But I couldn’t have her without having all my misdeeds and trespasses.

The fact still remained that I’d done things that couldn’t be undone.

Things that couldn’t be forgiven.

Things that would prevent me from happiness because I didn’t deserve such absolution.

Live or die?

Make the choice.

Decide.

Now.

The blackness thickened.

Something crushed my phantom chest.

And I made a choice.

I gritted my non-existent teeth as my misery selected for me.

My answer was non-verbal.

The response silent but suffocating.

Things started changing, morphing, preparing.

I waited for the end.

...

..

.

Chapter Thirty-Two

THE COMA BROKE ON the third week.

And I wasn’t there.

The phone call came at four in the morning, ripping me from sleep and racing me in my night shorts and pink singlet all the way to Dr Campbell’s surgery.

Cal was already there.

His eyes stuck on Jess as if she was the only woman alive, his hand wrapped around her small one, his body slouched in a chair beside her bed.

I crashed into the room, unable to stop my speed, ripping both their attentions to me.

Sully had written a new Will and Testament to include the three of us. He’d gone after me knowing he wouldn’t survive, and it didn’t matter that for the past week I’d done my best to erase the fate that he’d written and scribble completely different things, I couldn’t seem to stop his choice.

I hadn’t told Cal that he was the new CEO of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. I couldn’t wait to tell Jess that she was a wealthy woman—earned by sacrifice and tenacity.

That part was happy.

The fact that she was awake was happy!

Yet as Jess licked her cracked lips, blinked her hazel eyes, and beamed a great big smile, I burst into noisy tears.

I couldn’t stop the ache for Sully. The guilt at his suffering. The pain of our separation.

Why won’t you wake up!

My tears exploded harder as Jess murmured, “Come here.”

Sniffing with no grace, I stumbled to her bedside and kissed her warm cheek. “You’re back.”

“I am,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just so glad you’re alive.” I forced a watery smile. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. I was just asking Cal where you were.” Her voice was different. Husky and hazy, the slight shadows of wherever she’d been still slinking through the syllables. “He told me that you freed the other goddesses. That we’re the only ones left.”

This was conversation.

This was a life raft from my sudden drowning in misery missing Sully.

I clung to it and ripped my thoughts from death to life. “We are. The island feels empty.”

Cal grinned up at me, his skin flushed and green eyes glowing. “I haven’t told her what you did with Euphoria yet. That there’s already a menagerie installed, and the tile is covered in hay and god knows what.”

I squeezed his shoulder, shaking with relief that at least one of us had gotten our happily ever after. My knees threatened to buckle with relief and envy.

As grateful as I was and as happy as I was that Jess had survived...I couldn’t ignore the hooks and splinters that Sully was still unresponsive. No matter how much I whispered to him by night or kissed his cheek by day, I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t entice him to twitch or reveal any sign that he still existed.

Jess had woken, but Sully...

God, I couldn’t breathe around the fact that we’d already ended.

We’d ended with a broken heart.

In some cracked place inside me, a piece of depressed psyche began the process of acceptance. Grief was a sneaky, slithery thing—self-preservation beginning the task of erecting a wall around my soul for the inevitable. It did what Louise had told me to do and prepared for the day when the heart monitor no longer beeped cheerfully like Jess’s did but slipped into a single monotone.

I didn’t want it.

I’d never accept that Sully was gone.

He’s not gone.

Not yet!

“Ah, Jinx...I’m sorry.” Jess’s eyes filled with matching tears. “Cal told me about Sullivan.”

I slashed at the wetness on my cheeks and ducked to kiss her again. “Don’t. Now that you’re awake, I’m sure he’ll follow. You’ll pave the way back for him.”

She held my stare and so much was said. Our strange sisterhood. Our unlikely bond. It was all there, familiar and steadfast, and I was so, so grateful that I had her because she would hold me up when I fell.

Because I would fall.

I would plummet if Sully chose death and not me.

Dr Campbell came bustling in, his elderly face etched with sleepiness but thrilled at the same time. “Don’t you two tire her out.”

“I’ve been sleeping for weeks, Dr Campbell. I won’t get tired.” Jess smiled. “Don’t make them go. Not yet.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Cal squeezed her hand. “You sure know how to run from a guy. If you didn’t want to chase whatever this is, you didn’t have to try to die on me.”

Her cheeks pinked. “So...you still want to see where this goes?”

I shouldn’t be here for this.

I was the third wheel. The unwanted watcher.

Swallowing past the ball in my throat, I backed away only for Jess to snap, “Don’t you think about leaving, Jinx.” She untangled her gaze from Cal’s and looked at me. “I’ve been dying to share, and I’m annoyed that Cal told you instead of me.”

Her face spoke of flirty, fanciful things, but her gaze was sympathetic and understanding. This wasn’t an overshare when she’d literally just woken from a coma, but her attempt at distraction.

Fine.

I needed a distraction.

I needed her to help me stay sane when that sanity had frayed to the point where I could no longer hold on.

I glanced at Calvin. He sat stiff and chilly, but a smirk teased his lips. He was in on the attempt, both of them pitying me, pitying Sully, pitying us.

Bracing my shoulders, I met their courage with my own. “Okay, tell me everything.”

He nodded, accepting my agreement to be distracted and looked from me and back to Jess, speaking to her. “Sinclair guessed. He gave me hell.”

Her eyebrows vanished into her blonde hair. “He guessed? How?”

“Said I’d never provided aftercare before.”

“Ah, yes well. That wasn’t exactly planned.” She blushed again. “But I’m glad you finally opened your eyes and saw me.” Her gaze sought mine, and her face glowed as if she’d woken full of vitality and gossip instead of a body weak from sleep and drained from haemorrhaging from Drake’s bullet. “I’ve been kind of in love with him since I arrived. Men, huh? Blind as bats.”

I hugged myself, attempting normal conversation when this was anything but a normal topic. “But...serving in Euphoria with different men and—”

“I’d rather not be reminded, thanks,” Cal muttered.

“When?” I asked. “How?”