Salvation Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure I would have assumed I’d just go peacefully to sleep. But the body doesn’t want to die. It never wants to die. And it will do whatever possible to fight off every threat.
    In this case, it was horrible, convulsive vomiting—on my bed because there was no way I could even hang my head over the side.
    In the middle of it, one whisper-thin part of my mind heard something else. A pounding. Maybe like a knock on the door. The pounding didn’t last very long, and then there was a loud crash. It didn’t make any sort of impact on me because I was retching again.
    Then Gideon was there, and I had no idea how he’d gotten there. I couldn’t even see his face clearly, but I knew it was him. “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, Diana. What did you do?” He was leaning down and turned me over some more so I wasn’t at risk of choking as I puked.
    He must have already been on the phone with someone because he lifted his phone to his ear without dialing and said, “She’s vomiting. It looks really bad.”
    There was a pause, and then he reached down to grab the bottle I’d let drop on the bed. He read out the name of the pills to whoever he was talking to on the phone.
    Then he was lifting up my body. “The ambulance will be here soon. I called it in before I got here.”
    That didn’t make any sense at all, but I was far past trying to process such things.
    He must have carried me to the bathroom, although I wasn’t aware of his doing so. We somehow ended up there, though. I vomited some more. Then there was a shock of water on my face and neck and chest. I had no idea where it came from. And we were both on the floor of the bathroom, and he was holding me up as I gagged on painful dry heaves.
    He was telling me that it would be all right. That help would come. That it would be here soon. That I’d be okay. There was something broken about the way he sounded, but I was broken too.
    We’d been on the floor together in that other room too, when help hadn’t come in time.
    ***
    T he next thing I was aware of was opening my eyes to a bleak, painful light.
    It hurt my head so I closed my eyes again. I was gradually waking up, though, and I realized I wasn’t on the floor anymore. I was in a bed. But the sheets felt different than my normal sheets.
    My whole body hurt as I tried to stretch.
    When I managed to get my eyes opened, I realized I was in a hospital room. It would hurt to turn my head, but I cut my eyes around the room until they landed on a man in the chair.
    His hair had grown out some since when I’d seen him in that row house. It was light brown and thick—the kind that would stick out if he didn’t keep it cut pretty short. He looked different too in what must be his normal clothes—gray t-shirt and worn jeans. He had a light cast on his arm still but no sling.
    All this I noticed in the few seconds it took for him to open his eyes. He must not have been asleep.
    He straightened up as soon as he saw me looking at him.
    “Wha—” I tried to ask, but the one word stuck in my throat.
    He got up quickly and grabbed the water in the hospital cup beside the bed. He guided the straw to my mouth so I could drink it.
    I swallowed a couple of gulps and then panted from the effort.
    “You’ll be okay,” Gideon said, still holding the water in case I wanted to drink it again. “We got you here quickly enough. There’s no permanent damage to your liver or kidneys.”
    “I’ll be...okay?”
    “Yeah. They called your dad. He’s in Russia, I guess, but he’s on his way back now.”
    My dad traveled all the time for work, so I wasn’t surprised or particularly interested in this fact. Gideon’s face was a little strange as he said it, as if he was more concerned by my dad’s absence than I was.
    I still couldn’t quite figure out how I’d even gotten here. The details I did remember were random and disconnected. “Did you break down my door?”
    “I kicked it in,” he admitted. “I was worried about you. I had