Chapter 4

Dylan

I pace the waiting room restlessly. It's early morning on the third day of this hellscape that's become my life, and if what Marc tells us is true, the doctors should decide today that Matt's stable enough to breathe on his own and maybe perform some of the surgeries he needs to set his broken bones.

Since Gabe and Connor arrived, I haven't had much time in there with him. Marc needs to be there all the time, of course, and after he convinced that first nurse—Carolyn, her name is—to let more than two people in, nobody else has questioned it. At first I thought it was because Marc was mind controlling them all, but then I hacked into Matt's file and found a note from the doctor that visitor rules were relaxed per patient policy 822.4b. A quick hack of the hospital's internal policies told me this isn't a good thing. There was a lot of jargon, but basically it came down to "patient not expected to survive."

Once my hands stopped shaking, I got online, found the fanciest custom handkerchiefs I could, and ordered a set to be monogrammed for Marc. He'll probably critique them, but I had to do something. The memory of the doctor's face when Gabe arrived and she all but told him she hadn't expected him to make it in time to say goodbye… well, it's pretty obvious that Matt would be dead if it wasn't for Marc.

Matty's going to hate that. I know it's eating Connor from the inside out. He, Ian, and I have been trading off going in to sit with Gabe and Marc. We didn't want to push our luck by having too many people in there, especially since Matt's already surprising the medical professionals by still being alive. This morning they're running some tests, and all the work Marc's been doing should show that Matt's going to survive.

Marc hasn't said it out loud, but the fact that it's taken him this long to get Matt this far in the healing process is another indication that we basically got here in the nick of time.

Kieran looks up from the couch he's sitting on beside Connor, who has his face buried in his hands. "Dylan, are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

I shake my head, guilt jabbing me. "I'm fine. Thanks." Breakfast wouldn't last more than a minute before I lost it. My stomach is too nervous for food right now. "I just wish they'd hurry up. How long can these tests take?"

Tom gets up from his chair and comes to put an arm around my shoulders. "Let's go for a walk."

"But—" I glance toward the door of the visitor lounge. Ian promised to come and tell us as soon as there was an update.

"We all have phones, and we won't go far." Lowering his voice to a whisper, he adds, "I think the pacing is making Connor worse."

Shit. "Uh, yeah. A walk. I need to shake the cobwebs out of my brain." I keep forgetting that as far as everyone is concerned, I'm just here as a friend. A good friend, yeah, but not family like Gabe and Ian and Connor. Tom and Kieran shouldn't have to be looking after me too—I'm not Matt's boyfriend to them.

Because I'm an idiot.

Tom and I walk out of the visitor lounge and head down the hall to the other end of the building. There's a kind of terrace area there with some plants and benches, for people like us who might want fresh air but not want to go downstairs and leave the building. The ICU visitor lounge is comfortable and has a small kitchenette and vending machines, but trust me, when you've been in it for six hours, you need a change of scenery.

"When was the last time you slept?" Tom asks. After they arrived and got the first update, he and Kieran went and checked us all into a few rooms at the hospital's hotel. The idea was that we'd spend the time we're not sitting with Matt resting at the hotel, but the reality is that we sit in the visitor lounge until we're practically hallucinating, then go to the hotel for a catnap and a shower.

Or at least, that's my reality.

"Uhh, last night," I mumble vaguely. It's not true. Kieran dragged me back there at around two this morning, when Gabe got back from sleeping and took over sitting with Matt from me, but I only stayed long enough to shower and raid the minibar before I sneaked back over and took up residence in the visitor lounge.

"Liar. Dylan, you need to sleep. When Matt's out of danger and awake, Kieran and I will need to get back to Illinois. With Gabe and Con here, I have to be their link to the compound, and Kier's got staff on leave at Mannix. They're coping without him for now, but the weekend is coming up fast."

I'm not sure why that's important, but maybe that's just because my brain isn't working right.

"We're kind of counting on you to look after the others when we go," he continues, and I try not to show how that affects me. All I want right now is to fall to pieces, and I can't. Having to look after other people on top of that feels like climbing Everest.

"Yeah," I manage. "I can do that. I swear, I'll be able to sleep more once he's awake. When he's out of the ICU and in a regular room, I can work from his room. I won't need to sandwich it in to sleep time." They've all seen me using my laptop over the past couple of days, and I know they assume I'm working, not searching terminology from Matt's chart that I hacked and reading densely worded medical articles that then require me to look up the meanings of more medical terms. Why can't doctors speak in English?

We make it out onto the terrace, and I breathe the cool morning air deeply, getting a whiff of exhaust fumes from the parking lot below. It's still a better smell than "hospital."

"We're so glad you tried to call him," Tom says softly, leaning on the railing beside me. He turns his head to study me, his dark curls falling over his forehead. "If Marc hadn't got here when he did…"

I swallow hard. "I know. It was just lucky."

He chuckles. "I'll say. Kind of late for a call. I know you're a night owl, but Matt likes his sleep."

He does. I can't count the number of times I've left him passed out in my bed and gone back to work. He's definitely a diurnal kind of guy.

"I didn't look at the time," I lie. "I had a question and just called." That last part is true, at least. Of course, my question was "Why didn't you call me tonight; are you okay?" but Tom doesn't need to know that.

"Well, thank fuck you did."

"Excuse me," a voice behind us says, and I turn, only to see that it's not a living person, but rather a ghost. Belatedly I realize that Tom didn't react to the voice, though he's looking at me questioningly now.

"Ghost," I tell him, then muster a smile for the bewildered-looking woman in pajamas. "Hi."

"Did you just say ‘ghost'?" She looks from me to Tom, then down at herself. "Is that why I'm wearing my Hello Kitty pj's in a hospital?"

Aw fuck. "I'm so sorry, ma'am. My name's Dylan, by the way." I've only ever met a couple of fresh ghosts, but they rarely process their deaths well.

"I'm Kristina," she says automatically, still staring at her fluffy bunny slippers. Then she lifts her gaze to me. "Well, crap. I'm dead?"

She looks to be only a few years younger than me, so it's not really that surprising that she hasn't moved on yet. Her soul might need a little extra time to process its early departure from this incarnation.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so."

She heaves a sigh. "That explains why everyone kept ignoring me. I've been trying to get someone to answer my questions for hours . I just thought they were all rude as fuck, but I guess they couldn't hear me." She pauses. "How come you can hear me?"

I'm not about to go into the whole hunter thing with a normie, ghost or not, so I say, "I'm kind of like a medium. I can see dead people." I jerk my head toward Tom. "He can't, which is why he looks totally confused right now."

Nodding, she says, "At least he's not calling the psych ward. I would have done that if someone told me they were talking to a ghost. Hah, only took dying to learn I was wrong about them not being real."

There's not a lot of ways to respond to that, so instead I say, "I can try to answer your questions, if you like."

She puts her hands on her chest and smiles at me. "Thank you! Where am I, for starters?"

"Renown Regional Medical Center. Uh, this floor is mostly the ICU and Palliative Care, but the ER is just downstairs too. I'm guessing you probably came from there." She's still wearing her pajamas, and while ghosts can change their clothing easily, the newly dead ones tend to stick to whatever they died in at first.

"Do you know how I died?" she asks hopefully.

I shake my head. "Sorry. I can try to find out, if you like, but HIPAA…" I trail off. "What's the last thing you remember?"

She purses her lips. "I was watching Love Is Blind with my roommate, popcorn, and wine. Just a regular weeknight." Her eyes narrow. "I think… I think a popcorn kernel got stuck in my throat? I remember I couldn't breathe, and then I got dizzy… Did I fucking choke to death on popcorn ?"

I cringe. "Sounds like it. If you want, I can go downstairs and see if your roommate or family are hanging around still, try to eavesdrop on them? Maybe I can find out for sure."

She shrugs and shakes her head. "Nah. I guess it doesn't really matter. Man, this blows. I just booked a vacation in Fort Lauderdale."

"I mean, you could still go," I suggest. "But you won't get a tan."

For a second, she just stares at me, then her laugh rings out. "I like you, Dylan. Too bad we didn't meet while I was alive. I'm a fun date."

"I'm sure you are," I agree, "but I'm gay. Sorry."

A brow rises. "Got a boyfriend? Because my roommate's single, and he?—"

"I do. That's why I'm here, actually." Thank fuck Tom can't hear her.

Her face changes immediately, filling with sympathy. "Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry. Here I am making this all about me, when you have your own problems."

God, I hate this world sometimes. How come a nice young woman like this has to die, and so many assholes get to live? "Kristina, you just died. It's okay to make this all about you this time."

She snorts. "Guess so. If you can't be selfish after choking to death on popcorn in your pj's, when can you, huh?" She looks around. "So what happens now?"

"You have a couple of options," I begin carefully. "Are you religious?"

"Oh my god, please don't tell me hell is real, because I do not want Aunt Sadie to be right."

Okay, that's going to make this easier. "Hell isn't real," I assure her. "Reincarnation is. So you have the choice to either stick around as a ghost and make some ghost friends, or you can move on to your next life. But you don't need to decide right now. If you want to stick around for a while and then move on later, you totally can."

She purses her lips. "Nah. I'm dead. What's the point in staying here and watching my friends and family live their lives without me? That'll just bum me out. I want them to imagine me being at peace and shit, so I'll take door number two. Maybe in my next life, I'll understand math."

I grin. It feels weird on my face, and I realize I haven't really smiled in days. "Anything's possible."

"Right. How do I…" She trails off, and I see it happening. The moment her soul lets go of the memories of her life. "Oh. I'm all… tingly… Bye, Dylan. Tha…"

I say a prayer for her soul to a god I only sometimes believe in, then turn back to Tom. "She's moved on."

He shakes his head. "It's so fucking weird watching you guys talk to ghosts, I swear. Let's go back. You should try to eat something."

I let him lead the way, and we're halfway down the hall when I see Ian come out of the ICU and head for the visitor lounge. Breaking into a run, we race the rest of the way, bursting into the lounge to see Connor and Kieran getting to their feet. Ian turns to face us.

"They're going to take him off life support."