Chapter 97 - (Season 5 beginning) Visiting

Chapter 97

-Becky-

They always say that the quietness that follows a hard battle is the scariest part. When the calm silences and the adrenaline fade off, you realize what almost happened again.

That you almost lost them seconds after losing them before.

That you almost lost him...

I still could, but I have to stay optimistic. Josh was breathing now, barely, but enough to keep him alive. The ambulance lights flickered down the hill and across Josh's still face, blue and red. This is wrong. His new arm—if you could even call it that—was tucked in a makeshift sling I made. It looked unsettlingly normal, like it belonged there. I should feel proud that I was able to restore it. But who knows what this ancient technology would do?

I stood off to the side, arms crossed tight, shivering in the cold. I thought the sun would warm everything, but the lack of food and being damp from the last few days of searching left me numb. 

 I watched as the medics rolled him down the hill on a stretcher. Each wheel crunching against the small remainder of snow clusters across the ground made my chest squeeze tighter.

I couldn't stop myself from replaying the memories. He dies in the exposition, and then Kaysi and Evan carry Josh's unconscious body, breathless as they barely escape the Abyss with their lives.

He was gone! He was supposed to have died months ago. I believed that, but I couldn't completely let go of Josh. I cried like he was truly gone. I mourned him and tried to keep the words of Kaysi in my head to stay strong. So many nights screaming into my pillow after Kaysi had fallen asleep. I hoped not to wake her, but there were times she came up to my bed on the top bunk and held me until I could stop crying or fall asleep.

And now...

He is alive.

However, I didn't feel relief; I still couldn't rest.

I felt like I'd forgotten how to breathe. I was choked up with so many emotions.

Evan was a few yards away. My powers healed Evan and Kaysi, but she lay limp in his arms. She hadn't stirred since she blacked out. She looked so fragile, like glass, and cold, like stone, but beautiful in the worst way. Her head lolled against Evan's chest, lips very pale, breathing barely a wisp.

"She hasn't moved yet, still," I said, walking slowly over to them. "Is she going to be okay, Evan?"

Evan didn't look at me at first. " She used up too much of her energy. Her mem... He paused, thinking, before speaking again. "Her mind and body took a lot of pain in the abyss. She was never supposed to be there; she got pulled into a portal that was meant to take me out. But if it hadn't been for her, things could have ended up way worse. Thought that maybe hard to believe."

I don't believe that's what Evan was going to say to me at first. I honestly don't know what he was going to say. But with Evan, if he wishes to tell me, he will. Maybe it's for another time; I won't pry. He seemed to be going through a lot of pain himself with everything that happened, most likely. Josh is his only family, and he has almost lost him technically 3 times now.

I winced with hesitation. "The abyss was hard on all of you."

He nodded once. She will be alright with rest, but I'm not sure if any of us will be the same. Or how will this all affect her?"

Kaysi twitched slightly in his arms. Evan held her tighter, like he thought letting go would unravel the last threads holding her here.

"I'll meet up with Duke and Baby, take her home, and make sure she gets to bed so she can rest," he said.

I nodded, even though something about his words struck me; it felt too final an end, yet not to all this madness. I wasn't ready to leave Josh's side, not yet, and maybe Evan knew that by his following words.

He paused, looking at Kaysi. "We'll check on him later." He said, ensuring I was going to be alone with Josh from here.

I glanced back at the ambulance. The doors were still open. Josh's stretcher sat still as they finally stabilized him. His pulse was too weak. He breathed barely, raising his chest—swallow. 

I felt as though they waited for someone to ride along with him. The light caught his face again. He didn't flinch. He didn't move.

I clenched my fist. "I need to be the one to go." I had to swallow my pride.

Evan didn't disagree. He simply nodded once more, a final time, and motioned his head up as if to say, Go. No words were needed for me to hear what he said.

"Tell me if she wakes up," I said as I dashed off, my heart pounding.

The medic motioned for me to climb into the back with Josh.

"We need his information. Do you know much about this man?" Once the medic asked.

I teared up a bit holding things in, choked up on the words as I felt their pain. "I am his girlfriend..."

I took one last deep breath of the cold air and stepped in as the medics closed the doors behind us, and we sped off to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, the smell of bleach and ammonia pierced my nose. 

Josh lay there in his hospital bed, unmoving, still as if he were still sleeping.

The doctors were unsure when he would wake up due to the fact that he was severely anemic. To the eyes of any normal person, they didn't see his new arm, which featured ancient divine technology, resembling a shattered limb with deep, strange scarring and a tribal phoenix tattoo etched across it, pulsing faintly. I heard one of them whisper about severe nerve trauma.

But I knew better.

That arm was reborn. My Holy Ice. His Phoenix ice flame. Something had merged.

I created it.

And maybe I lost him because of it.

The new arm lay across his stomach, or what passed as an arm for now. I felt ashamed that I couldn't give him back his original. It was glorious and yet terrifying. Ancient, divine, ethereal. A strange metal, laced with many colors of blue, featured glowing runes and a spot at the top of his wrist that looked almost like a phoenix's head in the patterns. Only the waymakers could see it. 

Monitors beeped slowly and softly, in sync with his slow heart rhythms. The fluorescent lights buzzed, making me feel nauseous. I was thankful not to have eaten in a few days, or I may have been sick.

The windows showed only gray clouds and fog from the cold air outside, mixing with the warm air inside. Tiny flakes of snow rarely fell from the sky. A sterile prison where time didn't exist. Madness for someone like me who could control time to some degree.

I had not moved from the chair beside her bed for hours. My coat, which had finally been returned, was wrapped around me like a second skin after Josh had been given several hospital blankets to warm up. 

My hands were numb from clenching each other. Finally, news came as the nurses came into the room.