Marlena DuBois.
I cleared my throat, a little embarrassed she’d just overheard me begging my comatose wife to wake up. “Marlena, I should have called you. I’m sorry, it’s just been a bit,” I glanced at the hospital bed, “hectic here.”
“Kern filled me in,” she nodded sympathetically, then quirked her mouth into a half smile and shrugged, “I decided I should come anyway.”
Narrowing my eyes, I scanned her face in an attempt to read the psychic medium’s thoughts. Had she seen something?
“No,” she stated firmly. “I haven’t seen anything.”
Holy shit. Did she just—
“No,” she cut me off with a sad, knowing smile. “Your face said it all.” Pushing herself off the door frame, she walked to the other side of the bed, her expression annoyingly neutral as she gazed down at Charlotte for several long moments. “Tell me about how it happened,” she finally said.
“You can’t see that?” I asked bluntly. The question came out harsher than I’d meant, but I’d figured she already knew, considering her gifts.
She cut her green eyes to me and explained with practiced patience, “I see many things, George, but not everything straight away, and there is always more to be seen.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, Marlena.” I ran my hand through my hair as I scolded myself. She was here to help, and I needed all the help I could get. I blew out a breath and met her gaze across the bed, “I found her unconscious at the bottom of the steps. They think the aneurysm caused her to collapse, and that’s why she fell down the stairs. Luckily no broken bones.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her expression, betraying nothing as she studied Charlotte. The sheer blankness of it reminded me of the guards in front of Buckingham Palace, and I wondered if it was a British thing, or if it was from years of practice not reacting to seeing dead people.
A few moments later she stepped back and settled herself into the chair Charlotte’s dad had moved closer to the bed in order to be close to his wife. “Tell me about the girl you mentioned when we Skyped, George. Anything you know.”
I blinked in confusion. “The girl doesn’t matter now. My wife is in a coma.”
“I’m aware.”
“My wife needs help. Click can wait.”
“You asked me here to help your wife with the girl. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Yeah, but she’s in a coma,” I said, feeling like a skipping record.
“Which means there’s absolutely nothing she can do to help the girl right now,” Marlena fixed me with her gaze, “but I can, and in turn, help Charlotte.”
“How can helping Click do anything to help, or change the fact Charlotte’s in a coma?”
“Everything is connected, George. Not just Click and your wife, but everything,” she swept her hand around the room, “you, me, the people on the street below us—we’re all connected, part of a much larger picture, and everything happens for a reason. Truthfully, I don’t know how; I only know it will.” She leaned over and reached for my hand, cupping it in hers, forcing me to meet her earnest gaze. “To sort out how, I need you to tell me everything that’s happened, from the very beginning, but not just in words.” She paused briefly, her eyes growing pained as she continued, “I need you to relive it.”
I flinched at the thought of what she was asking me to do. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I understood what she meant, but something in my gut told me to trust this woman who’d crossed an entire ocean just to help my wife. Inhaling a deep breath, I began, doing my best to conjure every detail.
Charlotte was crouched in the doorway of the bedroom where Mary and Diana resided, her expression blank. Something was wrong. I wanted to ask what was happening, but stopped myself. She was concentrating, and me speaking would only distract her. Instead, I readied myself for anything. After a moment, Charlotte stood, her hand to her stomach. Shit. Was she sick?
“What is it Charlotte?” I asked, unable to hide the worry in my voice.
She squeezed my arm reassuringly, holding my gaze for a few moments before turning to face an empty space in the hallway. “Did you lure them here for him?” Charlotte asked the empty space with barely contained rage.
Marlena jerked her hand from mine, startling me from the memory. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked, uncertain if I was even reliving it as she’d asked. I knew I’d been describing it, but there were really no words capable of conveying the emotions I’d felt.
She held her stomach as if she was feeling ill, but shook her head as she glanced at Charlotte. “No. You are doing fine, George. I just need a moment to sort out everything I’m seeing.”
“Are you okay?”
She inhaled deeply. “Nausea,” she explained with a humorless chuckle. “A fun little side effect to my gifts.”
I frowned. That sounded like it sucked.
“Are you seeing anything?” I swallowed around the lump of defeat forming in my throat.
“I’m seeing an extremely complicated situation,” she said carefully. Turning back to me, she reached her hand out, palm up, inviting me to place mine in it again. “Let’s keep going…if you’re able.”
I loathed thinking about the day we entered that shit hole, but if it helped Marlena to know how to help my wife, I’d relive it a thousand times. Placing my hand in hers, I closed my eyes and went on ‘reliving’ the day we entered the Hell House.