Fractured Minds ( AoR #2)

Chapter Two

Austin

"Come on, Madeline. Wake up."

No matter how many times I whispered the same words to her over and over again, checking for any flicker of recognition or thread of her consciousness, nothing changed. She was basically an empty shell, which made no sense to me. Well, it made sense, but not in ways I wanted it to.

My thoughts were interrupted by Brandon's form filling the doorway. I hadn't been expecting him. I hadn't seen him since he had turned heel and walked out of Madeline's room the day before, right after I told him I couldn't sense her anymore. Truth be told, I was a little mad at him for that. Coming to terms with the idea that I might be helpless to help Madeline was a pretty vulnerable moment for me, and vulnerable was not a color I wore well. Not that anyone does, but his walking out of the room only served to make me feel worse about it all.

And it made me realize how alone I was in all of this. Sure, Brandon knew. But he wasn't exactly an ally. I had pitted myself against an entire organization with limitless resources, and if I was honest, I wasn't even sure what I was fighting for at the moment. Something felt off, and I acted on a gut feeling. But I had moments where I wondered if that was the right choice. Wondered if I shouldn't turn the whole thing over to SHIFT and walk away.

The entirety of yesterday was one of those moments. One very long, and very painful, moment where the doubt crept in and took a hold of me. Brandon walking away from me was salt in already gaping wound, but I still felt the sting. So I just blinked at him. I didn't say a word, waiting on him to make the first move.

"Still nothing?" Brandon asked, his lean form still blocking the doorway. He wasn't exactly skinny, but he wasn't built and broad shouldered like his brother.

I reluctantly leaned back, dropping my hand from her head and letting it rest on her arm. I didn't feel comfortable separating myself from her too much, which is why I hadn't left her room. "No, no change."

"What have the doctors said?"

I splayed my hands. "No swelling or fluid buildup. I think they're trying to figure out if she had a prolonged seizure or whatever that caused this."

"Status epilepticus," Brandon confirmed knowingly, which told me he'd done much more research on her condition than I had. "Could also mean multiple seizures back to back. What else did they say?"

I shrugged. "I wasn't really paying attention."

He stared at me in disbelief, his shoulders squaring with the anger building. "You what? You didn't pay attention?"

"No, I didn't," I responded, an edge to my tone matching the set of my jaw. "I don't need them to explain what happened. I already know. She Jumped. If it was anything else, anything medical causing this, then I'd still be able to sense her."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," I gritted my teeth, clamping down on the urge to snap at his skepticism since I was too tired for any real verbal sparring. "I've mostly dealt with coma patient Sleepers since becoming active in SHIFT. Even when they had slipped into another reality and were vegetative in this one, I could still sense them. I can't sense her at all. Which tells me something went wrong when she Jumped."

Panic flickered across his features, washing away the angry shadows that had once been there. "Do you think...I mean, is it possible she did Jump, and then something happened to her while she was there? You said you don't really know what happens to someone when they die in a reality that isn't their own. Could, um, could she be dead?"

I didn't answer right away. I'd already thought of this, and I didn't have a definitive answer. I hung my head and splayed my hands. "I suppose it's possible, but I can't believe that's what happened to Madeline."