A: Immortal Sea

Morgan stood, watching helplessly, as she grabbed a pillow from the couch and bunched it under the boy‟s neck. She

straightened his head, tilted his chin.

“It‟ll be okay,” she crooned, promised, exhorted. To which one of them? “You‟ll be okay. You just need a little help

breathing until this wears off.”

She ripped an angled tube like a blade from its plastic sheath. Morgan winced as she wedged the boy‟s mouth open and

slowly, smoothly slid the tube past his tongue and down his throat.

“Call Caleb,” she ordered. Tears streaked her face, but her eyes never left their son. With deft, sure hands, she attached a

bag to the tube protruding from Zachary‟s mouth. “He‟s going to need a stretcher.”

Zack needed more than a stretcher. Phenobarbital caused a depression of the body‟s central and peripheral nervous

systems, slowing the body‟s functions, including the electrical activity of the brain.

Elizabeth shivered, leaning her head against the back of her chair, exhaustion pounding in her temples, guilt like a stone in

her chest.

There was no antidote for barbiturate poisoning. Until Zack‟s body rid itself of the drug, his airway needed to be

maintained by mechanical ventilation.

He lay motionless on a clinic bed, clear tubes in his arm and down his throat, machines monitoring his blood pressure, heart

rate, oxygen, and respiration.

Dawn crept around the edges of the blinds, gray and cold.

He still hadn‟t regained consciousness.

“Regina is taking Emily to camp.” Morgan spoke from the door of the examination room. “She will pick her up, too, if

necessary.”

If Zack didn‟t improve. If he didn‟t wake up.

Liz closed her eyes, sick at heart.

“That‟s quite a bump on his jaw,” Morgan remarked. Liz opened her eyes. He stood over their son‟s bedside, surveying the

damage. “Will he remember I hit him when he wakes up?”

Liz roused herself to answer. “He may. He might not. Phenobarbital can affect short-term memory.” She shuddered,

reliving the moment when she‟d stuck him with the drug. “Mommy, don’t hurt me.” “I hope he forgets,” she said passionately.

“You did what you must to deceive the demon,” Morgan said, reading her thoughts with surprising accuracy. “Tan would

have killed him and destroyed his soul in the process. You saved him. You saved our son. No one else could have done what

you did.”

Liz had stood vigil at many bedsides, comforting and reassuring. She was the doctor, the expert, the person patients and

family could turn to for guidance. For answers.

But with Morgan, she could be the one to ask. She held his gaze, sharing her deepest fear. “What if he doesn‟t make it?”

Morgan took her hand. “He will make it. We will make it.” He sat on the arm of her chair, holding their clasped hands

together on his thigh, his touch warm. Reassuring. Strong. “I love you, Elizabeth.”

His words seeped into her, rain to her parched and worried heart.

“I know,” she said. “I love you, too.”

They sat together quietly, hands joined, while the sun slowly suffused the room with gold and the machines whispered and

beeped for the child on the bed.

Coming together.

Making it through.

Believing that somehow everything would be all right.

Believing in love.

After twelve hours, Zachary began breathing strongly on his own. Morgan gagged reflexively as Elizabeth removed the

tube from their son‟s throat.

She looked up, her smile sympathetic, her eyes tired and strained. “I‟m glad I can do this while he‟s still unconscious. He‟ll

have a hell of a sore throat when he wakes up.”

“ When ,” not “ if .” Progress, Morgan thought. His Elizabeth was getting her bearings again and her confidence. He was

glad.

He nodded.

Throughout the morning, people came and went, Nancy from the front desk, the dour female mayor, the woman who sold

Elizabeth her house. Morgan listened as Elizabeth offered explanations, reassurances, lies, watching each effort deplete her

resources a little further, increasingly annoyed on her behalf.

“. . . drug usually used to treat seizures . . . didn‟t realize until he fell and cracked his jaw on the coffee table . . . Thank

you, I‟m sure he‟ll be fine.”

Dylan and Caleb pieced together a full report, augmented by their own suspicions and speculations.

“So this demon possessed Zack when he left the beach last night,” the police chief said. “Used the boy‟s energy to free

himself.”

Dylan nodded. “And used his body to get through the island‟s wards.”

The brothers exchanged a look.

“We‟ll need to run by the island and check the orb,” Caleb said. “Confirm the demon really was Tan.”

“He could have been acting as an agent of Gau,” Dylan said.

Caleb shook his head. “More likely, he saw an opportunity and took it.”

“We don‟t know how well the demons communicate. If—”

“Enough,” Morgan interrupted suddenly, roughly.

The Hunter brothers glanced at him, surprised.

“Elizabeth doesn‟t need to be bothered with this now, in our son‟s sickroom. I will speak with you tonight. Or tomorrow.

Right now, Zachary needs quiet. And Elizabeth needs a break.”

“Well.” She studied him when they were gone, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth. “That was forceful.”

Morgan scowled, aware she was about to scold him for treating her as the . . . what was it? Oh, yes, a weak and pampered

woman in need of his protection.

“Thank you.” She put her arms around him and held him, just held on. She sighed, her head fitting in the hollow of his

chest, their bodies perfectly aligned.

It felt good.

It felt like home.

He stroked his hands lightly up and down her back, tipped back her head. She smiled up at him mistily.

“Go,” he ordered gently. “Wash your face, catch your breath, get a cup of coffee.”

Her smile trembled. “I do need to use the bathroom.”

“Then go. I will stay.”

He watched her leave the room, his heart so huge he thought it would burst the bounds of his chest.

I will always stay, he thought.

He turned and saw their son watching from beneath half-closed eyes.

“I really screwed up, didn‟t I.” The boy‟s voice rasped. It wasn‟t a question.

Morgan was surprised. “You were unprepared. This is my fault, not yours.”

“I let him take me.”

So he did remember, Morgan thought with a flash of pity. “You fought.”

“I didn‟t win.”

Morgan chose his words with care. Zachary was still fragile. He needed reassurance. But he deserved the truth. “Sometimes

the victory is in holding on.” To a woman, he thought. Two children. A life. “You remembered who you are. You did not let

Tan touch your mother. You resisted. You were strong.” Morgan was forced to clear his throat. “I am proud of you.”

Zachary‟s pale face colored to the roots of his hair. He smiled crookedly. “Gee, thanks, Dad.”

Not a hook, Morgan thought dizzily. A harpoon, straight through the heart. “Congratulations, you have a son . ”

He went to the bed and awkwardly, for the first time, squeezed Zachary‟s hand. The boy turned his palm over and clung.

He heard a sound behind them. Elizabeth, standing in the doorway, her eyes shining with joy and tears.