The Ravaging in Between (The Reanimation Files Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

that letter made me feel your death all over again.” He shook his head. “It made me feel what I’d felt for those two minutes when you were dead. It made me feel what a lifetime without you would be like. I couldn’t handle that, Selene. It broke my heart all over again.”
    “Micah…”
    “You died.”
    The weight of his gaze was almost too much to look at but I didn’t look away.
    “Two minutes may not seem like very long, but it might as well have been two centuries. I stood there watching the paramedics try to revive you and it felt like my heart had exploded. It was the worst moment of my existence. Even worse than my mother’s death, because at least I had time to prepare for her passing. She was sick and I knew how it would end. Your death was something I never saw coming. Then they brought you back, but you remained unconscious, and for the past month I’ve had to listen to everyone puzzle over the fact that you didn’t die when Renton did. I’ve had to sit here and hold your hand and not know if you would ever open those beautiful eyes and look at me again. And now you’re awake, and still all I can think about are those minutes when you were truly dead, and that letter you wrote thinking it would be all I would have left of you.”
    “But Micah, tell me you understand why I did it. I did not make that decision lightly, and it terrified me, but it was the only option.”
    “Was it?”
    “Yes. It was. If I took my reanimation power back from Renton, I would still have had the Rot. And we’ve been over this; I was not going to let you continue the treatment Renton came up with because it came at the cost of other people’s lives. You have to understand that.”
    Micah blew out a frustrated breath and let go of my hand so he could run his fingers through his hair. He stared off at the room’s wall. “I do understand. But it doesn’t make it easier to live with the fact that you killed yourself. I feel twisted up over everything that has happened. I don’t know what to think or feel about any of it half the time. I find myself getting so angry with you and with myself over the choices we made, and the wedge it drove between us.”
    “I feel the same way. Because I still have not forgiven you for allowing Renton’s treatment. I’m not even sure how to get to a place of forgiveness. But by whatever glitch it was, I’m still here, so we have to figure this out.”
    “Yeah.” Micah lowered his head and his shoulders drooped. He looked defeated. I couldn’t imagine how hard this past month must have been for him. There was so much for him to shoulder. So much that had happened because of his uncle.
    “Tell me what happened,” I said, in a not-so-subtle attempt to steer the subject away from our relationship woes. That wouldn’t get fixed here in my hospital room with me being conscious for the first time in a month. It would take time. I just hoped it would get fixed one way or another.
    “Chaos,” Micah said. “Renton died, Ilyse died, so many people died…”
    “Ilyse. It’s hard for me to grasp that she really isn’t here anymore.”
    “I know,” Micah said softly. “I feel the same way.”
    I fought back my tears. Ilyse’s death would be something I’d be dealing with for a long time, but I didn’t want to fall apart right now. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
    “Has her ghost already crossed over? Did the fading ceremony happen?”
    “Not yet,” Micah replied. “It’s supposed to take place in early November. You will be able to say good-bye.”
    I nodded, still fighting to hold back my tears. “Ilyse was a powerful dead witch; I’m not surprised her sanctification took this long.”
    Death among dead witches was different from death among humans or necromancers. After a dead witch passed away, their ghost always rose, but it was never because of unfinished business. No one really knew why the unfinished business thing passed over dead witches, but speculation was