Page 112 of Grave Beginnings

Angel led us down through the station, to an area of labs I had yet to tour, and toward a door at the end that readMorgue.

Panic slammed into me with enough force to suck the air outof the room, or at least out of my lungs. I stopped, gasping for breath as the world around me narrowed. It wasn’t the first morgue I’d ever visited, nor would it be the last, but the memory of my recent imprisonment at the hospital came back in a wave of chills and the urge to vomit.

The fluorescent lights flickered, their buzz growing louder, more insistent. The walls closed in, the sterile white turning gray, then black at the edges of my vision. I could hear the voices again. Whispering, murmuring, overlapping in a cacophony of sound.

“Help.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Don’t hurt me.”

I stumbled, heart racing, each beat a thunderous echo in my ears, falling to my knees as the air thinned and my lungs squeezed tight. The voices grew louder, more desperate, and I could feel them tugging at the edges of my mind like a thousand tiny claws, tearing me apart.

“Jude!” Wade called, distant, like he was shouting through water. His hands gripped my shoulders, steadying me, but I couldn’t focus on him, or even the snapping chill his touch flung at me. I couldn’t focus on anything except the voices and the cold, creeping dread that wrapped around me like a shroud.

“Angel!” Wade called again; his tone urgent. “Shit. Breathe, Jude. Come on, man. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

But I couldn’t breathe.

The world around me shifted into the hospital morgue. My left wrist was cuffed to the metal table, which was bolted to the floor. The voices were everywhere: inside me, around me, pulling me under. I could see the morgue in my mind, the rows of steel drawers, the cold, lifeless bodies waiting for someone to claim them. The tables were filled with bodies; uncovered, unmoving. Only I couldfeel their pain, their fear, their desperation, their rage at my failure.

I tugged on my wrist, trying to get free and escape the room, the voices, or even just the cuff, but it cut into me, spilling blood that painted the floor with crimson spatters to create spots of color burning through my vision.

A chill crawled into my bones as if a thousand slugs crawled across my skin, delivering icy bites to drain me dry.

Bodies never bothered me before. Not until finding myself in the hospital morgue, staring at bodies stitched back together after an autopsy, their eyes open, glaring at me as if I’d been the one to steal their lives. Gaping mouths filled with soundless screams, and there I was, stuck, cuffed to the table, heart beating so hard I feared it would burst.

Your fault!

Why didn’t you save us?

Monster!

The doors to the mortuary coolers rattled, the metal banging and drowning out the voices that turned to shrieks, maybe even my own. I tucked my head to my knees, the world sparkling with pops of color mixed with inky blackness, a warning that I was about to pass out. I couldn’t breathe.

“Jude.” Angel’s voice broke through the chaos, sharp and commanding. His hands were on my face, warm and grounding, forcing me to look at him, though I couldn’t see him. His magic rolled over me as if he could stave off the nightmare memory with willpower alone, but I was drowning in terror, memories, and power I couldn’t control. “Baby, please. Look at me. Breathe. Just breathe. Let me help.”

I tried. I really did. But the air wouldn’t come, and the voices wouldn’t stop. “I can’t,” I choked out, every bit of air feeling as if it were forced through a broken straw before entering my lungs. “I can’t.”

“You can,” he commanded. “I’m here. You’re here. With me. With Wade. You’re safe. No one can hurt you. Let me in. Please, baby, you’re safe.”

Safe. The word echoed through my mind like a lifeline in the storm. I clung to it and to him.

“I’m here, baby. Remember, you’re my mate. Focus on me. You’re not alone.”

I struggled to draw air into my lungs, his handsome face emerging through the folds of my overlaid memory right in front of me. “Angel,” I wheezed, focusing on his moody brown eyes glowing through the memory, instead of the rising voices.

“I’m here. Breathe, baby.” He brushed his thumbs over my cheeks, a small, steady rhythm that matched the cadence of his voice. The walls of the hospital dissolved around me as I realized I had hallucinated at a level I’d never experienced before.

“In,” he said, his tone calm but insistent. “One. Two. Three. Out. There you go. Again. In...” We were at the SED precinct, not the hospital.

I followed his lead, lungs tight and heart racing as the voices continued. “They are so loud,” I whispered. Were we surrounded by a thousand dead I couldn’t feel? Or was I really going mad? “Don’t make me go back there.”

“Where?” Wade asked.

“Focus on me. Not them. I’m right here.”

“Hospital,” I whispered.