Prodigal

Chapter 26

26

So much darkness.

Adam woke suddenly in a strange bed with something over his face. He gasped—pain—and reached up to rip the thing off so he could breathe.

“Don’t do that.” A girl’s face hovered into view a few inches from his own. “It’s supposed to be there.”

Adam dropped his hand and relaxed. He trusted her. The eyes—he knew those eyes. “JJ?” he asked, voice hoarse and muffled by the mask. “Where’s Danny?”

The girl blinked. “Mom!” she yelled, still inches from his face. “He’s awake!”

Adam put a heavy hand, trailing tubes, to his chest. His throat felt raw, and it hurt to breathe. He closed his eyes.

“You’re not going to die again, are you?” the girl asked. “There was water all over the place when Grandma took me home to get my heavy coat.”

Adam opened his eyes and turned his head a fraction. He saw an IV stand with a dripping bag. Lots of stainless steel and fancy medical equipment. He rotated his head the other way, slowly, slowly, and saw an empty bed. He was in a hospital.

A woman rushed into the room. She had long, dark hair, pulled back from a face haggard with worry. The divot between her upper lip and nose was well defined, with two distinct lines… just like JJ. Adam closed his eyes, dizzy as the world came rushing back.

JJ’s voice was angry and whispery, with a hospital hush. “Evie, what are you doing in here? You know children aren’t allowed.”

Adam opened his eyes to find the girl (Evie, not JJ) still staring at him. She spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, and rolled her eyes without bothering to turn her head toward her mother. “I was checking on him while you argued with Grandma. Remember, she’s my ride.”

JJ exhaled the long-suffering sigh of the mother of a precocious child. Evie smiled at Adam, said, “Bye—feel better,” and strode past her mother as if the child owned the hospital.

JJ followed her daughter out of the room.

Adam’s hand returned to his chest, careful of the IV. The pain wasn’t piercing, but it was fairly intense, and pervasive. There was no escaping it. He was still drifting around its edges, trying to find its boundaries, when JJ returned.

The acoustics of the room seemed designed to absorb sound: the medical beeps, JJ’s shoes crossing the floor, and even the chair scraping to the side of his bed. JJ sat in it, tucking her hands beneath her legs as she’d sometimes done when they were kids. Her dark hair swung forward as she bowed her head. Evie’s hair was lighter, more brown with a hint of red, but Adam thought JJ’s hair had been closer to her daughter’s color when they were kids.

JJ lifted her head and removed the mask from his face. “They said your oxygen stats are better now, back where they belong. How are you feeling?”

Adam stretched his face a bit, feeling the absence of the mask’s pressure. “Chest hurts. What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

He considered, tried to orient himself in his mind, and was swamped by vertigo. The nausea was overwhelming. “JJ—”

She grabbed a small trashcan and got it beneath him just in time as Adam swung over the side, vomiting, somehow missing the IV line. The pain was so intense, he almost cried. He would’ve, if there’d been a second round of heaving.

“Sorry,” he said, slowly sinking back onto the bed.

“Don’t be stupid,” JJ said, setting the trashcan down and reaching for a tissue from the nightstand. She wiped Adam’s mouth and said, “I’ll get the resident.”

“No,” Adam said. “I feel better. Really.” He did feel better—not his chest, but the nausea was gone and his vertigo had subsided.

“Nausea is not something to mess around with. You could’ve hit your head when you fell.”

“I didn’t,” Adam said, certain. “When did I fall?” About this, he was uncertain.

JJ rolled her eyes.

“I see the eye-rolling is a hereditary trait.” That won him a wan smile from JJ. “When I woke up, I thought she was you.”

Bigger smile. “Don’t tell Evie that.”

He wouldn’t. He hoped Evie hadn’t heard him ask for Danny.

Mouth softened and eyes relaxed, JJ’s face held a combination of pride and vulnerability and… something else. Adam could’ve spent hours trying to figure out what, but there was a dissonant murmur in his mind, a sense of urgency he couldn’t explain. So he asked the question sure to wipe all relaxation from her face.

“Why am I here?”

“Something happened while you were taking a shower. We—Grant drove us here—we aren’t sure what. All of your test results are normal. They can’t find anything wrong.” Her voice was so even, so artificially calm, he knew she wasn’t telling him the whole story.

“What do you mean, something happened?” Adam asked.

JJ looked away, but she answered. “I found you unconscious. You’d stopped breathing.”

Adam stared up at the acoustic tile ceiling and tried not to panic. People—especially relatively healthy, thirty-something young men—didn’t just stop breathing for no reason. The cause may be a mystery to the doctors, but he thought he knew how to find it. Adam closed his eyes. This time, he was ready for the nausea, the sense of falling, as he remembered.

He’d been so tired, almost asleep standing up. He’d put his hands against the tile beneath the showerhead, and they slowly slid down… That’s when the voice started.

I can’t breathe… I can’t get away if I can’t breathe… Chest constricting, throat…

Adam had tried to turn off the shower and get JJ. His fingers slid off the taps with a blast of cold that almost brought him around… then his hands were on the edge of the tub… he threw his head back, trying to breathe…

Help me, if you’re there…

But it was no use. His knees hit the floor—

“Adam!” JJ’s voice cut through his mind.

He opened his eyes, and she was out of her chair, leaning over him. She looked scared, and JJ never looked scared. Except when they took turns being brave.

“I have to get out of here,” he said. “Now. How do I get this out of my arm?”

“You’re in no condition to leave.”

“Yes, I am,” Adam said, lying through his teeth. At least they weren’t chattering. “You said yourself, they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.”

“They won’t allow you to leave yet.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth curled in a shadow of his impish grin. “They can’t stop me.”

JJ got in his face, her voice low and fierce, eyes filled with tears. “I had to do chest compressions on you. You selfish asshole! Do you understand, you practically died in my bathtub?”

He was filled with guilt as he had a flash of what that must have been like for her—had she found her father, too?—but he pushed it away and clenched his jaw until he was solid enough to go on. “I’m sorry, JJ. But you have to understand, it wasn’t me.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t you?”

“Well, it wasn’t just me. It was her—Rachel—who stopped breathing in your tub. And we have to find her. Now.”