The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(171)

iAm bent in and said into his ear, “You want them to talk to me?”

It was a while before Trez answered. He didn’t want to hear what they were going to say. Even though in his heart, he knew … he knew that things were not changing this time … he didn’t want the words out in the air.

But the cycle of gasping and fright that kept happening to her was wearing on him.

“Yes, please,” he said politely. “Thank you.”

The bunch of them, including Ehlena, went into the room next door.

And it dawned on him that he and Selena were alone with each other. Leaning into her, he stroked her hair and brushed her mouth with his.

Shit, her lips were so cold.

He wanted to close his eyes, but he was terrified he’d miss something. Instead, he let a couple of heartbeats go by.

I want to be free. The thing that scares me most is getting trapped in my body.

“Selena,” he said in a voice that was as thin as his skin. “Selena, can you focus on me? Can you hear me?”

She blinked twice, which was the code he’d established with her for “yes.”

“I need to know…” He swallowed hard. “I need to know if you want to go … do you want to go?”

In response, her eyes … her magnificent blue eyes … welled with tears, and he began to cry, too. With a sense of profound pain, he reached up with his free hand and brushed the wetness from her nose and her cheeks. He left his tears where they were.

“My queen, is it time for you to go? Tell me if it is.”

Her stare never left his.

She blinked once. And then … again.

Oh, God.

“Do I understand you correctly?” he said. “Do you want this … to end?”

They were both crying in earnest now. And she didn’t have to blink it out again, because he knew in his heart and soul what she wanted—and yet, he waited for the signal one more time. This was one of those moments when he had to get it right.

Or he would never be able to live with himself.

“Is it time?” he whispered.

She blinked once … and then again.

Now he shut his lids and found his body swaying as if a tremendous weight had been set upon his shoulders, and not balanced well.

When he opened his eyes, iAm and the physicians were back in the room. One look into his brother’s stark face and he knew that whatever had been said had not been marked by much if any optimism.

As iAm came over, the male was careful to acknowledge and smile at Selena—which Trez really appreciated. Then he leaned in and whispered, “There’s nothing they can do. The anti-inflammatories aren’t working, and the last set of X-rays exhibited a change that the first episode didn’t have. The joints—or what should be the joints—are showing bright white on the films, with the kind of intensity metal would have. That wasn’t the case before. Her vitals are not good and getting worse, even though they’ve given her things to help with her slow respiration and heart rate. Their sense is … this is the end.”

Trez nodded, and then took a moment to tend to Selena’s face. “She’s ready to go,” he choked out. “She told me so. Is there … something … we can…”

Manny stepped over. “We can help her along. If she’s sure.”

“She is.”

iAm leaned in close again and whispered something else.

Trez took a deep breath. “Selena, do you want to see your sisters? Phury? The Directrix? They’re all here. They’re right outside.”

In response, she closed her eyes. Once. And then kept them that way until he felt a fresh needle of panic go through him.

But she opened them again. She was still with him.

Now, her tears were coming faster and faster, and he wished he could concentrate enough to try to get in her mind, but he couldn’t. He was too wrung-out, too emotional, too filled with grief. And he understood what she wanted anyway.

“You don’t want them to see you this way.” Blink. “You love them, though, and you want them to know you’re going to miss them.” Blink. Blink. “You want me to say good-bye for you.”

Blink. Blink.

“Okay, my queen.”

Then there was this weird pause.

Later, when he obsessively reviewed every single thing that happened, every hour that passed during the crisis, every nuance of the room and the people, every twitch of her face and each word he spoke to her, he would dwell on that moment. It was, he would suppose, rather like staring down the muzzle of a gun just before you got shot.

“I love you,” he said. “I love you forever.”

Tenderly, he stroked her face and prayed she could feel his touch. He didn’t know whether she could or not; there was an alarming gray cast seeping into her skin.

Switching hands, so that his right one was grabbing hers, he patted around thin air, searching for—

iAm, as always, was right there, grabbing onto his palm with strength, steadying him.

He was not going to make it through this unless his brother was holding him up off the floor.

“Okay,” Trez said to whoever was listening, “we’re ready.”

Manny went over to the IV line, a syringe filled with fluid in his hand. “The first shot is a sedative.”