"Risa,” she said, her luminous blue eyes shining with warmth and amusement. "I was just thinking about you.”
"I figured as much. What's up?”
She sighed, and I instantly knew what that meant. My stomach twisted and I closed my eyes, wishing away the words I knew were coming.
But it didn't work. It never worked.
"I have another client who wants your help.” She said it softly, without inflection. She knew how much I hated hospitals.
"Mom—”
"It's a little girl, Ris. Otherwise I wouldn't ask you. Not so soon after the last time.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The last time had been a teenager whose bones had pretty much been pulverized in a car accident. He'd been on life support for weeks, with no sign of brain activity, and the doctors had finally advised his parents to turn off the machine and let him pass over. Naturally enough, his parents had been reluctant, clinging to the belief that he was still there, that there was still hope.
Mom couldn't tell them that. But I could.
Yet it had meant going into the hospital, immersing myself in the dying and the dead and the heat of the reapers. I hated it. It always seemed like I was losing a piece of myself.
But more than that, I hated facing the grief of the parents when—if—I had to tell them that their loved ones were long gone.
"What happened to her?”
If it was an accident, if it was a repeat of the teenager and the parents were looking for a miracle, then I could beg off. It wouldn't be easy, but neither was walking into that hospital.
"She went in with a fever, fell into a coma, and hasn't woken up. They have her on life support at the moment.”
"Do they know why?” I asked the question almost desperately, torn between wanting to help a little girl caught in the twilight realms between life and death and the serious need not to go into that place.