Somehow in spirit form, I was going through my death again. That had to be it. Aaliyah was going through the same and I was too, but without my killer in front of me.
“Make it stop,” I whimpered.
“You know how,” Death answered smoothly.
I rubbed hard at my chest, hoping it took away the pain.
Tears pricked my eyes as I gasped for breath I didn’t need, but my human mind believed I did as my chest throbbed and cracked, my ribs screaming to bend in from a force I couldn’t see. Why did it feel like I was about to die again?
What the hell was this pain? And why wasn’t it stopping? Why...
“Why aren’t you doing anything?” I screamed at Death, squeezing my eyes shut with tears streaming down my cheeks.
“He’s trying to bring you back from the dead.”
Lifting my watery gaze to Death’s calm one, I gaped at him like a fish out of water.
Rune wasn’t giving up on me even after I died, then. He had to be upset right now. Crying and looking down at my dead body. More tears stung behind my eyes, a sob bubbling up in my throat as I frantically glanced around for him. Hoping he’d show up and bring me back.
I needed him! I wanted to go back to him! I wanted his arms around me, his lips brushing the top of my head as he whispered to me I would be okay.
“I never want you to get hurt again. If I lose you again, I’d—”Rune’s words echoed in my head.
Oh god, I hoped he wouldn’t do it. Whatever it was, it was bad. The darkness brewing in him, the fire in his eyes as he warned me what would happen if he lost me again.
Death must’ve seen my worry but didn’t say anything to help soothe me by saying Rune wouldn’t...
I swallowed hard as I straightened, trying my hardest to ignore the sharp evidence in my chest and ribs of Rune trying to revive me. Over my screaming in my head, I heard a faint, deep yell that would only come from a man. It was so far away, but loud enough that it reminded me of someone outside of a window screaming, muffled by the thick wall and glass between us.
“It’s time you awaken,” Death said instead of helping me.
How did I heal myself when I was dead? Why wasn’t he giving me the tools to be able to awaken, whatever that meant?
“Focus,”feminine voices whispered.“Heal from the inside out.”
I jerked my head, looking to my side for the women who whispered in my ear. It wasn’t Estrid... or maybe it was, but it sounded like another joined her, and I didn’t know who.
Death’s stare bore into me as I glanced around the room, searching for the women who whispered to me but didn’t see them. I thought since I was dead I would see Estrid now, but I guess not. I swallowed hard from the tightness in my chest that threatened to burst any second now. Rune still didn’t give up on me, and my nonexistent breaths shuddered out of my sandpaper-dry throat. I stopped, at some point, trying to make sense of thelivinghuman body functions I experienced now after death.
How did I heal from the inside out? I didn’t have that kind of power, and I wasn’t sure why everyone assumed I did. Even while living, Hluti and his men believed I was stronger than I thought of myself. Rune treated me like antique china, but there were always hints he dropped about my past, of being powerful. Strong. Things that I wasn’t, and even as a ghost was told in a roundabout way that I had the abilities to bring myself back from the dead.
The memory of the soft voice whispering to me before I died,“Take back your power,”lingered like waking from a dream.
So I needed to take back my power...
Shaking my head, I squeezed my eyes shut as more pain radiated through me. The same odd sensation went into my mouth and down my throat. It reached down to my lungs, filling them with fire, and expanded like a balloon until I was about to burst. Then it stopped, and I sagged, whimpering as I swallowed over and over to get rid of the memory of the sensation. But the chest-crushing pain came back.
“Make it stop,” I whimpered.
A deep baritone voice echoed somewhere, but I couldn’t make out the words. Goosebumps rose along my body, and I didn’t bother trying to make sense of why I had these responses in ghost form. It was a waste at this point. Just like anyone would want to make sense of an angel standing across from them. Or being in the In-Between while listening to your best friend in the other room going through her death echo. So figuring out why I was “breathing” or having physical reactions wasn’t something to worry about.
I snapped out of my lost thoughts as the man from the other side of the thick wall yelled again. It raised more goosebumps and made me make the sound of breath hitching. I tried forcing myself to open my eyes and search for him but couldn’t for some reason.
“You know how,” Death murmured.
I ignored him as the deep voice said something but a little closer.
Snapping my eyes open, I glanced around the room, turning in my spot as I looked for him. Chills swept through me and my chest no longer felt like it was about to break.
