“Skye?”
A new figure entered the cloud of bodies around my bed, every bit the doctor cliche. White coat, stethoscope around his neck.
“I’m Dr. Houser, the cardiologist at Caduceus Hospital. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I admitted. “Thirst.” I couldn’t even say the full word,thirsty.
Now Severen was the one who was serving me shards of ice which I slowly sipped onto my tongue.
“Do you know what happened?” asked the doctor.
I was silent. I wanted to shake my head, or repeat what my pack told me, that I had passed out, but all that seemed like it took way too much energy. Halo grasped my hand, which was nice of her. Crux’s grave-earth smell was coming across especially wet and marrowed, and Severen’s jaw ticked in his cheek.
I knew then that I didn’t simply pass out.
“You fell unconscious because you suffered an acute cardiac event,” Dr. Houser said. “You are in complete heart failure, and the only hope for a cure is a heart transplant.”
Ice fell like a heavy sheet over my body. Not just because of what I had been told, but the cold, detached way the doctor relayed the information. Halo squeezed my hand.
“Currently you’re on the list for a donor heart. In the meantime, you’re attached to this ECMO machine, via connections in your femoral arteries. What this does is circulate the blood, which allows your heart to rest.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks, silent and exhausted. I was hooked up to machines, my heart was essentially rotten and useless, and in order for me to live, someone had to die.
I turned my head away from the doctor and closed my eyes.
“Okay,” I rasped. “Please go.”
I couldn’t escape the morbid thought. For me to stay here, on this earth, and have a happy life with my pack, the people who love me the most, someone else had to die.
Maybe it would have been better if I never woke up.
Chapter 9
SEVEREN
Iwas,ofcourse,over the moon when Skye regained consciousness, but ever since Dr. Houser’s initial visit, she was different. She spent most of her days sleeping. She didn’t speak a lot. The Skye I loved, that Ibit and bonded, would have gathered her strong, unwavering spirit and stayed positive. Skye as she was now was despondent, and sullen.
We were all in her room, watching a movie. The credits began to roll and Skye said, “Can I talk to Severen alone for a bit?”
Halo and Crux looked at her, then at me. I offered a subtle nod. They got up, each kissed her head, and left the room. Crux tried to linger until Halo closed the door behind them.
I pulled my chair closer to her. “What is it?” I took her hand, kissed her knuckles, careful of the IV ports and thick medical tape.
Her eyes filled with tears and her scent turned hollow and dusty, like dehydrated flowers. Whatever was on her mind had been weighing on her for some time.
“I can’t do this,” she confessed.
“Of course you can,” I rubbed her forearm.
“I’d be taking someone’s heart.” The tears fell freely down her cheeks. “Someone has to die so I can live. It’s so wrong.”
“Skye, Skye, it’s not like that.” I stroked her hair and tried to console her. “It’s not like that at all.”
“It’s exactly like that.”
I tried to be rational. “If you don’t get that heart, someone else will.”
“Maybe they should.”
