The darkness consumes me. It surrounds me, filling my senses and carrying me deeper and deeper down, until it’s all I know.
This is what crossing over feels like.
Part of me aches as her face swims into my mind’s eye, then slowly recedes. I can feel myself sinking even deeper, knowing that even if I wanted to fight it I can’t, not anymore.
Suddenly I feel a touch. A warmth. Skin, brushing the knuckles of my hand.
And the sinking sensation stops, as if this faint, feather touch is a lifeline snagged around my soul, holding me back. Keeping me somewhere between life and death.
Time passes. Seconds, minutes. Eons? I have no fucking idea. Time doesn’t exist here in the void between being and not being. At a certain point, I hear sounds. Voices, maybe. Or just the ghosts and demons from my past hungering for me in Hell.
Waiting for me.
The muffled sound comes again, like a voice spoken across an ocean. Then the touch against my hand disappears. The lifeline snaps.
I sink untethered and weightless into the darkness.
Then it swallows me whole.
Beep.
Beep.
I flinch in the deep, dark abyss. A pinpoint of light pings in the darkness. Not even light. Just a faint, throbbing suggestion of light. Pulsing, like a blip on a radar screen, or a heartbeat—
My heartbeat.
Suddenly, it feels like I’m floating and rising out of the inky blackness.
Beep.
Beep.
The light flashes more frequently now. Brighter. And it begins to linger, like the sun slowly rising instead of just the tiny pricks of light piercing the darkness. Then, all at once, it’s blindingly bright, making me flinch as air—real air—floods my lungs.
I’m fucking awake.
Chaos and panic sink their claws into me. I choke, my body going into panic mode when I realize there’s something lodged in my throat.
“Ares!”
I can hear the voice calling my name. But I can’t see shit except the blinding white light shining into my very soul. I snarl, choking as my hands move towards my mouth. Well, one does. The other hurts like a motherfucker, and no matter what my brain tells it to do it remains motionless.
The hand the does make it to my mouth claws at the plastic tubing shoved down my throat.
“Ares!! No!! Hades! Stop him!!”
No. There’s nothing that will stop me from getting this goddamn tube out of my throat. I groan, wincing at the pain as I yank the fucking thing free. I retch, twisting as the bile rises, and immediately hissing as pain lances through my ribs.
“Ares! Stay the fuck down, broth—”
I flail at the voice, throwing a wild punch that hits nothing. The light begins to bleed at the edges, dark shapes hovering in the white mist around me. I flail at the shapes again, before there’s a soft grip on my wrist, pushing it back down.
“You have to stop, Ares.”
I pause, my pulse racing and the beeps around me shrieking like an alarm.
I know that voice.
My eyes blink and my pulse thuds as the mist begins to clear. As the last remnants of purgatory, or limbo, wherever the fuck I just was, slip away from me.
Suddenly, I’m very much awake.
I blink, my breath catching as I look up into two familiar faces, lined with concern.
Hades, and the soft touch on my arm holding me down belongs to my sister. When I manage to focus on them both, relief floods their faces.
“Holy fuck, man…” Hades chokes.
Callie starts to cry, and I don’t even mind the pain that stabs into me as she hugs me fiercely.
“Where—”
“You’re in Allegheny General Hospital.”
“Where…”
Hades frowns, like I’m being slow and not getting it.
“In Pittsburgh, man. The local clinic Cillian got you to choppered you over here as soon as—”
My lips curl as my good hand reaches up and claws at his arm, yanking him closer.
“Where the fuck is Neve.”
Hades glances at my sister.
“WHERE THE FUCK—”
“She’s here, Ares!” Callie nods quickly, taking my hand in hers. “She’s here, too. She’s recovering.”
My heart leaps. The machine next to me pings crazily like a fucking Geiger counter at Chernobyl. My eyes dart side to side, and for the first time I see the vast array of tubes, wires, sensors, and other shit connecting me to the stack of machines next to my bed.
“She was in really bad shape when you were flown in,” Callie chokes. “You both were. I…we…”
She chokes as the tears flood her face.
“We thought you were dead,” Hades murmurs quietly, his face grim as he drops a hand to my good shoulder.
My jaw clenches as my eyes lock with his.
“Where is she?”
He frowns. “Resting. The doctors say she’s going to be—Ares!”
He moves to stop me as I start to sit up in the bed. Fuck. Everything hurts. A lot. My abdomen feels like it got run over by a tank. And my arm…I frown when I turn to really look at it.
Fuck, that’s not good.
I blink, struggling to take in all the bandages, tubes, IV drips, and the cage-like device keeping my left shoulder and arm immobile. I’m clearly on a fuckload of painkillers. Even so, when I try and flex my shoulder, the agony is almost overwhelming.
“Ares, stop, man!” Hades hisses, trying to get me to lie back down. “In case you forgot, that fucking maniac shot you.”
“No, he didn’t.”
I shove his hands away, shutting out the searing pain that almost makes me throw up. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, ignoring my siblings as they scream at me.
“Fucking stop, man!” Hades hisses, trying to uncurl my fingers from the side of the bed.
“Ares! Please!” Callie blurts, trying to pull me back.
I shake them both off with a fierce snarl.
“I am going to my fucking wife,” I hiss, my gaze stabbing into them both. “You can let me crawl there and maybe bleed out on the way. Or you can fucking help. Either way, I’m getting out of this goddamn bed.”
Callie glares at me, her lips tight.
Hades sighs heavily. “Such a fucking stubborn dickhead,” he grunts. “Fine.”
“Hades…”
He glances at our sister.
“Hey, if you want to physically restrain him, be my guest.”
She glares at the two of us before finally gritting her teeth.
“Goddammit.”
They’re both clearly not happy about it, but they do help me to stand. The room spins. The machine behind me starts having a shitfit before I grab the tubes, IVs, and sensors attached to my body and stuck into my veins and start to rip them off. No fucking way am I going to let Neve see me with all these tubes in me.
“Jesus, Ares…” Hades mutters as the machines behind me have a collective aneurism and then fall silent.
I swallow.
“Let’s go.”
Slowly, painfully, I half-walk, half-drag myself from the room and down the hall.
“Ares…”
I turn at the fresh concern in Callie’s voice. I glance at my wound, and see the blood seeping through the bandages over it.
Shit.
“Keep going,” I growl.
We keep going.
“Hey, what did you mean ‘no, he didn’t’?” Hades glances sidelong at me as I shuffle past a horrified-looking patient on crutches. “Seamus shot—”
“He didn’t shoot me,” I grunt. “I shot me.”
Hade’ faces pales as he stares at me.
“What?”
I groan. “Just fucking get me to—”
“Mr. Drakos!” A stunned orderly steps in front of us, waving his hands and shaking his head violently. “What the hell are you doing!?” His eyes snap to my two siblings. “Are you two out of your minds?! He needs to be lying down in bed!”
“Move,” I snarl.
“Mr. Drakos! Your wound is reopening—”
He goes to stop me. Hades throws an arm out.
“I’d think twice about trying to talk him down right now.”
The orderly looks between Hades and me. “You need—”
“I need to see my wife. And you’d better have a fucking army hidden up your ass if you want to change that.” I turn to Callie and Hades. “Let’s go.”
We shove past the orderly, who’s still screaming at me. I ignore him as my siblings lead me around the corner and to another room. Hades swings the door open, and my heart climbs into my throat when I see her.
“Ares!”
I ignore my sister’s cry as I yank myself free of both of them and half-run, half-fall across the room until I crash into the side of Neve’s bed. Her eyes flutter open, and her whole face instantly crumples as her gaze finds mine.
“Ares…”
She sobs as I clutch her to me, holding her tight, like I’m never going to let her fucking go. I kiss her forehead and her hair as she cries into my chest and clings to me.
“I love you,” I hiss into her hair. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”
“I love you too.”
I love her.
I’m also losing consciousness.
The lights fade, and suddenly I’m slumping into her as it all goes black again.
