Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

“Or it might just mean I’m stubborn too. Holding on to life even when there’s no real hope.”

“We shape our own fate.”

“Do we?”

“Some of it. Maybe most of it. If you have a stronger reason to live than to die, perhaps you can make that happen.”

For the first time she could remember, Diana heard the words of a guide and was afraid she was being deceived. Could she trust Brooke to tell her the truth? About anything?

So far, she had not felt that sense of wrongness that had alerted her to the false Quentin. Brooke looked exactly as she had looked before, spoke in the same way, and nothing about her seemed false or off. But Diana didn’t trust herself to sense anything in particular, not now, because the probability of her own death was a black cloud of terror and regret wrapping around her, smothering her.

Accepting this fate was no easier because she knew something of herself would survive death, that there was some existence afterward. She didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to leave the living world.

She didn’t want to leave Quentin.

She wasn’t ready. Not now. Not yet.

Trying her best to push all that aside, she heard herself responding to the guide, attributing her casual, almost offhand tone to sheer instinct. “Make that happen? Do something to change my own fate? What, here? I don’t do anything in the gray time, Brooke, except talk to guides.”

“This time maybe you can.”

“Yeah, like what? Figure out who shot me? I doubt he’s on this side.” She paused, then added quickly, “He isn’t, is he?”

“No.”

Diana wondered if she could believe that. If she should.

What if he’s here? Could he find me here? Could he hurt me even more on this side? Hollis was afraid Samuel’s pet monster could have, if he was dead. How do I know the sniper isn’t capable of that, whether he’s alive or dead?

Do I even understand this place, this time, as well as I always believed I did?

Could there be someone else here, another psychic, watching her? Watching and perhaps exerting some kind of control or at least influence over her? And, if so, how could that person, that being, hide in a place where there was no darkness or light, where there were no shadows?

“You have to look for the truth.”

“The truth underneath it all, yeah, I remember. I don’t have a clue what you meant by that, but I remember.”

“It’s all about ties. About connections.”

Diana sighed. “Between what? People? Places? Events?”

“All that.”

“Thanks. That was a lot of help.”

Brooke turned and walked away.

Diana looked after her for a moment, then got up from the bench and quickly followed. She didn’t know where she was being led and had the awful fear that she could end up someplace a lot worse than an eerie Serenade Main Street, but one thing she was absolutely sure of was that she didn’t want to be alone in the gray time.

“Hey, wait up.”

“Keep up,” Brooke said, without turning.

“You’ve got a mouth on you for a kid.”

“You of all people should know I’m not a kid,” Brooke said as Diana caught up with her. “None of us is a child in the gray time, even if we died as children. I’ve lived and grown up and died more than once, and I remember every life when I’m here. We all remember it here.”

That did startle Diana, even though it explained a lot; she had been communicating with unnervingly mature “child” guides all her life. But it also raised the question… “Wait. I don’t remember another life. Just the one. What does that mean?”

“It could be another sign that you don’t belong here.”

Diana began to feel more hopeful even as she wondered, again, if she could believe what any guide said.

“Then again,” Brooke continued, “it could just mean you’re a new soul.”

Resisting the impulse to swear out loud as she was swearing inwardly, Diana instead struggled to keep her voice steady when she said, “So people who believe in reincarnation are right?”

“Let’s say they’re on the right track.”

“Karma?”

Brooke didn’t need the question clarified. “There are far worse hells than a pit of fire and torment. And better heavens than pretty clouds and harp music.”

“And we reap what we sow?”

“We’re called to account for our actions in one way or another, never doubt that. It’s all a question of balance. The universe likes things to even out. Sooner or later.”

Diana wanted to think about that but became aware that they were no longer walking along Serenade’s Main Street. Everything around her seemed to blur for an instant, and then she realized that she was, once again, in the gleaming, featureless halls of that onetime asylum.

“Brooke, why are we here?”

“Because we have to be. You have to be.”

“I thought you wanted me to go to the hospital where my—where I am. This can’t be that place, because this place doesn’t exist in the living world. Not anymore.”

“You have to be here,” Brooke repeated.

“She’s lying to you,” a new voice said calmly.

Diana stopped, turned very slowly, and wasn’t at all relieved or happy to see Quentin standing in an open doorway just behind them, smiling at her.

“I know I should go back with you, Miranda,” Hollis said. “I know the doctor said there was nothing we could do for Diana here. But…”

“But you think otherwise?” Miranda showed no signs of impatience, even though the sheriff had gone ahead to tell their pilot that they were ready for the trip back to Serenade.

Hollis hesitated, then moved her shoulders in a gesture not quite a shrug. “I don’t know what I think. But what I feel is that I need to stay close, at least for now.”

“You realize that staying here will be difficult for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I figured that out a few hours ago.” Hollis didn’t look at DeMarco, even though she could feel him watching her.

Miranda nodded and said, “I thought you’d seen at least a few spirits since we got here.”

“It was worse downstairs in the trauma unit. A little better up here.” Hollis avoided looking toward the hallway visible from this waiting area. “But they’re still… awfully vivid. And I can’t seem to close the door.”

“Probably not one you opened.” Miranda offered her a twisted smile. “I know from experiences with my sister that there are some places where spirits walk, and hospitals are at the top of that list. Mediums really can’t help seeing them.”

“I can handle it,” Hollis said, hoping she could.

“I don’t doubt you can. It just won’t be easy. Look, Hollis, we don’t know how the gray time works, but we do know Diana has always been convinced there are souls who end up there, disconnected from their bodies. Trapped, at least for a while, before they can move on.”

“Or come back. Yes.” Hollis was praying DeMarco would keep his mouth shut; they hadn’t gotten the chance that morning to report the events of the night to Miranda, especially the part about Hollis now being drawn to the gray time whenever Diana opened the door. And Hollis wanted it to stay that way, at least for now. Because she had no doubt that Miranda would not approve of the risky plan taking shape in her mind.

“You believe she’s there?”

“The doc said her heart stopped twice. We know it stopped once back in Serenade. If the gray time really is a corridor between this world and the next, I think it’s likely that’s where Diana’s spirit would go. It’s a place she’s comfortable in, confident, almost at home. It could be a refuge for her in a situation like this one.”

“A place to hide?”