Dead in Time

Chapter Twenty-Two

I should, by rights, probably not have survived the shooting. Bits of me should have been splattered all over Jessica’s rose bushes, leaving nothing but stubborn stains on the patio and a sad, crumpled pile of uselessness. When I opened my eyes into total darkness, I assumed that’s what had happened. However, I didn’t feel dead. That, of course, begs the question of how that should feel… which probably isn’t a question that ought to be answered.

There didn’t seem to be much shape to me. No weight of body nor the intensity of pain I’d felt. Hard to tell whether that was good or bad.

The familiar touch of a well-known palm smoothed the forehead I might or might not have had, and other fingers squeezed my hands. Something wet nudged my leg. I wanted to move but couldn’t, which seemed weird, because a definite sensation of movement appeared to be involved somehow. Just maybe not associated with me. Or not-me. Whatever I was.

“Stop thinkin’ about it, baby. It’s complicated enough, yeah?” 

Day. I opened… other eyes. Mine, but not mine. Me but not me. Like being inside myself, the me of dreams and other waking oddities. He spun into focus somewhere to my left, looking concerned, the neckline of a purple smock riding low against one shoulder, fabric striped with gathered bands of beaded red lurex at the elbows. He twisted the hem of one flared sleeve in his fingers, mouth drawn into a tight bow.

Muffled forms, noises, and colours battled for acknowledgment around me. Beeping things, rattling things, voices… words like ‘hemithorax’ and ‘shock’. I couldn’t quite identify them. I tried to sit up, but unseen hands held me back. Shapes I knew I should recognise—did recognise—buoyed around me, in all their impossible, invisible familiarity. Sound, smell and touch… the same-shaped pieces of existence I’d never thought to see again, and yet couldn’t see. Not truly. They floated just out of reach, flimsy whispers ever so slightly beyond proper hearing, beyond seeing.

Nice job, Tiger Cub.

That hand on my head again, the bubble of laughter that wasn’t quite there. Mum, Granddad, Gran… the wet thing at my knee, a nose. Pepper, the spaniel we had when I was tiny. I wrestled again for movement but it wouldn’t come. Damon touched my cheek, the backs of warm, firm fingers against my skin, the sweep of a thumb across my lips. The smell of cigarette smoke and soggy carnations, with overtones of white musk, sandalwood, and nutmeg. I couldn’t work out if I was heading his way, or he mine. Kohl-banded eyes narrowed, and that muscle in his jaw jumped to a silent beat.

“I ain’t ’avin’ it,” he said after a moment. “It ain’t fair.”

I’d have made some comment or other, pushed for at least a little bit of explanation as to what the hell was going on, but everything kept slipping away from under me.

He faded… I faded. What little focus I’d had—what little ability to see, to feel—petered away into emptiness and deposited me back into a dark sea, nothing to latch on to but myself.

Kata ton daimona eaytoy, I supposed.

* * *

About two days later, give or take, I woke up. From the smell of disinfectant, the rhythmic bleeping, and the pervasively shiny beigeness of everything, it became apparent that I was in a hospital. A Nigerian nurse of generous dimensions and capacious cheerfulness confirmed this suspicion and assured me I had been incredibly lucky. Still snared to the bed with a nest of tubes, I couldn’t do much about that but croak a weak expletive. She laughed and said it was good I’d started to feel better.

Doctors, nurses, and police officers drifted in and out during that first afternoon, with careful explanations and cautious questions. I owed my life to Joss, they said. He’d wrested the gun from Jessica, administered first aid, radioed Ms. Brooks to get the ambulance. Taken control for what might have been the first time in thirty years. The general consensus appeared to be that, if the ten gauge had been loaded with buckshot instead of smaller birdshot pellets, if Joss hadn’t grabbed the gun just before she fired, altered the angle of the shot, if I hadn’t leapt for cover like I had… I wouldn’t have made it. I was—my surgical consultant explained—the happy child of circumstance and should feel extremely grateful that my injuries were not more severe.