Page 107 of Walking in Darkness

“I don’t know.” Despondency filled the words. “Not without her.”

“She’s going to be okay. I can feel it. Like you said, there was a reason I was drawn here. I have to believe it made an impact. Changed a path the way it changed mine. A wrong that was righted.”

“Thank you for listening to it. I don’t know what would have happened if ...” It died on my tongue, the trauma of it too much to bear.

It’d been close.

Too close.

Since the day I’d come to her in the flesh, Aria had said over and over again that she didn’t know how much time we had. Had urged that we couldn’t waste a moment of it. While I’d refused to give her end any consideration.

But it’d been right there, dragging her into the nether. One second from stealing her away from me.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

Jill shifted on her feet. Sadness flooded the movement when her shoulder came up to touch her ear. “I’m not sure. My nursing days are over.”

“But it doesn’t seem your saving days are.”

Tenderness weaved through her demeanor, and the words were soggy when she answered, “Maybe they aren’t.”

Then she cleared her throat, picked up the bag from the floor, and placed it on the bed. She pulled out the stethoscope and the blood pressure cuff. She checked them both while I waited, antsy for even a bit of good news.

I breathed out some of the angst I was holding when she delivered it.

“She’s stable, and her heartbeat sounds even stronger than the last time I checked. I’m going to give her a shot with an antibiotic to keep her from getting an infection.”

She pulled a syringe from the bag, uncapped it, then filled it from a small vial. She pulled the blanket down far enough so she could tug the hem of Aria’s sleep pants down to her hip and gave her the shot. Then she set an orange prescription bottle on the dresser.

“If she wakes up in pain, give her two of these. She can have two every four hours. I’ll come check on her tomorrow, but you ...” Her eyes were intense. “Stay close to her. She needs to rest, but I think she needs you more.”

My nod was tight. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good.”

Then she packed her things and headed for the door, pausing for a moment to look back at us.

Emotion brimmed in the space. The tether that tied her to Aria stretching taut.

Then she turned and disappeared down the hall.

A minute later, Dani came in with Aria’s duffel. “We should clean her up.”

I gave a tight nod, and Dani helped me undress Aria, ridding her of the soiled, tattered fabric.

Dani balled all of it up and stuffed it into a plastic bag, which she tied off to be discarded.

Then she moved into the en suite bathroom and returned with two warm washcloths. Together, we carefully cleaned up the blood that had dried all the way across Aria’s stomach and sides and down her legs, avoiding the large bandage where Jill had already cleaned her.

Then we re-dressed her in only a T-shirt, keeping her as still as we could, no words said as we worked together in a quiet, fluid understanding.

Aria moaned from the depths of her sleep. It might have been incoherent, dull and distant, but I thought it might have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

Dani stayed with Aria while I showered. I had to wash off the blood I was covered in.

Red-tinged water pooled at my feet, swirling as if it were trying to suck me down with it before it disappeared down the drain.

While I fought the dread that bound and festered.