Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(59)

Her heart sank as she realized the bullet had penetrated his skull. Mortality rates for penetrating brain injuries were over ninety-two percent. Still, she tried to hold out hope as she sent her awareness into his body.

Jamie was brain-dead.

She saw that immediately. The gunshot wound was simple but fatal. The damage to his brain stem was too severe. She absorbed the details of the injury almost reflexively and knew that if it were only a matter of healing the flesh, she could cause the damage to heal.

The problem was his spirit had already departed, probably within a few moments of the bullet hitting him. There was no psychic scar, as she had seen in the drones that had their spirits ripped out of them. Jamie was a smooth, quiet blank. His body still functioned, but that wouldn’t last long without life support. His blood pressure had already plummeted. Within the next half hour, his organs would shut down.

She closed her eyes and bent her head as a storm of reaction overtook her.

Outrage, grief, guilt. Fury.

This is our fault, she thought. Her mouth worked.

As soon as any of us had heard that Nicholas had been killed, we should have thought of it, especially Astra and Michael but even me as well. He went after my family. Look at what he did to Justin. Of course he would think about looking into Nicholas’s family too.

We were too wrapped up in our own quarrels and dramas to even think about Nicholas’s family. So sad, too bad, you just got in our way, because we’ve always got to think of our greater goal.

She wiped her forehead on her forearm and realized that Michael and Jerry were still talking. Michael must have asked about any supplies on the other boat, because Jerry was talking about bottled water and packaged snacks.

“We’re low on fuel,” Jerry said.

“I don’t care about that,” Michael said. “We used hardly any fuel on the way over, and we have nearly a full tank.”

She said in a hoarse voice, “Would you please talk outside?”

They stopped immediately and stepped out on the deck, closing the door to the hatch softly. She looked down at Jamie’s handsome face. He looked so peaceful, as if he had just stepped out for a little while. It was maddening to know that she could heal his body and yet lose the fight to save his life.

The growl of the boat’s engine started, and they lurched into movement. She ignored it. At the moment nothing mattered outside of this small room.

She looked up at Nicholas, who remained, intent on her. His dark, transparent gaze was the most distinct thing about him. She said, I’m so sorry, Nicholas. He’s gone.

Pain blazed at her. Is there nothing that you can do?

There’s plenty that I can do, she said bitterly. But none of it will bring him back.

The ghost bowed his head.

Nicholas, we have to have a hard conversation, she said. Jamie’s body is beginning to shut down. I can stop it. I’m pretty sure that I can physically heal the damage done to him, but his spirit is already gone.

She already knew he was a clever man. He knew where she was going, and he shook his head against it. No. I will not take my sister’s boy.

She nodded. I thought you might say that. It’s a natural reaction, when family members face some kind of issue of organ donation. Usually in a hospital, there’s a little more time to talk about it, and people can work through their emotions with a counselor. But we don’t have that option here, and we don’t have life support to keep Jamie’s body viable.

No, he said again. This time he sounded almost pleading.

She couldn’t look at him. His pain was too hard to watch. She looked down at Jamie.

I can’t tell you what to do, and obviously there aren’t any rules of ethics to follow in this situation. I just know two things. One is that we face so many risks, we may not get another chance for you. Look at what happened just this afternoon. There’s no guarantee we’ll survive from one day to the next. She paused then said as gently as she could, The other thing is, it isn’t fair that your father and sister have to lose both of you.

That brought his head up. Moments trickled by as he struggled in silence.

Finally he said, How long before I have to make a decision?

She averted her face and concentrated on Jamie again. She said, Twenty minutes.

Nicholas vanished from sight. She lost all sense of his presence.

“Goddamn you,” she muttered.

She wasn’t even sure whom she was cursing. The Deceiver, certainly. Herself, Michael and Astra, yes.

And fate. She definitely cursed at fate.

She didn’t wait twenty minutes. There was no clock in the room, and she had no way of telling time. She had wanted to give Nicholas as long as she could, but she was afraid that she had cut things too close. She wasn’t sure she could wait twenty minutes and still repair the damage to Jamie in time to prevent major organ damage.

So, sick at heart, she sank into Jamie’s body, stabilized his blood pressure, stopped the bleeding and began to work on repairing his brain stem.

God help her, if Nicholas came back and said no again, she was either going to have to stop Jamie’s heart herself, or ask Michael to help her. Otherwise his body would continue to function until it starved to death.

She finished sending basic commands to his brain stem and started repairing the rest of the wound. She worked on the skull next. There was so much damage she plunged into an entirely new area of healing as she tried to coax the bone into regenerating.