So much white.
Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep.
“She died but she came back, Mom.”
Who’d died? Sandra?
“Wait. I have to-I’ll call you back.”
A loud, shrill scrape.
Then five dots of heat on my cheek.
And green.
Two green orbs.
Not orbs.
Eyes.
“Dimples?”
The green blurred, faded.
Not into white but into black.
Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep. The warm scent of skin.
Spice and sawdust.
The steady beat of a heart against my spine.
Ba-bump . . . Ba-bump . . . Ba-bump . . .
Rhythmic and solid.
The sharp spike of beeps echoing around me jolted the body cocooning mine.
“Dimples?”Beep. Beep. Beep.
I blinked, but everything was dark. So dark.
“I want . . .”
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“Colors.”
Something clicked, and then hands gently eased me onto my back.
Against the cream ceiling, green, sable, and gold churned. Heat stung my eyes; then something wet rolled along my cheek: a tear.
The beats of my heart lengthened. Slowed. Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .
“What is it?” the deep voice trembled in the air between our faces.
I lifted my hand to touch August’s jaw. He turned his face until his lips connected with my palm. “It was so dark and then so white,” I murmured. “What happened to me?”
His breaths faltered.
“What?” I asked as I lifted my other hand to push the hair obscuring my left eye.
Found it wasn’t hair but gauze.
Thick gauze.
I prodded it until I found the edge and then started peeling it away when August caught my fingers. “Don’t take it off.”
“Why not? Am I bleeding?”
“No. Maybe. Just don’t take it off yet. Greg said he’d be here in the morning. He’ll do it.”
“O-okay.” Something about his expression had my heart thump a little quicker, which filled the hospital room with nippy, harsh beeps. “Is Cassandra . . . is she . . .?”
“Dead? Yes. She’s dead. You killed her. Which killed you.” His voice broke. “It . . . killed . . . you.”
I ran my palm along his jaw, pressing a little harder to make sure he was real, and that I was too. “I died?”
The quiet white void had been death.
“How . . . how did I come back?”
His lids swept down over his eyes as though to clear them of the memory. “I bit you.”
I frowned. “You bit-oh . . .” My unbandaged eye widened. “Like in the legend?”
He nodded, his dense stubble scraping my palm.
“You brought me back to life,” I said in wonder. As I remembered who told me the story, his name burst through my lips. “Liam! What about Liam? Is he alive?”
“He’s alive.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.”We won then?”
August closed his eyes. “Oh . . . Ness.”
“What? We didn’t win?”