Page 51 of Wired Ghost

Sophie shut her eyes, drawing inward as she focused on the sound of Jake’s laboring heart. “Something is very wrong with him. You need to call the doctornow.”

Monica’s bright red lips drew into a thin line. “He’s going to be fine. But you need to get gone. You’re the reason he’s in this bed in the first place.”

Tears welled in Sophie’s eyes. “He chose this line of work. He chose to push me to safety,” she whispered hoarsely. “I would have happily traded places with him.”

Two pairs of gray eyes glared at her across Jake’s broad chest as she lay her cheek over his heart.At least they knew better than to try to touch her; that would not have ended well.

The door opened. Two bulky men in security uniforms entered. “You need to come with us, miss.”

Sophie turned her head to assess them. She could take these doughy rental cops out, no problem. It wouldn’t take five minutes to knock them out of commission. Her mind ran through the punches, jabs, and flips she could use.

But then what? The police would be called. She would eventually be overpowered and end up in jail. And how could she help Jake from there?

Sophie turned her head and applied her mouth to Jake’s in a deep kiss.

His lips felt flaccid beneath hers; the vital spark that was such a part of him was missing. But his skin was so hot . . .

And she couldn’t hear his heartbeat any longer.

The security guards grabbed her arms and bodily lifted her off of her fiancé. Sophie struggled with the urge to fight but went limp in their arms instead, sliding to the floor so that they had to physically drag her out of the room.

“Something is wrong,” she called. “Jake, I love you.”

Jake’s vitals alarm went off suddenly; a loud, terrible beeping. The security guards dragged Sophie into the hall as Monica and Janice shrieked for help.

The medical response team rushed into Jake’s room from their stations.

Sophie couldn’t let herself be hauled off and not even know what was happening.

She burst up from the floor and broke the guards’ hold in an arc of pure, powerful movement, and rushed back to the doorway.

But she couldn’t approach the bed, because even Monica and Janice had been forced out into the hall as Jake’s team assessed the situation.

The three women stood with their faces plastered to the window that offered a view of the life-and-death battle taking place in the room.

With a DNR order in place, there was nothing the team could do for him. The grim-faced doctor faced a hysterical Janice as she screamed at them to resuscitate him. “Jake’s wishes were made clear in legally binding terms. He was on a ventilator for four days, but with little brain activity. With that support removed, he fell back into a coma with the complication of this secondary infection, which has invaded his organs. There’s no way to bring him back from this. I’m very sorry, but you must accept the fact that he’s gone.”

At 8:05 p.m. Hawaii time, Jacob Sean Overstreet Dunn was pronounced dead.

Sophie stared at her fiancé’s lifeless body as his mother and sister clung to each other, sobbing, and his medical team slowly and soberly cleared up equipment.

Jake probably wouldn’t even be able to be an organ donor with that infection.

He’d have been so disappointed about that.

Jake’s heart had stopped beating even before the alarms on the monitors went off.

Thoughts blew across her mind in irrelevant bubbles. Everything seemed very far away.Sophie had been the one closest to him when he took his final breath.

She wrapped her arms around herself, holding onto that thought.

The security guards, who had been standing back from the drama, approached Sophie. “Miss, you need to come with us. It’s all over now. He’s in a better place,” one of them said.

“Are you sure about that better place?” Sophie cocked her head and squinted her eyes at the man thoughtfully. “I hope so, because Jake believed in that.”

“I’m sure it’s true,” the man said. “Our bodies die, but our spirits live on.”

Sophie turned back to stare through the window. Jake’s skin looked almost translucent and his mouth hung slack. He was gone and had left an empty husk posed on the bed.

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