Read Never Online

Authors: K. D. Mcentire

Never (3 page)

BOOK: Never
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Grabbing the conch-handle, Wendy yanked on the dreamscape door.

It opened…and she slipped through.

“AGAIN!” The paddles hummed and zapped. For a brief moment the room was silent and then…

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Got her,” the ER doctor said, stepping back from Wendy's body. Only Piotr, hovering close by, noticed the trembling of his hands. “Whew. That was a close one, huh?”

“You ignored her DNR,” growled Jenna, the intake nurse. “I'm reporting you.”

“Go ahead,” the doctor said, wiping his brow and turning his back. “Do your job. I did mine.”

“DNRs exist for a reason,” she hissed, fingers pressed on the thin tattoo peeking over the edge of her scrubs. “I hope you enjoyed playing the hero.” With that, she turned and flounced out.

“Don't mind her, doc,” the head nurse said, piling gelpacks around Wendy's legs; now that she was stabilized, the ER staff could relax. “Do-Not-Resuscitate or not, no one in their right mind would've let this kid die. Not over a fever.”

The spirits in the room glanced at one another as the nurses and attendants filed out. Soon only Wendy, the dead, and the doctor remained.

Wendy's salvation had been a close one, but only the ghosts knew
just
how close.

“I can't believe that worked,” Eddie finally said to Piotr, breaking the taut silence. “I can't believe you pulled that off. But…
how
? How did you manage to make him change his mind?”

Piotr's fingers burned where he'd been knuckle-deep in the
doctor's neck—he could still feel the ghost of the doctor's living bones, sense the thrum of blood and energy cupping against his palm as he'd ordered the doctor to save Wendy, despite Jenna waving the DNR paperwork and demanding otherwise. It shouldn't have worked…and now a whole world of strange and uncomfortable questions needed to be answered.

“Eddie is correct,” Lily murmured, joining Piotr at Wendy's side, watching the measured rise and fall of her chest and avoiding the doctor making notes at the end of the bed. “This sudden interaction with the living is troubling, Piotr. Discerning how you managed such a feat—”

“Does it matter, Pocahontas?” Elle demanded, patting her pincurls. “He got the job done, didn't he? Case closed!”

Eddie shook his head sharply. “Are you kidding me? Piotr shouldn't be touching
anyone
until he knows what he's doing. He could be hurting people!”

“This point is quite valid,” Lily agreed, tapping her fingers on her elbows. “Piotr's new ability—”

“Is a blessing!” Elle protested angrily. “And you two dunderheads want him to just forget he even—”

“Shh,” Piotr hushed them. “Look.”

The gray of the room slowly lit up, until Wendy's spirit—pale and not nearly as luminous as her Lightbringer form, but still much brighter than the other spirits—sat up in bed.

“Turns out,” she said, rubbing her chest with one hand and scowling, “that getting a ton of electricity pumped through you hurts. Oooowww.”

Eddie, startled, jumped aside, passing through the new IV drip and ending up halfway in and halfway out of a small stack of chairs beside the bed. “You're alive…dead…you're okay!” He leapt toward Wendy and grabbed her in a bear hug, hauling her off the bed in his exuberance. “Oh man, Wendy, don't you ever do that to me again! I…we…look, lady, we almost lost you, okay? Just…just don't do that.”

Sniffling, he pulled her close and held her, rocking back and forth on his heels. Wendy hugged him tightly, smiling. She looked happy that Eddie was so happy. She glanced over his shoulder, and Piotr, only a few feet away, shifted from side to side and looked uncomfortably at the floor, the ceiling, her body on the bed…anywhere but at Wendy's spirit.

“Eddie…Eds, I'm okay. I promise. See?” Wendy untangled herself from her best friend's embrace. “Strong like ox, I am. Tough like bull. Grrrr.” She flexed an arm and then jokingly punched him in the shoulder. “No worries.”

“Always worries with you these days,” Eddie replied, cupping Wendy by the back of the neck and drawing her forward so that their foreheads were touching. “You scared…all of us. Seriously.”

Piotr cleared his throat and Eddie pulled away, squeezing Wendy's upper arms as he drew back.

“I don't know what the fuss is all about with you two. I'm hotter than he is by far,” Eddie said loudly, flashing Piotr a cheeky, taunting grin. “I'm still not giving up on you and me. Just sayin’. But why don't you give Rasputin over there some lovin’, just to be fair? Give the sucker a chance to compete against my awesomeness and all that.”

“Eddie, you're impossible,” Wendy said with mock seriousness, bussing Eddie on the cheek. Then she turned to Piotr.

“Wendy,” he said gravely.

“Piotr,” she replied, approaching him and brushing the hair off his face, exposing the scar beneath. Then her other hand snuck up on the other side until she was cupping his face in her hands.

“No hello, Piotr?” she asked. He shuddered.


Net
,” Piotr said, licking his lips. He couldn't meet her eyes.

“You know,” she said absently, “hugging Eddie and then touching you…it's so different. Eddie's skin is kind of familiar-feeling, like regular flesh but slightly more flexible. Thinner to the touch, maybe? But you…”

Piotr held stone-still as Wendy ran her hands along his face. He knew that touching him must be incredibly strange for her, an entirely different experience from the tentative way they'd been forced to touch before—under her hands he realized for the first time that his skin was smooth and firm, cool, and he knew that the only flaw her fingers would find was the ridge of scar tissue and the stubble along his jaw line. Over the past few months Piotr had begun to accept the fact that, amid the other souls, he alone was different, solid and firm, unbending, and ultimately unbreakable. He was a statue in a world of fluttering tissue paper.

“I merely wished to give you time to acclimate to the Never,” he whispered to break the tension of her examining touch and the confusing emotions that were always coupled with his semi-permanence in a universe designed to tear souls down. “It is…difficult at first.”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “Are all dead guys so decorous? Come here, you skinny lug.” Dropping her examination, she flung open her arms and hugged him tightly. “I missed you, too. Don't let the Walkers make a pincushion out of you next time.” She rested her head on Piotr's shoulder and Piotr tried not to notice that Eddie's expression had gone from pleasure to chagrin.

“We can touch,” Piotr marveled, threading his fingers through Wendy's, palms pressed flush, neither of them too hot or too cold. For the first time in their relationship, Piotr and Wendy were finally on equal terms.

“Wow,” Wendy said. “No worries about me reaping you, either. I know I have to get back in my body sooner rather than later, but you gotta admit, this is kind of awesome.”

“Wrap up the kissy-face crap and let's blow this pop stand. I'm not getting any deader here,” Elle demanded.

Wendy drew back. Eddie stood near the door, his face turned away, and Piotr had a moment of dismay. As annoying and amusing as he found Eddie, he knew that it was impossible for Wendy to not worry about him—about his feelings or otherwise. Wendy was a
generous soul; Piotr had come to terms with the fact that Wendy loved Eddie just as much as she did him…just in a different way.

Piotr forced some emotional distance. Eddie was a big boy; he could make his own decisions. He wanted to wait for Wendy, fine, Piotr wouldn't stand in his way. It might not be fair to allow such unbending devotion, but that was Wendy's choice to make, not Piotr's.

“Agreed,” Lily said, rising to her feet. “Reapers are about, as well. We must be cautious.”

Wendy pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail as the ghosts headed for the doorway. “Reapers? Are you sure?”

“There's a tatted-up nurse floating around the floor. Maybe she's not a Reaper per se, but she pushed
hard
to follow your DNR and got pretty pissy when Pete got the doc to ignore your paperwork.”

“A DNR?” Wendy paled. “I don't have a DNR. What person in their right mind—” She broke off abruptly, furious. “Oh, those
bitches
. Seriously? How the hell do they manage to pull those strings so
fast
? Doesn't paperwork like that require a notary or something?”

“Elise?” Elle asked, examining her fingers and picking idly at the ragged edge of one thumbnail.

“Elise,” Wendy confirmed, sneering. “Or Jane. Though it's mind-boggling that they'd go to such lengths to get me out of the way. Mocking up a DNR? It's just…”

“Then, for your protection and our own, we ought to leave,” Lily reminded them, glancing out into the hallway. Her body was one taut line, her fleeting expression grave and tense.

“Speaking of your family,” Eddie added as Lily eased into the hall to make sure the coast was clear, “did you know that Jon and Chel can see us?”

Wendy frowned. “Jane…Jane said as much. Before. But I didn't believe her.”

Eddie patted Wendy on the shoulder. “Well, she's telling the truth. Sorry, hun.”

“No. No. It sucks,” Wendy sighed, “but it makes a sick sort of sense.”

Lily led the way to the waiting room where Wendy's younger sister crunched up on a small loveseat, dozing uneasily. Her bleached blonde hair was tangled in a sweaty mass beneath her head and a jacket had been slung over her torso, the sleeves dragging the floor. Chel's twin, Jon, slouched in a chair beside the loveseat, paging half-heartedly through a
Life & Style
magazine, and examining the recipe section with only a modicum of interest.

“Healthy or not, those cookies look awful,” Wendy said, leaning over the back of the chair and purposefully murmuring directly into Jon's ear. “Kind of like baked gravel, right? Clean that colon!”

“Could be worse,” Jon replied without glancing up from the magazine. “They could be…oh. Um. Hi, Wendy?” He reddened as if he'd been caught paging through something dirtier than
Life & Style
. “I, uh, didn't see you walk in.” Jon chewed his lip, having trouble looking at her, and Piotr knew that he wanted to say something about her current incorporeal state but wasn't sure how exactly to begin. Polite but scared; Jon to the core.

“I'm not surprised,” Wendy murmured, gingerly patting her brother's shoulder to put him at ease. “There are a
lot
of ghosts wandering the halls tonight. It's kind of weird, actually.”

“You're telling me,” Jon grumbled, finally looking her over. He nodded once, face grave. “This place has been spook central the past hour or so—people walking through walls left and right. It's just creepy. I'd give anything to go back to normal. A gunshot grandma gushing everywhere just ain't right, you know?”

“You get used to it,” Wendy sighed. “Wake up Chel and we'll bail, okay? Let's go home.”

“Righty-roo,” Jon agreed amicably, leaning over and poking his twin in the shoulder. “Yo, sleeping buffy! Arise and greet the day! Or the rest of the night. Whatever.”

Chel opened her eyes and glared. “Is she dead?”

“Nice, thanks,” Wendy snarked. “Good to see you, too.”

“What happened?” Chel asked, yawning.

“I did die, but they brought me back.” Wendy knocked a loose fist against her breastbone. “Pumped me with enough voltage to become a supervillain, though. Bzzzt.”

Chel, grimacing, sat up on the loveseat, Jon's coat falling to the floor. “Great,” she yawned, grabbing her purse with one hand as she rubbed her eyes with the other. “Glad you're not dead anymore.”

“Wendy wants us to boogie,” Jon added. “Let's go.”

They gathered their things and were preparing to leave when a monster of a man—well over six feet tall, with a thick head of gray hair and a trimmed beard—bounded into the room. His shoulders filled the frame and the reflection of the ceiling lights on his glasses hid his eyes. According to the card dangling around his neck, his name was Dr. Kensington. He was smiling; his teeth were huge and white, straight and sharp.

Wendy watched Piotr, shivering, cover his neck with one hand.

“Ah, there you are!” the doctor said. His tone might be called jovial but his eyes were not pleased; they glared. “I'm glad I caught you!”

“Um, good?” Jon said, glancing at Wendy.

Dr. Kensington clapped a hand on Jon's shoulder, shifting him away from the door. “Please, Miss Darling, Mr. Darling, take a seat. I need to speak with you.”

“How about ‘no’? We're tired and going home,” Chel said. She bared her teeth in an expression that tried to be a smile, but like the doctor, her mouth didn't match her eyes.

“Now, now, no need to be rude.” the doctor said, guiding Jon firmly by the shoulder back to the loveseat, and then pushing with one meaty hand until he sat.

“Sort of stressed out,” Chel replied, looking everywhere in the room but at him. “Not really caring about how rude I am at the moment.”

“Ah yes. About that.” The doctor turned on his heel and walked to the doorway where the dark-haired nurse from the emergency room, Jenna, was waiting. Smirking, she handed the doctor a clipboard.

The doctor rifled through the papers. “Now, I'll need you to clear something up for me. This is your sister's second visit to the hospital in how many weeks?”

“Well she's been here—” Jon started, pausing when Chel kicked him. “Wait,” he said slowly, “why do you care?”

BOOK: Never
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