Cold Slab
🪦Thorne
The first thing I notice is the cold.
Not regular cold. Not oops, I left the window open cold. This is deeper than that. Heavier. Like I’ve been locked inside a metal box in the back of a walk-in freezer and forgotten there.
My brain says, shiver.
My body doesn’t.
My eyes snap open.
Ceiling.
Off-white tiles. A fluorescent tube buzzing overhead like it’s dying slowly. A brown water stain spreads from one corner, shaped like a lopsided heart.
I fixate on that because it’s easier than thinking about anything else.
I try to breathe.
My chest doesn’t move.
My throat makes the motion, but there’s no air catching. No drag in my lungs. No burn.
Just nothing.
Okay.
That’s bad.
I shove my hands down to sit up, and my skin sticks to whatever I’m lying on. Smooth. Hard. Freezing.
Metal.
A metal table.
Perfect.
The sheet beneath me crinkles. Paper-thin, hospital white, tucked clumsily around my waist and leaving my legs bare from mid-thigh down. My toes look weirdly small and neat, nails painted a soft blush pink I picked for the wedding.
There’s a tag tied to my big toe.
Of course there is.
I lift my foot. The card swings when I move, lazy and cheerful in a way that makes me want to throw up.
ELLIS, THORNE. F. 23.
There’s a line underneath.
DATE OF DEATH:
It’s filled in.
The world tilts.
For one awful second, all I can hear is a high, thin ringing in my ears.
No.
No, that’s ridiculous. Dramatic. This is some gross prank, or I’m hallucinating, or I’m still trapped in whatever happened before this.
I swing my legs off the table.
The floor is even colder than the slab, but my feet don’t react. No flinch. No sting. Just contact.
My hand flies to my chest.
Silence.
No thud. No flutter. Nothing pushing against my palm from the inside.
The emptiness is loud.
Memories slam into me in broken pieces.
White lace tight over my ribs. Perfume too strong beneath my veil. My mother’s hands shaking as she clipped my earrings into place. Kate fussing with my hair and muttering about bobby pins like the entire wedding depended on them.
Sean’s fingers, warm and steady, sliding the engagement ring onto my hand the night he asked me to marry him.
Gold band. Single diamond. A little too big when I first tried it on. I used to twist it when I was nervous. It would catch on my knuckle and remind me, you’re not alone in this.
I look down at my hand now.
The ring is still there.
The sight of it almost hurts more than the empty place inside my chest.
I curl my fingers until the band presses hard into my skin.
Then more pieces come.
Headlights too bright. Tires screaming against wet road. A horn. A shout that might have been Sean’s or mine or both.
The sharp, metallic taste of blood on my tongue.
Copper. Salt. Panic.
Glass exploding.
Cold rain on my face.
Then nothing.
I drag my gaze around the room.
Stainless steel. Bad lighting. A wall of square metal doors, each stamped with a number. More tables like mine. Some empty. Some with sheet-covered shapes I refuse to see as people. A sink. A tray of instruments: scissors, scalpel, things I know from too many medical dramas and wish I didn’t.
I’m in a morgue.
My brain does not want that information. It tries to shove it back out.
I swallow, even though my throat is dry and the motion is pure habit.
Something tugs at the side of my neck.
Not pain, exactly. More like a burn beneath the skin. I touch it with two fingers and feel two raised marks, tender and too neat to be from broken glass.
My hand drops.
“Easy,” a voice says.
Low. Male. Too calm for this room.
I jerk so hard the table squeals against the floor.
A man leans against one of the metal doors, arms folded, like he’s been here a while.
Like he’s been watching.
He’s tall, with broad shoulders beneath a black shirt and sleeves rolled to his forearms. Dark hair falls around his jaw in lazy waves, one streak of silver cutting through the front like someone put it there on purpose. A small silver cross dangles from his left ear, which feels like a bad joke in a room full of corpses.
But it’s his eyes that make my stomach drop.
Amber.
Bright.
Wrong.
Predator eyes.
“Who are you?” My voice scrapes raw. “What is this? Why…”
I gesture at the room. At myself. At the toe tag. All of it.
“What the hell is going on?”
He pushes off the door and comes closer in smooth, unhurried steps.
The way he moves is wrong, too. Too balanced. Too precise. My instincts scream stranger danger, but the rest of me is stuck on the deeply inconvenient fact that he’s beautiful.
Infuriatingly beautiful.
Especially for someone lurking in a morgue.
“You’re in the city morgue,” he says. “Basement level. Restricted access. And what’s going on is complicated.”
“Wow.” I clutch the sheet tighter around myself. “Helpful.”
He stops just out of arm’s reach.
Up close, I can see the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the faint scar at the corner of his mouth, the gold flecks in those impossible eyes. He looks me over like he’s checking items off a list.
“Thorne Ellis,” he says. “You can take that off now. It’s outdated.”
He nods at my foot.
I bend, fingers clumsy, and rip the tag free. It swings once on the string before I fling it at him.
It flutters to the floor between us.
“There.” My hands are shaking. “Updated.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Much better.”
“I asked who you are.” I hear the edge of hysteria creeping into my voice, so I try to bury it under sarcasm. “And why I apparently have a death certificate but I’m standing here.”
His gaze flicks to the ring on my finger.
Something hot and mean flashes in his eyes before he smooths it away.
“I’m Xavier,” he says. “And you’re not standing well.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Sometimes.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Just not today.”
“I want a doctor,” I say. “And Sean. Call Sean. Or an ambulance. Or literally anyone whose job isn’t whatever this is.”
“Sean Bradford.” Xavier says his name like he’s testing whether it deserves to exist. “Corporate attorney. Good at contracts. Terrible at driving in the rain.”
The taste of copper floods my mouth again.
I swallow hard.
“How do you know that?” I whisper.
His expression softens.
Almost.
“Because I was there.”
The floor tilts again.
My first instinct is anger because it’s easier than fear.
“You were there,” I repeat. “At my accident? At my wedding? At what?”
He studies me for a moment, as if deciding how much I can take.
It annoys me more than it should.
“Let’s start simple,” he says. “What do you remember?”
“Church,” I say. “Dress. Flowers. Sean.”
His name hurts.
“Then headlights. A scream. Blood. And then…”
I gesture helplessly at the room.
“This.”
Xavier nods, like I’ve answered correctly on a quiz.
“Your heart stopped,” he says. “Your lungs filled with blood. Your spine was damaged badly enough that no surgeon was going to put you back together. You were placed here pending autopsy.” His gaze drifts over the room. “Very tidy paperwork, by the way. They spelled your name right. That doesn’t always happen.”
I stare at him.
My brain catches only one word.
“Stopped,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Then how am I…”
I wave at myself.
“Standing?”
He steps in, closing the last bit of space between us.
He smells dark and warm. Smoke. Spice. Iron. His presence presses against the air, heavy enough that I feel it before he touches me.
“Because,” he says quietly, “I didn’t like that ending.”
He lifts his hand, slow enough that I could pull back if I wanted to.
I don’t.
I’m rooted.
His knuckles brush down the inside of my forearm.
Sensation explodes under my skin.
Too sharp. Too bright. Like every nerve in my body has been asleep for years and now it’s waking up all at once.
I gasp.
Xavier smiles a little, satisfied.
“Better, isn’t it?”
“What did you do?” My voice is barely there.
“Thorne.” He says my name like it costs more than it should. “Look at me.”
I do.
Because of course I do.
“In simple terms,” he says, “you died violently. I made sure you didn’t stay that way.”
“Simple,” I say faintly. “Right.”
My knees wobble.
I grab the edge of the table behind me to steady myself. The metal rail digs into my palm. I grip harder.
The rail bends with a soft squeal.
We both look down at my hand.
“Oh,” I whisper.
“Careful,” he says mildly. “The city gets touchy about property damage.”
I let go.
The rail springs back a little, but not all the way. There’s a dent the size and shape of my fingers.
I hear things now, too.
Small sounds I swear weren’t there a second ago.
The slow drip of a tap in the corner. The faint hum of electricity in the walls. The soft rush of something moving beneath Xavier’s skin.
Not a heartbeat.
Something else.
My senses feel stretched thin, like someone turned the volume up on the whole world and forgot to warn me.
“I’m having a psychotic break,” I announce.
“You’re not.” His tone stays infuriatingly calm. “You’re adjusting.”
“To being dead?”
“To being improved.”
I laugh.
It comes out sharp and wrong.
“Improved. Right. Like a phone plan. Dead girl to what, exactly?”
He watches me carefully.
“What do you think I am?”
My eyes go to his mouth.
He hasn’t smiled wide enough to show me everything yet.
I still know.
The slight tension in his jaw. The hunger in his eyes. The unnatural stillness of him.
“You’re a vampire,” I say, because apparently this is my life now.
His smile widens.
Not cartoonish. Not fake.
Just wrong enough to turn my blood cold, assuming I still have blood worth turning cold.
“Very good,” he murmurs.
My stomach flips.
“So that makes me…”
He lifts one shoulder, like the label isn’t the important part.
“Changed,” he says.
That answer is worse than the word I expected.
“Changed into what?”
His gaze drops to the marks on my neck.
“To start?” he says. “Mine.”
I hate the way my body reacts to that word.
A hot spike of something I absolutely do not have time for moves through me, and I hate that too.
“You can’t say things like that.” My voice shakes. “You don’t own me.”
“On the contrary.” His gaze returns to my face. “I took the liberty of keeping you.”
“That’s not ownership. That’s kidnapping with a supernatural upgrade.”
His mouth curves. “That’s one interpretation.”
“You did this without asking.” I want to claw at him. I also want to lean closer, which makes me want to claw at myself. “You just decided you wanted what? An undead pet?”
Something ugly flickers across his expression.
“No.”
“Then what?”
His jaw tightens.
When he speaks again, his voice is soft enough to scare me.
“You were going to marry him.”
I go still.
“You were going to stand in a room full of people and promise him forever.”
“That was the plan, yes,” I say, because sarcasm is the only thing holding me together.
“I saw the dress,” he says. “The flowers. The perfect little venue with the white chairs and the obedient candles.”
My skin crawls.
“You were watching me?”
“I was watching the road,” he says.
It’s too smooth. Too careful. Not quite an answer.
“Try again.”
His eyes sharpen.
For the first time, something like irritation breaks through that polished calm.
“I knew your name before tonight,” he says. “I knew enough to know you weren’t supposed to end on wet asphalt with your ring hand twisted beneath you.”
The memory flashes hot and brutal.
Rain on my face.
Sean shouting.
Blood in my mouth.
My hand bent wrong against the road.
I grip the sheet until the fabric tears beneath my fingers.
Xavier glances down at the rip.
“I could’ve let you go,” he says. “That would’ve been the kinder ending, according to most people.”
I look up at him.
“And according to you?”
His smile is faint.
Cruel.
Sad.
“I’ve never had much talent for kindness.”
My throat tightens.
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
The honesty of it knocks me off balance.
He doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t excuse it. Doesn’t dress it up as fate or mercy or love.
He just stands there in the morgue and lets the wrongness breathe between us.
“That’s what makes this complicated,” he says.
“I want Sean.”
The words come out before I can stop them.
Xavier’s expression shutters.
“No,” he says.
Ice moves through me.
“No?”
“He can’t help you.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“In this case, I do.”
Rage snaps through the panic.
I shove him.
I don’t mean to do it hard. I don’t even know if I can.
But Xavier moves back half a step, and the air between us cracks with the force of it.
His eyes flare brighter.
Mine widen.
He looks down at where my hands hit his chest, then back at me.
“Interesting,” he says.
“Don’t say interesting like I’m a science project.”
“You’re not a science project.”
“Then what am I?”
His gaze moves over my face with an intensity that makes the room feel smaller.
“A mistake,” he says softly. “A miracle. A disaster I should’ve walked away from.”
My anger stumbles.
That was not the answer I expected.
He steps closer again.
I should move back.
I don’t.
“You died,” he says. “I brought you back. Not as you were. That wasn’t possible.”
“What am I?” I whisper.
“Stronger,” he says. “Faster. Harder to kill.”
His gaze lingers on my mouth.
“Hungrier.”
As soon as he says it, something inside me wakes.
A hollow pull.
Not in my stomach. Deeper than that. Throat. Veins. Bones.
I hear that strange rush beneath his skin again, and this time my mouth waters.
No.
Absolutely not.
I clamp a hand over my mouth.
Xavier watches me with dark satisfaction.
“There it is.”
I shake my head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not drinking blood.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You can argue later.” His voice stays calm, which somehow makes it worse. “Right now, you need to learn how not to tear apart the first living person who gets too close.”
I stare at him.
The room shifts.
The sheet-covered shapes. The instruments. The drain in the floor.
The marks on my neck.
The ring on my finger.
My heart that doesn’t beat.
A sound breaks out of me.
Not a sob. Not a laugh.
Something uglier.
“I was supposed to get married today.”
“I know.”
“I was supposed to go home with him.”
“I know.”
“I was supposed to wake up tomorrow married, hungover, and annoyed by a thousand photos of people crying over cake.”
Xavier says nothing.
I hate him for that too.
I hate his silence. His calm. His beautiful, terrible face. The way he looks at me like I’m something he lost before he ever had me.
I want to scream.
I want my mother.
I want Kate.
I want Sean.
I want to be back in the church worrying about the aisle runner and whether my lipstick survived the first kiss.
Instead, I’m barefoot on a morgue floor, wrapped in a torn paper sheet, arguing with a vampire who decided my death was negotiable.
“Don’t,” he says quietly.
I look at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Quit on me.”
The words are softer than everything else he’s said.
That makes them worse.
One of his hands lifts, like he’s going to touch my face. Then he seems to think better of it and lets it fall.
“We have a lot to cover,” he says. “Rules. Logistics. Dietary changes. What you can survive now. What you can’t. Who will try to use you. Who will try to kill you.”
I stare at him.
“Orientation,” he adds.
I laugh once.
It hurts even though nothing inside me works right anymore.
“You’re insane.”
“Frequently.”
“And you expect me to just follow you?”
“No.” His eyes gleam. “I expect you to run the first chance you get.”
That shuts me up.
His smile returns, slow and wicked.
“I also expect you to learn quickly that the world you woke into is much worse than this room.”
My grip tightens around the ring.
It bites into my palm.
“I suppose,” he says, “I should introduce myself properly.”
“You already told me your name.”
“Names are nothing.”
His gaze sharpens.
“Titles matter more.”
I don’t like the way that sounds.
“What, like Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Cute.”
His smile deepens.
“No. Something simpler.”
He inclines his head a fraction.
“Hello, bride.”
The word hits me harder than the death date on my tag.
My hand flies to the ring again. For one wild second, I consider ripping it off and throwing it in his face.
I can’t.
My fingers won’t obey.
One man put a ring on my hand and promised me forever.
Another dragged me off a slab and decided forever was his to rewrite.
My skin crawls.
My chest is empty.
My head is spinning.
Slowly, I close my hand around the ring, squeezing until the metal bites deeper.
“Don’t call me that,” I whisper.
Xavier looks at my fist, then back at my face.
His smile is quiet.
Terrible.
“Oh, Thorne,” he says softly. “We’re long past what I’m allowed to call you.”
