Page 31 of Cardinal House

She could have suffocated.

“What happened to her hands?” Archer asks softly, as we both study the blood racing down the length of clear tubing now connecting my arm to hers.

Luna.

Her blue veins bright beneath the ashy white of her pale skin, her eyes closed, gunshot wound to the side of her head clean and red. My t-shirt is on her upper half, my boxers on her hips, a blanket covering all of her. I watch my blood rushing down the tube, feeding her with it, and my heart clenches and swells at the possessiveness I feel, a piece of me inside of her.

She infected my veins and now I’m infecting hers.

To heal.

“She beat her way out of her coffin.”

I’m disconnected as I say it. The words foreign sounding to my own ears as I stare down at her, all delicate and soft and alive. I swallow hard.

“Wait, what?” Archer chokes as he fumbles with the plastic wrappings from the tubing and needles.

Slowly, his dark eyes spliced with green lift to mine, his chin over his shoulder, he licks his lips, staring at me silently. We’re in the visitor’s room, an echoey space that feels like a fish tank, one wall of it made of glass with heavy open drapes framing it. The space once used for loved ones to come to view their deceased, but Cardinal House isn’t open for business anymore. Only disposals happen here now, and those bodies are never fit for viewing. But this space has the most room for medical equipment, it felt better than putting her in my bedroom. I want her to want to be there.

“I put her in a coffin because I wanted it to be…” I huff out a breath, shaking my head, nice isn’t the right word. “I couldn’t just throw her in the furnace, Arch.”

He frowns, nodding his head, “I wouldn’t have been able to do it either.” His words are whispers scraping up his throat, his gaze unfocused as he stares down at the floor. “You got her back though.” He blinks up at me, scrunching the papers and wrappers into a ball in his fist, “She’s here now.” His Adam’s apple bobs hard in his throat with his swallow, before he sniffs hard and pushes to stand. “Sit on that stool,” he instructs, checking the tape on the needle in my arm as I do as instructed. “Keep yourself elevated higher than her.”

“Arch,” I say lowly, my deep voice rough, “if I could bring your girl back to you, you know I would, don’t you? All I want is for you to be happy.” Tears prick my eyes as he absentmindedly rubs over his wrists, faded scars from many bindings marking his skin. “I love you.”

He looks up at me then, eyes shining, jaw clenched, “You think there’s any way she’s still out there somewhere?” he whispers the question, holding my gaze, fucking hope shining in his eyes.

I roll through every possibility inside my head, it’s been over twenty years since she went missing. The likelihood of her being somewhere alive and well is slim, but I suppose not completely unheard of.

“Maybe,” I shiver as I say it, licking my lips. “But I don’t think it’s good to go chasing ghosts.”

He cocks his head, top section of hair longer than the shorn sides on either side of his skull, black hair hanging across one eye, he flicks his gaze from me to Luna.

“Hang onto this one, brother,” he says, throwing the rubbish in his hands into the waste paper bin, before his eyes come back to mine. “Don’t let her out of your sight ever again.”

Chapter 14

Luna

Everything feels warm.

My toes curl and stretch as the arches of my feet pull, an ache running up my calves like a cramp that’s still fading. I flex my head back, the curve in my spine feeling stiff and sore, but I’m so comfortable, I don’t want to wake up yet.

The pillow beneath my head is so puffy it’s almost wrapping up around my ears. There’s soft cotton touching my skin, the light pressure of a weighted quilt over the top of my body, it feels like I’m sleeping in a cloud.

That’s why my eyes suddenly snap open, my heart thundering in my chest, lungs heaving with panicked breaths.

“Shhh, it’s okay, you’re safe,” a deep, gruff voice says from beside me, making me flinch, a hiss escaping my teeth as something snags sharply in my arm.

Blinking hard, I look up with heavy eyes, and suck in a hard breath.

The handsome man from when I woke up before sits beside me.

I was in a coffin.

I fought and crawled my way out of it…

Is any of this real?

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