Page 84 of A Perfect World
Her voice cut the cord of disbelief. My lead tongue struggled to form words.
“Call-” I slurred. No, I needed more time. I grit my teeth. “Jack.” I managed right as the world went dark.
41
Courtney
Black,brightwhite,andred.
So much red.
The heat in the center of my chest pumped liquid fire into my freezing limbs.
Impact shattered my consciousness, knocking me into darkness the second my head smacked the pavement. Stars danced in the interminable, vast empty space- a world divided by three planes. Darkness lulled me with the promise of endless peace while I floated in a ripple of red plasma.
My consciousness looked up at the light where remnants of pain threatened. The echo of surround sound in the ocean of red- a voice called to my soul. Buried there, in the essence of me, a bond beyond time and space, life and death, heaven and hell. A beacon lit up my undulating red world with pulsing heat. Pulsing like a heartbeat. It whispered in a language I couldn’t translate, but I knew. I knew what it meant.
It was my choice: endless peace, orhim.
I reached for the frayed bond and pulled.
Pain like nothing I’d ever known lanced through me from every follicle, every pore, every fiber of my being. I floundered between the healing red whispers and the agony of my physical body. Each new heartbeat pushed warmth through my bloodstream, tinged with something more. Something unnamed.
Whatever we’d done, I was alive.
Alive and changed.
The cells in my body transformed into somethingother. I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. Each gurgling rasp in my revived lungs cleared them a fraction.
My eyelids shuttered as feeling returned to my skin.
The body cushioning me from the ground convulsed-
“Ollie?” I croaked, his name like a pair of wings eclipsing me. Peeling my eyes open, fragments of words trickled through my consciousness.
Call Jack.
My vision blurred with blood and rain. I clutched the journal over my heart and groped blindly for his face. My fingers slipped in thick blood, bubbly saliva-
A seizure.
What he did to save me was too much. I choked on a sob and hot liquid in my lungs.
Call. Jack.
One handed, I fumbled until I found his pocket, fighting the denim until it finally freed his phone. It took me entirely too long to call Jack’s number, my shaking fingers barely able to press the buttons.
“Brother, why the fuck haven’t you answered-”
“Jack,” I rasped.
Each breath ached my ribs, bruises far from healed by whatever witchcraft the journal possessed.
“Tiny Dancer? What happened? Where the fuck are you?”
“I-” I blinked in the downpour, coughing on blood. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck, ok,fuck, I need more than that,” he demanded. Keys jingled and a female voice murmured in the background. A sweep of dizziness spun me off my axis, my fragile consciousness dove overboard. Faintly, the tinny voice from the phone tried to pull me back.
