“I’m...” The room swam and my empty stomach clenched. “I’m suddenly not feeling very well.”

“I know. It’s the shock still. Your symptoms will come and go until you accept certain things. I know you’re still holding on to the hope that he’ll wake and everything will go back to normal. I want that too. And I will do whatever I can to ensure it happens, but...you also need to accept the facts. It’s important to be informed so your body doesn’t suffer.”

I couldn’t reply.

I appreciated her advice, and I agreed. I’d always been one for as much knowledge as I could get, but...I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to be slapped with reality.

Not yet.

Not while Sully had only been stable for a little while.

He’ll wake up...you’ll see.

“You’ve been so diligent staying by his side. I believed, like you, that as long as you touched him, he might pull through this but...”

Shaking my head, I buried my face in my hands. “Stop. I don’t—”

“He no longer responds to your touch. He’s alive. His vitals are stable, and he’s breathing unassisted, but no other sensory perception is operational. We did tests on his reactions, and each one reveals the systematic shutting down of a human nervous system.”

That explained the nasty sensation of touching a stranger.

Why he no longer needed my closeness.

Why there didn’t seem to be a tether between us anymore.

If Louise was to weigh him, like her prior patient studies, would she find his soul missing? Were the electric impulses that were gone from his body mechanical or mystical?

I sucked in a breath, my skin turning icy.

He’d shut me off. He’d let me go.

It was his choice and only his, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

My hands fell from my face as an eerie calm smothered my panic.

I didn’t know if it was shock or I’d finally reached the bottom of my well and I had no more strength to siphon. Either way, I would listen. I would register. And then I would survive whatever future I’d been given. “Continue.”

Louise sighed heavily. “I’m sorry that I have to hurt you further.”

“It’s the truth. I need to hear it.”

She stood and put her hands into the pockets of her sundress. Her face smoothed out from the friendship we’d formed and settled into the mask of a death deliverer—a doctor who’d had this conversation so many times before with the families left behind.

I stood too.

I hugged myself and waited for her to ruin my world.

Inhaling a deep breath, she said, “Sullivan Sinclair is now in a realm where medicine can’t make a shred of difference to the outcome. The longer he remains in a coma, the less likely his chances are of waking up. The negative outcome of the tests today shows he may be slipping and will continue to slip until all neurological activity is inactive. If that happens, he will enter a vegetative state and may require a ventilator and the ultimately hard decision of keeping him on life support or letting him go.”

I gritted my teeth as acid burned up my chest and splashed into my toes. “Anything else?” I swayed on the spot, keeping myself locked down so I didn’t explode with violence or sorrow.

“My team and I are happy to stay on until such a decision has to be made or another outcome is presented. You have my word that we will ensure his body remains in the best possible care...but it’s his mind that we cannot help.” She came toward me, glancing at the parrots on my shoulder before locking eyes with me. “I still believe he can feel you. He might not react to your touch, but my advice still stands. Regardless of his disappearance, it would help him if you stayed present. Love has proven to be a stronger drug than any the modern world has created, but even that has its limits. I wish I had better advice, but all I have is the truth. Love him...until the end. Don’t say goodbye...until it’s truly over. But most of all...don’t lose yourself. Be prepared for the day when that monitor goes quiet for the last time. Forearm yourself for the likelihood of his death because that will help ease the pain if it happens.”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

I stumbled as things cracked and crumbled inside me.

The pillars holding up my legs. The bricks keeping my spine straight.

They all started to tumble.

I thought I’d reached rock bottom yesterday.

I was wrong.

My internal strength was collapsing.

I couldn’t be here when it fell.

“If that’s everything...” I tripped toward the exit. “I think...I might go for a walk.”

Sully didn’t need me.

My touch was no longer my shackle.

I needed fresh air. Aloneness. Somewhere to shatter.

“Of course. I’ll look after him.” Louise’s sympathy chased me from Sully’s bedroom.

I didn’t look at the man I loved, frozen in time on his bed.

I didn’t think about Skittles with her splint or Pika with his grief.

I fell out the front door, and I ran.

I ran beneath sunshine and through thick, golden sand.

I ran until I couldn’t run anymore.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

FOR FIVE DAYS, I cycled through all stages of grief.

Hourly, minutely, I ran the gauntlet of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

It was exhausting.

It was cathartic.

It was a never-ending crushing wheel.

Denial would come as I sat cross-legged on Sully’s bed, guarding over his still and silent form, refusing to accept his unconsciousness. I’d roll my eyes. This can’t be true. I’d fist my hands with rage. How dare you leave me! I’d sit and bargain with an imaginary devil and promise everything I had and everything that I didn’t. Please, please just let him open his eyes.

I’d sit and stare at the man I loved, never taking my gaze off his handsome face, willing him to gasp with alertness and smile with possession, only to suffer incurable stress and rage.

Depression began when the stars rose and the moon twinkled.

I’d trip from the villa and run.

Pika would flit beside me, and Skittles would hold on for dear life, and I’d push myself until I fell to my knees in the sand.

And there, surrounded by manicured jungle and cicada song, I’d scream.

I’d scream until every ounce of sorrow stopped infecting me. I’d cry until that eerie calm fell over me and I had the strength to return to his villa with acceptance of this tragedy and fall asleep beside him.

For five days, it’d been a repeat of the one before.

Louise allowed me to lose myself in emotions, and Dr Campbell kept his distance. Pika guarded Sully when I couldn’t, and Skittles guarded me when I needed her sweet presence.

But by day six, I’d had enough.

I couldn’t keep killing myself this way.

Keep living this way.

I needed to do something. Anything. And saving Sully from police search warrants and saving girls from ownership was a worthy pastime.

Sully didn’t need me anymore.

He didn’t even know I was there.

I was superfluous.

I was free.

Free to destroy his dynasty one goddess at a time.

* * * * *

I left Sully’s villa early and padded barefoot to my old home on the beach.