Voices (Whisper Trilogy Book 3) Read Online Free

it was total.
    Room 411 was at the furthest end of the corridor. Like the others, it was designed to be as homely as possible, a feat almost achieved if not for the presence of an ugly grey hospital bed and a large bank of expensive equipment keeping its occupant’s vital organs functioning . He didn’t knock as the door was open when he got there. Instead he waited, looking at the broken slab of meat being kept alive in the loosest sense of the word by the network of tubes and wires snaking out of his body. Not for the first time, it struck Dane that Bruce Jones would have been better off if he’d died at the hands of his maniac brother. Instead, the machines whirred, clunked and beeped, and Bruce Jones’ heart kept beating, and his lungs kept inflating and deflating. No machine, however, could save his brain. It had been damaged beyond repair when Henry had attacked, and the doctors had said there was no hope of recovery. In spite of that, Bruce’s wife, Audrey, sat as always by his bedside, holding his limp and unfeeling hand. Dane thought it odd how his face was so worry free (apart from the misshapen skull, that was) as he slept through an ordeal from which he would never regain consciousness. Audrey bore the burden enough for them both, appearing nearer to fifty than her thirty seven years. She noticed Dane standing by the entrance, and turned away, stroking her husband’s hand.
    “You got your way, finally,” she said without looking at him. “I bet you’re glad it’s over at last. I told him not to go to that place. I told him you and your brother were trouble, but he was too stubborn to listen.”
    “We’ve already been through this. None of what happened is my fault. I suffered too.”
    “Not enough,” she said, glaring at him. “That brother of yours should have hung for what he did instead of getting to live out his days in a hospital.”
    Dane said nothing. Instead, he looked at Bruce, trying to understand why he felt no sympathy.
    “My brother is sick—”
    “Don’t you dare make excuses for him or you can turn around and leave.”
    “Audrey, you asked me to come here today.”
    “Don’t give me that shit. Those lawyers of yours have been hounding me since the accident. All I wanted was to be left alone to look after my husband.”
    “I wasn’t hounding you. I was offering you help when I thought you might have needed it. God knows, you don’t need a reminder like that hanging around your neck.”
    “Don’t cheapen yourself by lying. You wanted something Bruce has and you haven’t let it go since,” she said, glaring darkly in his direction.
    “Audrey, please…”
    “You don’t need to beg. I’ll sign your papers. Chalk up another win for the Marshall boys.”
    He made no outward reaction, yet inside his adrenaline spiked.
    “Why the change of heart?” he asked.
    “Why the hell do you care? You don’t know him. You don’t know any of us.”
    Dane looked at his shoes, then remembering he still had the bunch of cheap flowers in his hand, set them down on the dresser. He didn’t expect an answer, and was trying to think of something else to say when she responded.
    “It’s time to let him go. This isn’t Bruce. He’d have hated this… being kept alive by machines. You know, I can’t even remember his voice anymore.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “We have a daughter, you know. She’s seven. Every day she asks me when Daddy will be home. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep lying to her? To keep giving her hope?”
    “No, no I don’t.”
    “That’s why I decided it’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to move on.”
    “You’re switching off life-support?” Dane asked, eyebrows raised.
    “I can’t do it anymore,” she said softly, the anger fading out of her voice. “I don’t have the strength. He’s not coming back, I know that. I just… It feels like I’m giving up on him.”
    “He’d want you to move on.”
    “Don’t you dare tell me what he’d