Revived

forty-one

I open my eyes, but not all the way.

My field of vision is limited. It’s as if I’m looking through my hands curled into O’s, like mock binoculars. I hear movement and have to turn my head because I have no peripheral vision.

Mason is sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed.

I blink at him. He smiles and takes my left hand, and in his hand mine feels funny. Not numb, but… wrong. I look down at my arms: They’re bloated like they’ve been pumped with air, red and blotchy. My left arm is attached to an IV and I can’t help but wonder how they found a vein through all that marshmallow skin. I don’t have to look in a mirror to know that my face looks the same way; instinctively, I touch my puffy cheek.

Mason’s eyes are watery, and he’s blinking like he’s trying not to cry.

“Hi, Daisy,” he says warmly. I look around, squinting, trying to make my eyes work properly. Mason takes it as me not knowing where I am. “You’re at the hospital. You were attacked by bees, but you’re okay now. You’re safe.”

I let go of Mason’s hand so I can pat an itch on my forehead, knowing well enough not to use my fingernails—I don’t want scars. I pat another on my right arm as a nurse breezes in to check on me. She tips forward a little as she walks, like she’s about to fall over. She has punk-rock hair—a bleach-blond boy cut—even though she’s the age of a grandmother.

“Welcome back, young lady,” she says as she puts a finger on my wrist and looks at the clock. Her words are kind, but her face is all business.

“Thanks,” I say, managing to talk even though my lips are stuck together. “Did you…” I whisper to Mason. He shakes his head and glances at the nurse. She does something behind me, then writes on my chart. Mason waits for her to leave before he answers me.

“Matt saved you,” he says. “He called nine-one-one. And…”

“What?”

“He also contacted Megan.”

I stare at Mason for a second, realizing that he knows I told Matt about the program. But breaking the rules might have also saved both of our lives. Mason’s not saying more about it, so I decide to gloss over it, too.

“How?” I ask. Pat, pat.

“Through the blog,” Mason says. Pat, pat.

“That was so smart of him,” I say, amazed. I wipe at nothing under my right eye, and it’s then that I realize what’s blocking my vision: skin. My own swollen skin.

“Yes,” Mason says, bringing me back, “it was clever.”

“Cassie…” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. When I do, I feel the sting wounds on my scalp rubbing against the pillow. Aware of them now, I pat my head.

“I know,” he says. “I can’t believe that she was watching our every move all this time. Plotting with God. I can’t fathom how or why….” His voice trails off and, for a second, he looks distractedly out the window.

“So did I die?” I whisper, because who knows where the nurse went.

“Yes,” Mason says, his green eyes back on me.

“Tell me what happened,” I say, mostly because I want to know, but also because I need a distraction. I’ve been stung by bees before, but it’s never been this bad. It’s like having PMS bloat throughout my whole body instead of just in my midsection; I have to wiggle my fingers so they don’t go numb from losing circulation. That, coupled with the itchy, burning pain of my body rejecting the venom, is making me feel like I’m going to freak out.

Mason looks at me wearily; he can tell I’m not feeling well. “You need your rest,” he says.

“Tell me what happened,” I command.

“Okay, Daisy,” he says, patting my hand, but not hard enough to take away the itch. “Okay.” He pauses and leans closer to me so I can hear him despite his low tone. “Matt told Megan that he heard you say something about Cassie—”

“He heard that?” I interrupt, remembering lying on the concrete. Dying.

“Apparently so,” Mason says softly. “Anyway, Matt relayed that to Megan, who in turn got David involved. David tracked Cassie’s cell location and recent calls, which led him to God’s location. He sent teams after both and focused on you.”

“But Cassie cleaned out the Revive,” I say. “And no one was around to administer it.”

“David grounded my plane in the middle of a field and had a car waiting for me,” he says.

“I bet that was scary.”

Mason makes a so-so gesture with his hand. I pat, pat my cheek. “The civilians were frantic,” he says. “They thought it was terrorists. I got an in-flight message from David, though, so I knew what was happening. It’s a good thing, too; God had something planned for me when I landed in Washington.”

“How long did it take you to get to me?” I ask, shifting to a more comfortable position.

“Thankfully, the flight path took us east, so I was only about twenty miles away.”

“That’s too far out,” I say, shaking my head. Surprisingly, I can’t feel the stings this time. “You couldn’t have brought me back from that.” Suddenly I feel spacey, like I’m watching the scene from outside my body. I realize that nothing else is bothering me anymore, either. I move my head again to make sure.

“Did the nurse give me something?” I ask.

Mason nods. “We’ve been sedating you to keep you calm,” he says. “You were stung more than a hundred times.”

My head falls back to the pillow but I fight sleep; I need to know what happened. I shake my head more forcefully to clear the fog.

“How long was I dead?”

“Twelve minutes,” Mason says seriously.

“Wait, what?” I ask, my eyelids drooping. “But you said you were…”

“Shh,” Mason says. “Get some rest now. I’ll explain later.”

I refuse to close my eyes. “Explain now,” I demand, but it lacks conviction.

“Daisy, you died, but Revive didn’t bring you back,” he says.

“What did, then?” I ask, finally closing my eyes, barely hanging on to consciousness.

“Blah, blah, blah,” I hear Mason say, except I’m pretty sure that’s not actually what he said. I force open my eyelids one last time.

“What saved me?”

This time, because I can see his lips, I get it.

“CPR.”