In Dark Woods (Signal Bend Series #4.5) Read Free

still, unconscious through the worst of the medieval mechanisms he was bolted into to ensure that his body would remain completely immobile. When they were satisfied that his death was no longer imminent, when he was breathing again on his own, when he had healed enough that he was out of the cage of a bed he’d been in and their concern about infection had abated, when they were beginning to want to talk to her about a prognosis that extended beyond the next hour, the next day, then they weaned him off his coma cocktail.
    “They.” Except for Tasha, who wasn’t officially one of his doctors, Lilli had been unable to distinguish among the several specialists who traipsed through their room daily. Still in battle mode, but with no battle she could fight, she could focus on nothing but the man lying in the bed at her side. All of her attention, all of her will, was on him.
    They weaned him off the meds, but he didn’t wake. Except for a subtle increase in his heart rate, there was no change. He slept on. And Lilli sat at his side and let the world move on without them.
     

TWO
     
    Bright. So bright. And loud.
    The bright dimmed suddenly.
    “Isaac? Isaac? Oh, God! Isaac! Hey, love. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
    He didn’t understand.
     
    ~oOo~
     
    “Can you talk to me, love? Can you hear me? Isaac, please.”
    Lilli. He blinked and saw her. He tried to reach out to her, but he wasn’t in his body. Where was his body? Where was he?
    Lilli.
    He felt her hand on his face, brushing something cool and wet from his temple.
    “It’s okay, love. I’m here. We’re here. We’re okay.”
     
    ~oOo~
     
    The room was crowded with people he didn’t know. Standing over him, looking down at him, not a single familiar f ace. He knew where he was now. He didn’t know why, but he recognized the sounds and smells. All he could see was the ceiling, the top of some apparatus, and the faces looming over him, but he recognized a hospital. He’d been in them often enough.
    But he couldn’t see Lilli. He needed Lilli.
    “Lilli.” Nothing but a raspy squeak came from a throat he now felt to be scraped raw.
    But she heard him.
    “I’m here. I’m here, love. I’m here.” She pushed aside the man who had been closest to him, and her smiling, tearful face hovered above him. She looked pale and thin—was she sick? Was it she who was the patient? No. No. It was him.
    He reached out to touch her face, but his body was still missing. “Lilli?”
    That time, he made her name. He tried again, and it was stronger, “Sport? What—”
    “Shhh, love. It’s going to be okay. ”
     
    ~oOo~
     
    “So that’s what we know at this point. Do you have any questions?”
    The doctor looked down at him. There was something profoundly disorienting about having a conversation—any conversation, let alone this conversation—from flat on your back, while everyone else looked down at you.
    Isaac closed his eyes. “No.”
    “I know it seems bleak. It’s good news that your arms feel numb. Feeling numb is different from actually being numb. There’s communication going on, and that’s promising. There’s a chance that you might get at least some real mobility and use back in your arms and hands, then. And Isaac, honestly. That you are conscious at all…in my private opinion, that’s God’s work.”
    He laughed bitterly, but it came out a strangled whine. “God can fuck himself.”
    “What’s next, Doctor?” Lilli was standing at his side. He could turn his head just enough to see her, and he knew that her hand was on his arm. He could feel the weight of that hand, but not the warm silk of her skin. As if his arm had been injected with Novocain. He could not touch her. He could not hold her. He might never hold her, never feel her, ever again.
    He could move nothing but his head and neck , and those were mostly constrained by a hard brace. He still didn’t know why, what had happened. He only knew that he was trapped on his