The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,219

the mesh that covered her face. Shaking her head, she said, “We’re already dead. And you know it.”

SEVENTY-SEVEN

When Trez came awake, his face and his pillow were wet. Wiping his cheeks, he splayed his fingers out and looked at them glistening in the lamplight.

So.

This was the other side of it all.

Letting his arms flop back to the bed, he stared up at the ceiling. On some level, he couldn’t believe he was still here. Physically and mentally.

Had his room always been so quiet?

Jesus, every time he took a deep breath, his chest hurt like he’d broken all his ribs. Twice apiece.

And then there was the movie reel of torture: With each blink of his lids, another part of the loss played across his retinas—and he had to wonder if maybe this was what had been going on in his sleep and why he’d woken up as he had.

Part of him wanted the incessant processing to stop. Another part was terrified that if it did, it would mean that that forgetting thing he was so worried about was already starting.

How long had he been asleep?

He stayed where he was for a minute or two—or maybe it was hours? Or nights?—and then he threw out an arm and patted around for his phone. When he called up the screen to read the time, there were tons of notifications about texts and missed calls and voice mails, but he didn’t have the strength to go through them all.

Putting the cell back down, he realized the second he let go of the thing that the time hadn’t registered.

Where was Selena? he wondered.

Addressing the ceiling, he said, “Are you up there?”

What had she seen? Was there a Fade?

Funny, he hadn’t anticipated the fear he had now, but he probably should have. The idea that he didn’t know whether she was okay or not after death was something he was going to have to live with.

Until he passed himself, he guessed. And then if it was just a big black void? Well, then he wouldn’t exist to care.

Happy thought.

When he finally went to sit up, he gasped as pain exploded all over his body—sure as if the emotional agony in his soul had manifested itself in his flesh, his muscles stiff, his bones aching.

It was from the preparation ritual.

Maybe it would fade in a day or two.

He got up and used the bathroom. Brushed his teeth. Checked in with his stomach.

No, food was not a priority.

Drink might be good.

Yet even as those internal thoughts registered, it was from a distance, as if they were being yelled at him from across a football field.

Heading back out into his bedroom, he went over to the closet and opened the double doors. As the lights came on, he recoiled.

He could still smell her.

And two of her robes hung among his clothes.

Walking forward, he reached out to them, but ultimately hesitated to touch the folds of white fabric, especially as the raw wound behind his sternum flared up in pain again.

It was, he decided, kind of like a cut on your finger, one that didn’t hurt until you flexed your thumb—and then the thing really stung. Except on a much grander scale, of course.

Was this what it was going to be like? Him going through his nights and days bumping into random things and getting jolted back into the depths of his grief?

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said to her clothes, “without you.”

And he wasn’t just talking about getting dressed.

When there was no reply—but come on, like he expected her ghost to answer?—he took the nearest pants and shirt that he got to, threw them on his body, and walked out. For a good ten minutes, he stood in the center of the room and entertained the temptation to trash everything around him. But his body didn’t have the strength or the coordination, and his emotions couldn’t sustain the boil of the anger he felt.

He looked over at the window Selena had broken. She had been magnificent in her fury, so alive, so …

Holy shit, he was going to drive himself insane.

On his way to the door, he picked up his cell phone out of habit and then stopped in front of the exit to his room. He was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for pitying looks or prying questions. But he thought he’d seen that the shutters were still down?

Yup.

So hopefully the whole Last Meal thing would have been long cleaned up and the doggen retired