Ain’t No Grave Can Keep MeUnder
Wakingup in heaven sounded a lot like waking upathome.
“>” Alexei groaned, trying to open his eyes. For some reason, his eyelids felt heavier thanusual.
The explosion of sound made him flinch before someone hissed loudly at everyone to, “>”
Quiet settled over him and Alexei took a moment to just breathe as the haziness of drugs pulled at the edge of his mind. He couldn’t remember why that was odd. Someone smoothed a hand through his hair, the callused fingers familiar from all the years his mother had performed that samegesture.
“>” his motherasked.
With a supreme effort of will, Alexei got his eyes open, blinking blearily at the blurry circle of faces surrounding him. The sheet and blanket covering his body weren’t his own, the rough material itching his skin. Alexei absently scratched at his chest with his right hand as his eyes drooped shutagain.
“Ah, Dvorkin. Don’t go to sleep on mejustyet.”
Whenever Alexei dreamed about his family, Dr. Gracie Gold was never there. Cracking open his eyes again, Alexei stared up at Gracie’s smiling, dark face and promptly freaked thefuckout.
The sensors on the biobed went haywire as he lunged into a sitting position, the lack of pain from remembered wounds making him gasp loudly. The noise started up again in his ears, but the buzz was drowned out by the chilled panic suffusing hisentirebody.
Firm hands grabbed his shoulders and held him in place. Alexei reacted instinctively, lashing out with less coordination than he was used to. Someone knocked his wild punch aside before pushing him firmly back down onto the bed. Alexei weakly fought against the hold, but couldn’t dislodge theattacker.
“>”
Alexei blinked, and suddenly Kyle was leaning over him, green eyes wide withworry.
“>”Kylesaid.
Alexei opened his mouth, but found that he couldn’t speak. The taste on his tongue was like dull metal in his mouth, the last remnants of all the blood he’d swallowed over the course of histimewith—
Alexei grabbed Kyle’s arm with desperate fingers, the sound of his heartbeat ratcheting up over the biobed’s sensors. “>”
“>”
“>”
“>” Kyle’s eyes flicked over to the side where Alexei could see the rest of their family hovering nearby. “>”
“>” Alexeiprotested.
“>” was Kyle’s retort. “>”
The reason why he’d woken up in Medical hit Alexei like a self-driving semi-truck, all explosive force as the memories cascaded through his mind. The sudden bout of nausea was impossible to hold back. Luckily, Gracie knew the signs, and she quickly pressed her hand to his forehead, her power washing through him like a soft wave of coolness. The churning in his stomach immediately eased and Alexei took a deep, careful breath throughhisnose.
Nothing hurt, he realized, as he stared blankly down at his right forearm. The skin there was pink and new, regrown through a regen process he hadn’t been awake for. Alexei slowly curled his hand into a fist, fingers moving as they should, not broken and left at an angle by his time spent beneath Cillian’s brutal attention. He pressed a tongue against his teeth, finding them all there, every last one, whole and in their proper placeagain.
“>”
Alexei startled, looking up from the healed-over skin on his right forearm to meet his little brother’s gaze. He blinked, finding the room empty of everyone except Kyle and Gracie. Alexei didn’t know when his family had left, nor how he had missed themgoing.
“> Kyle askedslowly.
“>” Alexei croaked out. It didn’t feel like much of a lie, even if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what washappening.
“>
Alexei couldn’t stop the flinch that caused his entire body to jerk against the bed at the mention of his knee. A flash image overlaid itself on the room—dark, except for the overhead light, unable to move as Cillian hammered his knee into pieces with a smile on hisscarredface.
The memory receded, overtaken by a kinder reality. He swallowed thickly, staring through Kyle rather than at him. “>”
