Chapter 16
Darkness surrounded Julia. It wasn’t a comfortable darkness like that of sleep just before waking. Instead it was a prickly, uncomfortable darkness with lower depths. Depths that there would be no coming back from if she slipped down into them.
She floated in isolation. Was this death? The thought swam up to the surface of her mind, and she pondered it for a while. All her pain was gone. Nothing lingered from the beating McCoy had dished out, nothing at all. There wasn’t even a leftover ache waiting for her to wake up, like an over-eager extra in the wings. Worse. Her heart wasn’t beating. At all. There was no comforting beat filling the darkness around her as it had all her life.
Crap.
She was dead.
The darkness pressed closer. It was cold. Dark and empty. Devoid of everyt
