Prologue

In retrospect, jumping in front of a train wasn’t the best way to deal with my problems at the time. I didn’t even consider the damage the poor driver, the person who witnessed my suicide, might suffer as a result. Relentless guilt. Recurring nightmares. Basically, everything I was dealing with at the time, but without the addition of brutally murdered parents.

Jumping in front of that train was, I now admit, wildly inconsiderate.

But even I didn’t deserve to be tossed into a battle royale by a Greek god.

Chapter 1

Day 1—Thursday, February 10th, 2000

9:03 PM

 “Mr. Copeland? Can you hear me? If you can, please open your eyes.”

Hers was a calm voice, respectful and kind. I hadn’t expected an afterlife, but at least this one had nice people in it. Heaven smelled like new plastic and laundry detergent.

Yet when I opened my eyes there were no pearly gates or fires of Hell, both of which I’d been warned to expect by people much more pious than me. Just the blue-and-white walls of an unadorned hospital room and the fluffy gray sheets on the bed in which I currently reclined. I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t missing a single limb. So that was odd, considering the train.

A woman smiled at me from the end of my bed. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She wore medical scrubs and a stethoscope, which suggested she was a doctor. She had her dark, frizzy hair in a lovely but complicated weave and wore wire-rimmed glasses. Her furrowed brow conveyed curiosity, not concern, which suggested I was not under arrest.

Still, I considered my answer carefully. This was a bed, and this was a hospital, and that was an IV bag hanging from a rolling pole to my left. Other than my boxers, I wore nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. An IV needle poked my wrist. None of it was difficult to explain save for the last thing I remembered, before now, before this.

The blinding glare of the Yellow Line as it barreled toward me.

“Where…” My rasp burned my throat, and I decided not to talk for a bit.

I touched the fuzzy bandage wrapped around my neck. My brain stuttered, because I couldn’t understand how a train could slice my throat and not the rest of me. So far as I knew, people who jumped in front of trains did not walk away with a sore throat.

I was twenty-two years old, in medical debt up to my eyeballs, and one bad week from joining the homeless people I regularly passed spare change to on the street. I shouldn’t be alive right now. I had done everything I could to not be alive.

My new doctor offered a friendly smile. “I’m Doctor Allen, and you’re at Medstar Washington. We have security officers. No one can harm you here. Would you like to rest for a bit longer, or would you like to talk about your condition?”

My throat felt like I’d swallowed sandpaper. “Condition.”

“It’s just past nine PM on Thursday. Around three hours ago, you stumbled through the doors of our ER holding your throat. We believe someone slashed it. We rushed you into surgery, sedated you, and gave you a transfusion.”

I winced at how much all that effort probably cost, then struggled to remember who’d slashed my throat. I mentally walked through the implausible events my doctor suggested. I needed something to explain why I was in this bed instead of mangled beneath a train.

Medstar Washington was perhaps a mile from the Columbia Heights Metro station, the buried, well-lit underground tunnel where I jumped in front of the Yellow Line. Assuming the train somehow missed me, I’d walked up all those steps and into the cold night. Somewhere between the station and the hospital, someone slashed my throat.

Yet instead of bleeding out, I’d walked a mile to this hospital complex and stumbled into the ER. I’d never been to this particular hospital, so me finding their ER suggested I’d been lucky beyond the luck required to miss a train and survive a cut throat. We’re talking the type of luck that has you meeting your true love on the day you win the lottery and get a dog.

So maybe I was dead, and this was some sort of weird afterlife I hadn’t considered. Maybe some god wanted me to work through my issues from when I was alive, or make peace with my inner demons. I’d halfway hoped there wasn’t an afterlife at all.

Yet if I was alive, I’d failed to solve any of my problems. I had no money, no health insurance, no family, and no girlfriend. I had nothing to live for and a lot of reasons not to, chief of which were the recurring nightmares of my parents’ brutal murder, but I hadn’t had any of those while I slept, either. If I’d really been asleep.

Again, Doctor Allen bravely broke the silence. “Do you remember who attacked you?”

I shook my head. At least it didn’t hurt to move my neck.

“Is there someone we can call? A partner? A parent or grandparent?”

I shook my head again.

Her brow furrowed in concern. “No one?”

No one was correct. I had no family to call and no way to pay whatever hospital bills I’d racked up since I arrived, but I already owed more money than I could possibly pay off. A few grand on top of what it cost to put my chest back together wouldn’t change much.

My latest doctor adjusted her glasses as she considered me. “I see.”

Doctor Allen likely pitied me now, perhaps assuming I was one of the many homeless who survived in DC. I would be homeless in a week, after my landlord evicted me for failing to pay rent three times, so she wasn’t far off. Another reason to jump in front of a train.

Finally, Doctor Allen found whatever she expected to find behind my eyes. “I can’t stop you from leaving, but I’d like you to stay overnight for observation. If you’re worried about payment, the hospital has a number of payment plans for you to consider.”

Chuckling hurt. I’d already considered those payment plans. I’d never earn enough money to pay off my debt because I’d had the audacity to survive the brutal stabbing that killed my parents. The downside of rolling without health insurance.

Still, Doctor Allen was offering a warm bed, warm food, and time to find another way to kill myself before my landlord kicked me out on my ass. I can’t say I craved hospital food, but it was a meal I wouldn’t have to pay for. Given my only remaining bank account was overdrawn and suspended, I leaned back in my bed and forced a smile.

“Thank you.”

I meant it. She seemed nice.

She simply nodded. “Regarding your throat. Would you like to file a police report?”

I shook my head once more. I didn’t even know what I’d say to the police. Be on the lookout for a runaway train?

From the way Doctor Allen sighed, I suspected the people she most wanted to help rarely filed police reports. “I can recommend a list of shelters for you to visit after you check out. Most have waiting lists, but I can call ahead and reserve you a spot.”

“Thanks, Doc. That’d help.” I had no use for shelters, but I suspected it would make her feel better if she thought she’d truly helped me. That might bring her peace.

A smile softened her face. “We’ll speak again tomorrow. If the pain grows worse, click the button by your bed and a nurse will check on you. Feel better, Mister Copeland.”

“Ryder.”

She offered another pleasant smile. “A nurse should be by in a few minutes with dinner… Ryder. Try to get some rest.” She strode out the door with a swish of soft shoes.

I settled against the flimsy pillow and considered her suggestion. Rest. I could try that, but then I might dream about that mumbling ratty-haired psycho stabbing Mom in the chest as I shrieked helplessly, bound to a chair. So, I decided not to nap right away.

A breathy and beautiful female voice spoke from my right. “Ryder?”

My eyes snapped to the woman floating outside my hospital room’s window. Her bronze skin gleamed despite the dark, and her brown hair floated like her willowy blue toga. Her eyes glowed blue. Oddly, her choice in clothing was the only thing that struck me as odd.

I wondered if she was cold out there. It was early February. Still, I smiled as it became abundantly clear I was neither awake nor alive. That was a big relief.

It turned out I wouldn’t have to deal with that pesky medical debt after all.

—–

Want to read more? Book 1 is out now on Amazon in e-book and audio!