Which meant he'd been having a waking nightmare.
That simple realization was scarier to Matt than anything the freakish doctor or this irritating woman had said.
And she was still talking.
"However, with a little cooperation from you, we are willing to waive a substantial portion of the costs of your past and continued care. All we ask is that you stay here for a few more days and that you agree to ongoing, and exclusive, participation in some simple, and perhaps minimally invasive, testing to maintain your good health and to ascertain what happened to you."
She flashed a smile so forced, so synthetic, that for a moment he wondered if he was dreaming again, or if she might be some kind of android.
Her smile couldn't hide what her offer really meant.
Imprisonment. They'd never let him out, at least not until they understood how he survived death and they could replicate it in a blue pill or an expensive procedure that they could profit from.
He was feeling fine and didn't much care how it was possible.
What Matt needed now was to get back to his life, to center himself.
He needed to chop some wood.
"I'm leaving," he said. “Right now."
Matt threw off his sheets, yanked the IV out of his arm, and stood up.
Dorcott looked at the blood trickling down his arm like it was gold.
Who knew what secrets, what pharmaceutical breakthroughs, were dripping uselessly to the floor?
It reminded her of what her preacher said to the boys he caught whacking off, about the unforgiveable sin of wasted seed.
If God wasn't happy about that, imagine how pissed off he was about this.
Almost as enraged as the regents, not to mention the hospital accounting department, would be with her if she let Matt leave.
The fact was, Matt hadn't signed a single piece of paper since he was admitted.
The university had no claim on him, no clear title to his blood and tissue or to the billions of dollars that could be derived from them.
Then again, if he walked out without paying his bills, and a few years down the road they made discoveries based on what little of his bodily fluids they had, maybe they could argue that what they were doing was simply recouping their debt, plus interest.
Or maybe not.
Janet thought about tearing her shirt open, screaming rape, and calling security. The idea kind of excited her, but she let it go.
"You can't just walk out of here," she said. “You have a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to pay us."
Matt looked at the blood seeping out of his arm and found it as reassuring as the coroner had found it shocking.
Dead men don't bleed.
"Send me the bill," he said and walked past her to the door, his naked ass peeking out of the opening in the back of his gown.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As soon as Matt left the room, Janet Dorcott did three things. She called the lab to collect the drops of blood on the floor, she called Dr. Travis to fill out a commitment order, and she called security, telling them to stop Matthew Cahill from leaving.
Matt took the stairs down to the lobby. When he emerged, he was stunned to see Rachel sitting on a couch, which she'd turned into her own little encampment. There were blankets, pillows, and fast-food containers everywhere. She'd obviously been waiting there for days.
He smiled at her. “Could I get a ride?"
It took her a moment to realize that yes, it really was Matthew Cahill standing in front of her with his butt hanging out.
She leapt from the couch and ran into his arms, nearly tackling him.
They embraced, and then she stepped back to look at him again, as if to confirm she wasn't seeing things.
"It really is you," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “When they said on the news that you were alive, I didn't believe it."
"I still don't," he said and gestured to the couch. “Were you living here?"
"I came here as soon as I heard. I tried to see you, to call you, but they wouldn't let me. So I planted myself here. There was no way I was going to leave here without you."
He looked over her shoulder and saw two beefy security guards marching their way.
Rachel followed his gaze, then moved away from Matt as the men approached.
"You're going back to your room," one of the guards said to him.
"You can't hold me here," Matt said. “I'm not a prisoner."
"Yes, we can. Your doctor has determined that you are delusional and a threat to yourself and others," the guard said. “He's having you committed to the university mental hospital."
After his waking nightmare, Matt couldn't argue with the doctor's diagnosis, but he doubted that the commitment was for his own good as much as the university's. They would do everything they could to keep him as a scientific asset to poke, prod, and maybe even dissect.
Matt balled his hands into fists. He didn't know if he could take them both, but he was certainly capable of messing them up bad, despite having been dead for a few months. He felt as strong and as capable as he had the day he died.
And that knowledge made him smile.
He wanted to fight.
Bring it on, assholes.
The guards could see the change in his expression and realized that Matt might actually be crazy.
Scary crazy.
But before the guards could make a move, or Matt could throw his first punch, Rachel stepped between them and sprayed the guards with Mace.
The guards squealed and staggered back, rubbing their eyes. As they did, she kneed one, and then the other, hard in the groin, doubling them over in agony.
"Fuck you," she said to them, then turned to Matt. “Let's go home."
Their first stop was Costco. And, honestly, who wouldn't want to make that their first stop after resurrection?
Matt hid under a blanket in the backseat of her car, just in case an APB had gone out for a crazy man in a hospital gown, while Rachel went in and bought him clothes, a pair of shoes, and, at his request, two hot dogs and a Coke.
When she got back, he devoured the meal and then changed into the clothes while she pretended to avert her eyes. She was astonished by his physique, not because he was so buff (which he was), but because he looked as good as he had before the avalanche.
If anything, he looked even better.
Matt got into the passenger seat beside her and saw tears rolling down her cheeks. He wiped them away.
"What's wrong?"
"It's happiness, you idiot. I lost you. And here you are. As if nothing happened. With ketchup on your chin. It's unbelievable."
Unbelievable.
Impossible.
He had a feeling he'd be hearing those words a lot, and he was already tired of them.
"I don't care how I survived. I just did. I don't want to try to think about it or figure it out. I want to go on with my life, as it was, as if nothing has changed. Can you do that for me?"
She nodded, took a napkin, and dabbed the ketchup off of his chin. “Whatever you want."
"What I want most of all is to be with you," he said. “To have the night together that we lost."
"Is this really happening?" she said. “Tell me I'm not dreaming."
He wished he could, but he wasn't entirely sure himself. So instead of saying anything, he kissed her.
It felt real enough for them both.
She took him back to her small house and directly to bed, where they made love, nonstop, for hours.
Neither one of them had ever felt such an overwhelming need to be with another person. It wasn't love, and it wasn't lust. It was something primal, an insatiable compulsion to couple, for the physicality, for the connection, for the release, for the proof of life.
For Matt, each time he entered her, in whatever position they were in, he went as deep and as hard as he could, clutching her as close as possible, desperate to feel her tightness, to taste her sweat, to hear her cries of longing and ecstasy.