Chapter 248: He Can’t Be Dead

The slam of the double doors wasn’t enough to stop him. Nothing on this earth was strong enough to hold back a shattered Alpha whose world had just flatlined.

Reid threw his whole weight against the glass doors, the heavy locks snapping with a sickening metallic screech. He shoved past the terrified nurses and orderlies, stumbling blindly into the cold, quiet surgical suite. The sharp, suffocating stench of copper and iron filled the air.

On the center table, beneath the harsh white light, Kain lay completely still. His face was already draining of color, turning a waxen, porcelain pale, his head tilted uselessly to the side. The monitor beside him threw out a flat, unbroken line, echoing a single, relentless tone across the pristine walls.

"REID, DON’T!" Dr. Desmond shouted, his hands dripping crimson as he stepped back, exhausted and trembling.

"IT’S A LIE! IT’S A FUCKING LIE!" Reid screamed, his voice tearing raw from his throat, echoing off the tile in wild, jagged bursts. "IT’S NOT REAL! KAIN ISN’T DEAD! HE’S NOT DEAD!"

He lunged forward, grabbing Dr. Desmond by the lapels of his surgical gown, violently yanking the older man off his feet. Reid’s eyes were bloodshot, his face flushed a violent, blotchy red, tears raining down his cheeks as his broad frame shook uncontrollably.

"YOU’RE HIDING SOMETHING, AREN’T YOU?!" Reid roared, his hands twisting into the fabric, shaking Desmond with terrifying force. "TELL ME! YOU’RE FAKING THIS, AREN’T YOU?! GET SOMEONE AND TELL ME THIS IS A NIGHTMARE! TELL ME TO WAKE UP!"

"Reid... his heart gave out... the chemical toxicity—"

"SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Reid bellowed, shoving Desmond away so hard the doctor stumbled against the crash cart.

Reid spun around, lunging for the defibrillator paddles—the heavy, iron-like resuscitation irons sitting on the cart. He grabbed them with bare, trembling hands, his knuckles white.

"CHARGE IT AGAIN!" Reid sobbed, his voice breaking into a ragged, desperate plea as he slammed the cold metal pads against Kain’s bare, silent chest. "CHARGE IT! CHARGE IT, DESMOND! DO IT AGAIN!"

"Reid, we’ve shocked him six times, his organs—"

"I SAID CHARGE IT!" Reid screamed at the top of his lungs, his Alpha command vibrating through the room, forcing a terrified nurse to slam her palm onto the machine’s button.

BZZZZT.

A violent shock surged through Kain’s chest, lifting his shoulders off the mattress—and then dropping him right back into the dead, unmoving silence. The flat tone on the monitor didn’t even flicker.

"Come on, Kain... come on, baby, please..." Reid wept, dropping the paddles onto the floor with a heavy, terrifying metallic crash. He fell onto his knees by the side of the bed, grabbing Kain’s limp, icy hand, pressing it feverishly against his wet cheek, his lips, his throat. "You were fine! You were just talking to me! You were holding our daughter! You promised me... Kain, you promised me! You never break your promises."

The doors swung open again.

Marina stood in the threshold, holding a giant stuffed bear and a bundle of pink baby clothes, a bright, eager smile on her face that died the exact second her eyes hit the room. The stuffed bear slipped from her fingers, hitting the bloody floor tiles.

She took one slow, staggering step forward. "What... No..."

"Marina, don’t come in here—" a nurse tried to intercept her, but Marina shoved past her like she didn’t even exist.

"No, it’s... it’s a lie, right?" Marina whispered, her voice trembling, her hands flying to her mouth as she stared at Reid breaking down while holding Kain’s body, and then her eyes slowly, reluctantly, rolled up to her brother’s still, white face. "Kain?" her voice trembled at the edges. "Kain, stop it. Wake up. Kain, look at me! It’s a lie, right, Reid?!"

Reid didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just buried his face into the crook of Kain’s cold neck, letting out a guttural, wounded howl that sounded barely human—a sound of absolute, unmitigated ruin.

Marina dropped to her knees beside Reid, clutching Kain’s other hand, her chest heaving as silent, horrific tears spilled over her eyes. "Kain... please... not you... please..."

They checked his pulse over and over. A doctor pressed fingers to his neck; a nurse held a glass to his lips. Nothing. No beat. No fog. No life. Just a hollow, terrifying quiet that slowly spread outward, swallowing the entire hospital, the McCoy estate, and everyone who had ever loved Kain Evans.

Three months later.

Water rippled softly in the sunlight.

The private outdoor pool at the McCoy estate reflected the bright blue Seattle sky. Down at the shallow end, a tiny pink floatie bobbed gently on the surface, carrying a three-month-old baby girl with a soft tuft of blonde hair and striking grey eyes.

Reid sat on the edge of the pool in silence, his feet submerged in the water, staring at the baby with dark, hollow circles under his eyes. A wedding ring hung from a silver chain around his neck. It was mine, i mena, mine—Kains’.

I know what anyone hearing my voice is thinking.

How the hell was I telling this story from my perspective when I died on an operating table three months ago?

Simple. I really was dead. They buried my body in the Evans family plot eight weeks ago. But my soul never crossed over. Maybe regret tethered me here. Maybe I couldn’t leave because I never got to hear my daughter laugh, or call her the name I had spent nights contemplating with Reid before she was born—not once. Or maybe my heart belonged so completely to Reid that even death couldn’t cut the line.

So, I became a ghost.

For ninety days, I wandered through this estate. I watched Reid cry himself to sleep every night. I watched my mother break down in the kitchen, and I watched my father stare at my old hockey jerseys without saying a word. My soul ached far more than my body ever did when my organs gave out.

My mother still hadn’t recovered from it—no one had.

Marina was the worst. She blamed herself; blamed the fact that she had agreed to everything I wanted to do, supplied me with the black-market suppressants, introduced me to Vance, and... she blamed herself for pushing me slower and slower to my death. She believed she had killed me with her love.

Watching the people I loved break into pieces, and watching Reid say my name into the pillow while tears rolled down his cheeks without being able to hold him, was a special kind of hell. ℴ

And it’s the hell I’ve been living in for three months. A hell I cannot escape from.