Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,109
a million miles from the truth. “Hey, baby girl, I missed you so much.”
When we were done reconnecting, I turned back to my beautiful wife.
“So, wifey dearest, how was your day?” I put on the old school voice again. It was a little schtick we had going on between the two of us.
“Boring, husband dearest, just like I like it.” It was still a running joke between us that she’d asked for a boring life and I’d given it to her, albeit with my work and our... us, I doubted it was boring by the average Joe’s standards, but by our standards it was drama free, and that was the way we both liked it.
“Daddy, you tell me the part where you died.”
I sank down onto the couch next to Noa with Lila in my lap.
“Well, beautiful girl, it’s like your even more beautiful mama says. We had our wedding, and after that, I knew if I died, I’d die the happiest and luckiest man in the world.” I smiled at the recollection. It was kind of weird to feel almost happy about dying, though that’s not how I’d felt at the time, but I had felt calm, and resigned.
Cliché though it was, what I’d told Lila about having everything I’d ever wanted in life at that moment, was true, so if I was going out, I was at peace with the idea, and I’d be going out on a high.
“A few hours later I did actually die. I felt this wave of warmth flow over me, like relaxing into a hot bath, and I slipped into a deep, deep sleep, or so I thought. In reality, my heart had stopped, and even as the medical team battled to save me, they thought I was gone. But just as they were about to give up, by some miracle—we still don’t really know what or how—I came back. My heart started, and I was alive again.”
Someday I’d tell her the full version of events, that I’d lived—or died, depending on how people looked at it—the ultimate cliché. I’d lost consciousness, and instantly started dreaming. In the dream I’d walked into a bar, sat down and ordered a drink, but the bartender had her back to me. When she turned around to hand me the drink, she was a grown woman, but her face was unmistakably Lily’s.
She didn’t seem to recognize me, in the normal sense of the word, but she threw my drink away and started yelling that my money was no good there. She was angry and screaming that I wasn’t welcome, and I needed to leave. The whole time I was calling her name, telling her who I was, asking if she knew me, and why she didn’t recognize me.
She didn’t seem to hear or register that I’d spoken, but kept angrily telling me that I needed to get the hell out of there. She came around from behind the bar and literally shoved me backwards out of the door.
“I woke up the next day and had no idea I’d even died, but apparently I had. Not only had they managed to bring me back, but a little while earlier in the day, they’d also had some more news. I’d already had a bone marrow transplant from Uncle Zed, which unfortunately had failed, but they’d found a new donor match, and thought we should try again, in case it took this time. We did, and it did, and here I am to tell you the tale, beautiful girl.”
“What was it like?”
“Dying?” This was a tried and tested part of the schtick, but I humored her with it, as ever.
“No, heaven.”
“Hmm... well I’m not sure that’s where I went, but do you want to know a secret?”
She nodded, and her tawny eyes glowed with excitement, so much like her mother’s. I looked past Lila to my stunning wife, before reaching for her hand and gripping it tightly in mine. Noa squeezed my hand right back, with tears forming again in the corners of her eyes. I shook my head. She had no reason to cry, and neither did I.
“Well, the best part is that I don’t have to die to go to heaven, because it turns out that I’m in heaven every day, right here with my beautiful girls.”
Nate - Gods Of The Fifth Floor 3
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Prologue
Nate
22 years earlier
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I didn’t even realize I was fighting until Miss Barnes