Page 32 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

“Eden,” Malachi whispers. “The infant is still shrieking. Make it stop before I provide it with a reason to be truly miserable.”

“It’s a child. They cry,” I snap back, dragging my leaden feet toward the pain relief aisle. My arm isn’t just throbbing anymore; it’s a living thing, heavy and hot, pulsing in time with the flickering fluorescent lights. I need ibuprofen, or a sedative, or maybe just to lay down on the cold linoleum and wait for the end.

“High voltage…” he muses from behind me.

I turn, half-expecting him to be staring at a power outlet, but he’s standing in front of the refrigerated drinks. He’s reaching out, his long, silver fingers hovering over a can of something called Liquid Havoc.

“Real electricity?” he asks, his head tilting at an angle that would snap a human neck. “Or more dull, mortal bullshit?”

“It’s just caffeine, Malachi. It’s sugar and heart palpitations in a can. Put it back.”

“The packaging promises a ‘storm in a bottle,’” he retorts.

“It tastes awful. We aren’t here for snacks, we’re here for⁠—”

“Eden?”

The new voice hits me like a bucket of ice water. My hands go numb, the basket of gauze and antiseptic suddenly feeling like it weighs a hundred pounds.

“Your face is doing something alarming,” Malachi murmurs. “Mortals usually only go that color before they vomit or die. Which is it?”

I can’t answer. I can’t even breathe. I just stand there, gripped by a primal, sickening shock, as the past walks right up to the present and offers it a very confused, albeit polite smile.

“Eden?”

The antiseptic smell of the pharmacy isn’t coming from the bottles on the shelf anymore—it’s coming from the ward. The linoleum floor vanishes out from underneath my feet, replaced by the hard plastic of the gurney, the fluorescent ceiling zipping above me.

There’s a sharp prod to my lower back, followed by a small cough, and I flinch, snapping myself back into the room.

“Hey, Leo,” I manage to choke out. “I… I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Leo rubs the back of his neck, his eyes flitting over every single inch of me. He looks exactly the same—the same kind eyes, the same fraying corduroy jacket he used to drape over the back of the couch when he came round for wine and board games with me and Matthew—the guy he’d been best friends with since they were ten years old.

I haven’t seen him since the funeral.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to call you since… well, since everything. I just didn’t know if you were... taking callers.”

“No, no, I’ve definitely been taking callers…” I say, fingers twisting around the basket handle. “I did text you quite a few times actually. After the service.”

His face falls, a brief flicker of guilt crossing his features. “Right. Yeah. I—the messages must have gotten buried. New phone. You know how it is.”

Liar.

Not that I could ever blame him, no matter how much it hurt. He just hadn’t wanted to talk to the girl who reminded him of his dead best friend.

I want to be pleasant and tell him it’s okay. I want to tell him I wouldn’t have called me back either. But my throat feels like it’s been lined with sand, and the weight of Malachi’s presence behind me is making it hard to find the oxygen.

Leo shifts his weight, his eyes darting from my pale, sweaty forehead to the way I’m hunched slightly over my right side.

“Is everything okay, Eden?” He takes a small, hesitant step closer, brow furrowed. “You look… you look a bit worn down. Are you doing alright?”

I open my mouth to lie, to offer some practiced platitude, but the air around me turns cold and frigid, stilling me completely.

“And who, exactly, are you to be commenting on her ‘worn’ appearance?” Malachi’s voice is suddenly loud and clear from over my shoulder, cutting through the tinny pop song on the speakers. ”Because perhaps you’d have known her state if you’d have answered those messages.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Malachi, don’t,” I hiss, but he’s already moving, stepping closer, pressing his hand into my lower back.