I shivered in pure delight as I held out my hand and Skittles immediately hopped onto me, her talons wrapping tight around me almost like an avian version of a hug.

“Hey, tiny bird.” I brought her to my lips, kissing the top of her feathered head. “You’re looking better.”

She puffed up and launched into a happy song complete with squawks and cackles, a serenade interrupted with scolding.

I laughed and looked at Dr Campbell. “Thanks for bringing her. Can she stay here? I’ll look after her.”

“Of course. I figured you missed her and aren’t exactly in the position to leave your needy patient.” He looked at Sully. He seemed whiter than usual. His island tan had faded a few days ago, but now his skin was almost translucent.

Icy worry dripped down my spine.

He frowned. “Is he well?”

I licked my lips, panic a common sensation in my chest, billowing out of control. “I...I don’t know. His heart has been spiking. I thought he might be waking up so I was talking to him.”

“What did you say?”

“Just about how we met and that I love him and can’t wait to share life with him again.”

“Huh.” Dr Campbell sat down on the edge of the bed just as Pika swooped in.

My shoulders slouched in relief as the crazed parrot tore around the room at warp speed, his squeaks and caws so at odds with Skittles’s scolding song. He sounded positively pissed off. His wings snapped with annoyance. His black eyes gleamed with rage.

“Where have you been?” I asked as the parrot tucked in his wings and dive-bombed Sully. He jerked them out at the last second, halting his arrow and plopping onto Sully’s chest.

He hadn’t visited Sully once.

I hadn’t seen him since the beach when we first arrived, and I’d been at a loss as to how to bring him home. Sully needed his feathered friend. He needed something else to cling to, besides me.

But I couldn’t explain to a bird that Sully wasn’t ignoring him intentionally. That he didn’t want to be this silent and still.

“Pika...” I went to Sully’s head while Dr Campbell took Sully’s wrist and counted his pulse. Worry clouded his elderly face.

Unable to fret about yet more things I couldn’t control, I focused on helping Pika first. “He still loves you, Pika. He...just can’t wake up right now.”

“Lazy! Lazy! LAZY!” Pika stomped around, his little legs soaring up and slapping down on Sully’s chest. “Sully. Pika. Hungry. Tired. Now, now. Lazy!”

The spew of English made no sense. The poor bird chaotic with confusion.

Skittles slouched on my finger, eyeing up her broken-hearted brother. She squeaked softly, ripping Pika’s beady-eyed attention to her. He let out a cry so full of hurt he even made Dr Campbell suck in a breath.

And then his tyranny began anew, hopping onto Sully’s cheek and scratching at the thick beard that hid his face. “Lazy!”

“Pika...it’s okay.” I tried to grab him, but he skipped to Sully’s left eye and pecked at his eyelashes. “Hey, don’t do that.”

Pika took wing, fluttering like a mad Ping-Pong ball around the rafters. He continued to squeak and chatter, his speed turning him into a blur.

“Slow down. You’re going to hurt yourself!” I cringed each time he went too close to the wall. The sugar glider scurried from its snoozing spot, swatting at Pika as he rudely interrupted his nap.

Skittles made no move to flap after him, either aware her wing hurt or smart just to let her brother have his temper tantrum.

Finally, Pika once again dive-bombed Sully, landed on his head, and buried himself in Sully’s hair before squeaking with grief. His little feathered chest flurried from exertion, and his eyes closed, rubbing his beak through Sully’s strands, preening him with the softest chatter of sadness.

Oh, God.

How could a tiny parrot symbolise everything I was feeling?

The chaos for a cure? The impatience for this to be over? The ever-constant panic that he might never wake up? And the all-powering need to be close, to ensure he kept breathing even if it meant I had to force that breath into his lungs myself?

“Eleanor.” Dr Campbell looked up, catching my stare.

Everything inside me froze. One giant blizzard frosting everything. “What...what is it?”

“Call the other doctors. I think we have a problem.”

“What? What problem?” My screech sounded like Pika’s, manic and desperate. “What’s happened?” Launching onto the bed, I smothered myself alongside Sully.

His skin was on fire.

Sweat drenching him.

No!

Skittles joined Pika in Sully’s hair as I hugged him and kissed him and cursed, cursed myself.

I hadn’t been touching him.

I’d forgotten while welcoming Skittles.

This is all my fault!

“Don’t do this, Sully. I’m here. See? Feel me? I’m here.” I clutched his fingers. I kissed his palm. “Wake up.”

The heart rate monitor let out a tattered screeching beep, bringing the Geneva doctors running from the living room. Louise took one look at Dr Campbell’s concern and my mania beside him and leaped into action.

Checking Sully’s vitals, she stayed calm even as the monitor screamed with a slew of irregular thrums.

Sully’s heart wasn’t crashing like normal.

His pulse wasn’t dropping or growing weak.

It was skyrocketing.

“He’s at two hundred and thirty beats per minute.” Louise snapped her fingers and pointed at one of her colleagues. “Get the defib ready. If he flat lines again, be ready.”

“God!” I pressed my head into Sully’s neck, inhaling the wrongness of him. The sickness, the staleness. “Come on. What are you doing? Stop it, Sullivan. Just wake up and stop this!”

His heart rate climbed again.

“Two forty. Shit!” Louise shoved Dr Campbell aside as she wheeled a machine toward the bed.

“Do something. Stop it!” I cried.

“We can’t stop it,” Louise barked. “This isn’t treatable, not in his current condition. We have to deal with the aftermath once his system reboots.”

“He’ll die.”

“He’s moments away from cardiac arrest. His heartbeat is too fast. The only thing to do is to shock him when he reaches the end.”

“What about a beta blocker?” Dr Campbell asked. “Elixir has a habit of causing arrhythmia. Beta blockers—”

“No. All drugs are risky in his current weakness.” She crossed her arms. “Beta blockers might crash him.”

“Two-sixty!” one of the other doctors yelped. “He’s not going to make it.”

“No! NO!”

Pika screeched as I swooped to my knees.

Skittles hopped out of my way as I cupped Sully’s head and pressed my lips to his.

I kissed him.

Properly kissed him.

I drove my tongue down his throat, and I tasted the death that Sully had ingested. I blew air past his tongue and drove my hands against his mayhem-mangled heart. And I snarled with every temper and fury I ever felt.

I embraced the heat.

I swallowed the fire.

If he wanted to die...so be it, but he would do it with my words chasing him to the grave and my broken heart scattered at his feet.