Chapter 34

Ephie drifted. At times, she was vaguely aware of voices. Of purring. Singing. Laughter. Tears. Music. Prayers. All kinds of sounds filled her consciousness. Most of them good. Most of them made her want to wake up and join in.

No matter how hard she tried, that never happened.

The tears made her sad. Sadder. She knew from the pain that leaked through the heavy fog of medication that she had been gravely injured. That knowledge was a weight that rested on top of everything else.

Sometimes, she slept. Truly slept, not the involuntary blackout brought on by the drugs in her system. The blackouts were just that. Blackness. Nothingness. Floating through a void that had neither time nor shape nor meaning. No dreams, either.

The dreams came with genuine sleep. Jean-Luc and his silly antics. Her mother. Alphonso. Her grandmother. But mostly Remy. Proud, handsome, sweet, funny, wonderful Remy.

In one of her dreams, he rescued her from the inferno that had raged about her. In another, they were back at Tulane, walking hand in hand across the campus on a warm, starry spring night. Once, she'd dreamed of them having ice cream, but they'd eaten it in the middle of the frozen foods aisle at the Shop-n-Save.

Those were the good ones.

Most of her dreams were much darker. Snippets of images that swirled through her mind like a terrible storm. Being burned alive. Unable to escape the flames. Sometimes her mother was with her. Or her grandmother. In the worst of her dreams, Jean-Luc had run into a burning building and Remy had gone after him, then the building had collapsed.

The sense of loss felt like a crushing weight.

Now and then, hot, heavy air seared her skin, the rushing growl of the fire filling her ears like a freight train bearing down on her.

She had dreams about pain. About her skin bubbling and blistering. About the heat. About melting like she was made of wax. She dreamed she was in an oven and couldn't find a way out as the temperature grew higher and higher.

She even dreamed about waking up once and finding that Remy had moved on. In her dream, he was married with three handsome sons who looked just like him. His wife was the woman who'd held Ephie hostage, Abraham Turner's daughter.

Ephie imagined looking in the mirror and being unable to identify herself. Her face was scarred beyond recognition. Marked by hard, marbled flesh that frightened her. Sometimes, in that dream, Remy would show up and hold her, telling her he would always love her no matter what. But in the worst version, he cringed in horror and ran from her while Jean-Luc hissed, back arched.

In her dreams, Ephie cried a lot. There was so much that upset her. She wanted only the good dreams, but there was no way to control what went on in her head.

Maybe she cried in real life, too, but she wasn't sure that still existed.

Had she died? She didn't know, and she wasn't sure how to find out. When she tried to talk, nothing happened. Her body didn't respond to her commands, and neither did her voice. She felt trapped in a kind of limbo.

Maybe that was death. Maybe this was all she would ever know for as long as time went on.

Thankfully, about the time she didn't think she could take anymore, the medicated abyss would return. She'd fought it at first, but now she welcomed it. Better to be numb and unaware than to succumb to the terrors of her mind.

Somewhere in the distance, a machine hummed and ticked, and she sank back into the thick fog of nothing, drifting off once again.