Page 65 of Lovesick Titan (Lovesick #2)

Lynn’s new concoction worked wonders for a while, but as Danny recovered, his metabolism sped up again without having to expend as many resources healing.

Soon, like he was more accustomed to, he burned through everything too quickly to dull the pain or to help him sleep.

He found himself staring at the ceiling much of the time. Or at Mal.

They had to roll Mal over every so often, since he couldn’t move on his own. The first time they rolled him away from Danny, the sight of his back made Danny’s breath catch. The scar was gruesome, deep and jagged from however Ludgate had torn the glass free.

Danny eventually slept and discovered in the morning that it had been two days since the fight.

By day three, his scars were only the faintest grooves, so he asked for a mirror and only grimaced slightly at the mess of his face.

He had a wicked scar through his hairline, but as it healed, the hair was coming back in rapidly.

Maybe the most soothing part was being able to hold the mirror without any fear of his reflection.

He could eat normally too and finally convinced Lynn to let him try standing. Even though he ached everywhere, sitting up on the edge of the bed was only a minor struggle. Standing was harder, but he coped and padded slowly across the room to reach Mal’s bed.

Dom stood on the other side, while Lucy came up to Danny to help guide him closer. It felt so natural to have them both there. Dom had left from time to time, Priestly and Oz had come in occasionally, but Lucy only ever went out to the bathroom or to shower. She always came back.

Danny had insisted that he didn’t need to be watched over every minute.

They all had the right to sleep at home, get real rest, and could come to visit him while still living their lives.

But since Lucy was also there for Mal, she refused to follow suit.

Which meant she and Danny had enjoyed several long conversations when it was just the two of them, including one around three in the morning that they hadn’t finished until the sun came up and Andre arrived with coffee.

Lucy had regaled Danny with the few happy memories she could recall from childhood, mostly of Mal whisking her away for birthdays out of their father’s sight or to see movies in the projector room of a rundown theater without paying.

Mal faced Dom’s side of the bed, so Danny reached out tentatively to trace his fingers along the new scar. The muscles jumped, twitched from contact, but nothing they’d done, nothing Lynn had tried, had made any difference. Mal just kept sleeping.

“I have an idea,” Danny said. “I don’t think I can do it yet, but…if I’m up to it tomorrow, I want to try.”

“What are you thinking, Danny?” Lynn asked from behind him.

He pulled his hand back, then lifted the other to fold over Lucy’s on his arm. “What if all he needs is one more jolt?”

R

The morning of day four, when Mal still hadn’t opened his eyes, Danny didn’t care if he felt weak, it had to be enough.

The others who had been there when he awoke were all present, with Priestly added, peering curiously from the doorway to see what Danny would do.

He’d made them all leave the med room, concerned what his lightning might do if it got out of control, since they still didn’t fully understand what it had done to Mal.

Standing in front of him, Danny reached one hand around Mal’s back to touch the scar and held the other over his heart. Then he started to spark.

He’d shocked others, traveled with people, used his lightning in so many ways, but only Mal had ever experienced Danny giving himself over fully as he had when they were together.

He’d done the same when summoning his lightning to take down Ludgate.

If that had saved Mal, then Danny had to believe that one more try would wake him up.

Feeling the energy course through him, his eyes glowed brighter as his lightning jolted around him, snapping like static at any nearby metal surface. He held his palms to Mal’s skin and whispered, “Please…don’t leave me alone when I’ve only just found you.”

Ice stirred in Mal, Danny could feel it, then see it as frost began to form from the places Danny touched, expanding over Mal’s skin until it covered every inch of him.

When a gasp broke the collective quiet, Danny gasped too.

R

Mal choked on the rush of air entering his lungs, not even fully remembering that he had taken a breath.

He just knew he felt like his heart was going to explode, and he didn’t know how to slow it down.

Gripping the wrist of the hand held over his chest, he felt the steady thrum of a hummingbird’s heartbeat— Danny .

Before Mal could look up to see if Danny was really there, a pop reverberated like every lightbulb in the area had exploded, and the room went dark. Had Mal imagined it? Was Danny with him? The last thing he remembered was all that glass and Danny lying on the ground, still and bloody.

“Da…” he tried to call for him, but his voice caught from how fast his heart was beating, almost like it was trying to sync with the speed of Danny’s lightning.

“Mal!” Danny’s voice called to him out of the dark.

Maybe Mal was dead, and they were reuniting on the other side.

Maybe Mal was in Hell, and Danny would always remain just out of reach.

The hand was wrenched from Mal’s grasp, and the moment he was fully out of contact with it, Mal wheezed as his heart finally started to slow down.

Realizing how impossible it was that it didn’t hurt, that he wasn’t in pain, Mal merely felt like he’d been shocked and couldn’t come down from the initial jolt of… well, Danny . It had to be Danny.

He felt the deep chill of his ice start to fade as if it had been summoned to protect him.

Voices swarmed around his head, and he tried to focus.

New hands replaced the first, smaller, firmer hands, and he was rolled onto his back.

He readied himself for it to sting like hell, only it didn’t.

Ludgate had stabbed him; why wasn’t his back sore?

He wriggled his toes, just to be certain he could.

He wasn’t paralyzed, he could feel all of his body, there just wasn’t any pain.

Maybe even sad, old thieves got to go to Heaven.

“Malcolm, open your eyes. Look at me,” Lynn said .

Blinking, he squinted at the dim blue lighting that started to come on around them—the emergency lights? Was he in the morgue? Before he could ask, he caught a glimpse of Lynn’s face and then a shock of brighter light as she flashed a penlight in his eyes.

“Shit, doc…don’t blind me,” Mal said, his voice hoarse but not as winded as he expected. “Trying to focus here.”

“ Mickey …oh thank god.” Lucy. She was here too. She was safe.

“Give me room,” Lynn said, but Mal had to know, he had to be sure it hadn’t been an illusion. Because Danny was there, but Danny was dead . If Mal was alive…

“Danny…” he called, this time getting the name out, blinking past the spots Lynn had left behind in his vision, hand reaching out in the direction he thought Danny had been.

A strong hand gripped his, and in the shadowed lighting, as the spots cleared, Mal saw a familiar silhouette and a big dopey smile.

While Lynn continued to protest, Mal reached up with his other hand and pulled Danny down until their foreheads touched. He was real. He was there. He was alive .

“Sparky,” Mal choked on the emotions threatening to spill out with his words, “don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“ Me ?” Danny balked. “You’re the one who’s been in a coma for days.”

Days?

Their foreheads and hands were pried apart, as Lynn edged in and began to look Mal over without the awful penlight.

Mal could hear Andre and Priestly arguing in the background over how to get the lights back on.

He could hear Lucy half-laughing, half-crying as she talked hushed with Stella.

He could hear Dom’s gentle murmurs. He could hear so many voices distantly, but it was Danny’s he focused on because he had been so certain he’d never see him again.

“I’m fine,” Mal insisted when Lynn kept on well after Mal could clearly see and hear everyone, even sat up halfway to look around. “Just getting my bearings. Nothing even hurts. Ow!”

She’d pinched him. “Just checking,” she shrugged.

“I’m fine ,” Mal said again, feeling more and more exposed as he lay there with a throng of people watching him while he was bare-chested, which was a privilege to be earned, not something just anyone got to gawk at. “Can someone get me some clothes?”

“On it!” Andre offered.

Mal tried to sit up fully, much to Lynn’s horror, but as soon as he got to about a forty-five degree angle, he lay back down. The room spun. And he felt nauseous. And okay…maybe his back was a little sore now that his body had caught up with his mind.

“Take it slow,” Lynn said. “You’re not healing at Danny’s speed, just…close to it. You’ll need a few days before you can get out of bed.”

“Close to it?” Mal frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“For once, Mickey,” Lucy said as she sidled up next to him and took his hand, “it’s okay to listen to the voice of authority. Stay in bed. We’ll explain.”

Lynn crossed her arms with a look that said she was judge, jury, and executioner here.

“Wouldn’t dream of disobeying,” Mal said. “Now what’d I miss?”

He didn’t much care for the chaos that followed and the many faces—much as they were the faces of friends and…

well, people he was still a little surprised he considered friends.

Dom gave him an unsympathetic look and said to stop being a lazy ass and get better already, coz she’d been getting bored waiting on him to wake up.

The subtle shift of softness at the end of the phrase was only something Mal would notice.