Resonance, J. B. Everett [the top 100 crime novels of all time txt] 📗

eyes shut, and leaned into him, while he pulled her into a sitting position, as she re-learned to breathe. In and out. In and out. Finally settling into a semblance of her normal rhythm.

 

“You feeling better now?”

 

Her head jerked around. And her lungs began to shove all the air out. It should have been a scream, but she still didn’t have much of a voice from being intubated. Instead, she pushed out a soft but shrill wail that seared her throat like nothing she could ever remember.

 

David nodded at her, not bothering to look happy, or surprised, or anything other than pissed off.

 

When her breathing returned to normal, she realized she was staring at him. Just as she was going to do something about it, a gentle pressure on the side of her face turned her back to where she was inches from Jordan’s concern. “It’s just David.” But he looked at her a little deeper, wanting an explanation of why David would make her scream.

 

So she told him.

 

Only no sound came out.

 

And after a moment she realized it was a damn good thing that no sound came out. Because she had started to explain what had happened.

 

David was going to have to kill her over there. There was no way she could show her face again. No doubt the techs had already found their naked, comatose bodies entwined on the gurney. Oh yeah, that was one for the books.

 

She felt the heat flood her face, and she did her best to bury it in Jordan’s chest.

 

At last she found a whisper, and, figuring it was the best she was going to get, she settled for it. “David’s supposed to be asleep.”

 

“Because?”

 

Her breathing was kicking up and she wanted to fan her face with her hand. To fight the flush, to work off some of the nervous energy, to cover for the fact that she was panicking again. She never did things like that - and certainly not where she was going to get found out.

 

She turned and looked David in the eye. “We made a deal.”

 

“Good.” His voice was like ice. “I was afraid you were going to back out.”

 

“So you showed up here to check on me?” She shifted in Jordan’s arms, but he didn’t seem to want to let go of her. Jillian really gave it no thought, other than that it was comfortable, and it was working to stave off another panic attack. There was nothing she hated more than being a helpless female.

 

Word by word, her voice grew stronger, “Trust me, I’m not backing out after that wake up.”

 

Her eyes focused on the straps and casts that held David in the bed, if not by force then by inability. “Is that what it’s like for you when you wake up over here?”

 

He didn’t speak, but his eyes held hers as he nodded.

 

She shuddered a bit at the thought. “I don’t want to do that again.”

 

“No shit, Sherlock.” He grinned, but it wasn’t in humor. “So you’ll do it?”

 

She couldn’t look him in the eye, not with what she was agreeing to. But in the end, this would set her free, too. “Yes.”

 

When she found some backbone, some of the flash of anger she had felt before returned. “So why are you here?”

 

He spoke plainly as though it wasn’t his fault. “I fell asleep.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I’m male, it’s what we do!”

 

She couldn’t help the flush that crept up her cheeks, and David laughed just a little, a real laugh, at her expense. She felt more than saw Jordan’s bewilderment through his arms. Finally, he found a voice to add to the conversation. “What?”

 

“Nothing.” She and David both said it at the same time, looking away, and she figured Jordan had to have figured it all out. But when she finally looked up again, he seemed just as confused.

 

Silence reigned for a while, but it was David who started up again. “So, do you want to tell him what we decided?”

 

Thoughts of conspiracy charges flitted through her head. It was bad enough that she would do the thing.

 

“No.”

 

But David surprised her by taking a stance. “I think we ought to. I don’t want to take a chance that you’ll back down.”

 

“I won’t-”

 

But he didn’t allow her to finish. His eyes quickly darted from Jordan to her and he simply began talking over her. “I think the boy has a vested interest in setting this to rights. I think he’ll be helpful.”

 

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Jordan’s voice cut through the argument, and Jillian knew there was nothing she could do to stop David from telling Jordan whatever he wanted. She also realized in that moment, that she didn’t want Jordan to know what she had done. That she had been curious and frustrated and scared, and that she had turned into willing arms.

 

She couldn’t really work up any good shame over it. She just didn’t want the embarrassment of the explanation. And the way she figured it, in this world it didn’t exist. But the men talked right by her thoughts, and Jillian needed to know what David was spilling.

 

But he wasn’t spilling anything, he was performing a careful set-up worthy of a courtroom. His question was directed at Jordan, “What happened to Jillian while we were under?”

 

As Jillian waited for his response, she realized that at close range his jaw was squarer than she thought, his shadow had progressed well beyond five o’clock, but it wasn’t enough to hide the clench of a tiny muscle in the side when David grilled him. “Her stats got so low we had to put her on IVs and intubate her to keep her breathing. Then the brass decided you two weren’t worth the money to keep on the machinery.”

 

Her breath pulled in, again burning her raw throat. “They were going to pull the plug on me?”

 

He nodded, “You looked brain dead.”

 

“I woke up just in time, then.” The pure chance of it didn’t sit well with her, but it didn’t have to, Jordan spoke up.

 

“No you didn’t. I found enough evidence to mount a case and they decided to let us keep you on it.”

 

Jillian felt her bones lose some of their starch, and she slumped down against him. “Thank you.”

 

When he nodded, she felt it against the top of her head.

 

But David interrupted again, keeping the conversation on the track of his choice. “If we can work this out, then Jillian won’t go under again.”

 

“I’m listening.” Jordan’s voice was hard, and so were his arms. He clearly didn’t think he was going to like what he heard, and Jillian knew he wasn’t.

 

“When I get back over there, I’m going to pull her plug, or medicate her, or suffocate her if necessary.”

 

The arms around her tightened with each gruesome description, until she couldn’t draw in enough air.

 

They let up only when she started the makings of another panic attack. But Jordan had only a quick apology for her before he lit into David.

 

But she watched David, and he may have been lying on his side, casted from stem to stern, but he spoke with authority and slowly chipped away at Jordan’s resistance.

 

Jordan threw every what-if? at him. “What if she dies?”

 

“Then I die.” Jillian jumped into the fray. She wanted Jordan’s help, but she wasn’t about to let him talk them out of this. “It’s better than this going back and forth. That was the worst wake up ever. At the rate things are going I’m going to die soon anyway. At least this way I get a choice.”

 

Jordan focused on her, effectively removing David from the conversation, and by his intensity, David might have not even been on the planet. “So if he kills you over there, then you stay here …”

 

She nodded.

 

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

 

Again, “Yes.”

 

Jordan stared David down. “What do you get out of this?”

 

But David didn’t give any ground. “You two do the same for me over here. So I can stay there.”

 

“But why?” Jordan had leaned back away from her. He looked back and forth between the two of them, as though he saw what had happened, even though it hadn’t been mentioned. As if to ask, ‘why would two lovers want to go separate ways forever?’

 

Jillian stepped in before David could. “His father’s over there. And over here he’s facing massive amounts of therapy and at least a couple surgeries. There he’s whole.”

 

David looked embarrassed by that last bit, like he always was when the topic of his tumbling down the steps came up.

 

For the next half hour Jillian stood up and stretched, and traced a circle already worn in the grass, while Jordan grilled them both. He brought up every contingency he could think of. Threw out every way it could go wrong. Pointed out time and again that no one knew what could happen and that they just might really kill themselves in some very warped version of Romeo and Juliet.

 

Jillian pressed her voice into service. “I’m going to die soon anyway. If I’m lucky I’ll get stuck on one side or the other - just wind up wherever I am when my vitals finally give out. This way I get to choose, I get to stay here.”

 

His eyes looked through her. He saw so much more than anyone else. But he was thinking. And she knew he couldn’t argue her logic.

 

Finally he spoke. “Potassium chloride.”

 

She almost jumped with joy, she just didn’t have quite enough energy.

 

“Will you please tell me what the hell he just said?” David’s droll tone cut into her happiness, but she simply turned and gave an explanation.

 

“It will stop your heart, and then mostly break down. No autopsy would turn it up unless they were looking for it. And you already have an IV so there won’t be any puncture marks.”

 

David nodded. “Painless?”

 

Jordan shrugged. “You’ll be comatose, you shouldn’t feel a thing.”

 

David rolled over and looked at Jillian, “And what about you?”

 

How did she answer that? How did she choose a method to die? Especially when what she really wanted was to live. But in order to do that, she had to kill off the Jillian on the other side. She shuddered before opening her mouth.

 

But the sounds she heard weren’t from her voice. It was Jordan. Explaining that the potassium chloride was the best method, where to find it unless the tents had been rearranged, how to draw it up, and how to inject it.

 

“Good.” David turned and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, speaking to the air in general. “Now there’s just one more problem. How do we get me back under so we can do all this?”

Chapter 25

Jordan had begun to question his own sanity. He was walking through the tents with a syringe of potassium chloride in his top pocket. It was hidden by the jacket he wore, and he was certain that no one would notice.

 

What he wasn’t certain of was why he had done it. They should have plenty of time once David went under to get the medication and dose him. They should have hours. But he had seen the opportunity and drawn it up right there in the supply tent.

 

No one had been around and this way