Sam heard only parts of what was said, whatever carried over the humming noise of the machine. What he did hear only served to deepen his despair. Cole sounded as if he had ended up becoming much closer to Jude than Sam had ever expected. He had no desire to cause anyone pain, his friend in particular. Cole's tone when he spoke to him sealed it.
"On the table," he said, gesturing to the bed of the machine, cold steel with arcs running over it. He waited for Cole to set her down, unable to look at him. He didn't want to look at Jude, either--not that way she was now. It made him remember the way she had been, the beautiful girl he'd had a crush on, the body he'd found in the morgue, the one he should have just left well enough alone.
He'd improved on the machine since the incident. Placing electrodes on or in the body wasn't necessary anymore, and he flipped a heavy switch on each of the arcs that ran over Jude's body. The humming that had gathered in the base of the machine spread up through them, and he backed a few steps away. There was a switch beside the computer connected to the machine. Sam picked it up, cradling it with his hand, tucking it underneath the many fine, thin wires there.
He walked back over to the machine with it, looking down at Jude, forcing himself to. She looked dead, the way she should have been months ago.
Never again.
He hit the switch.
Electricity darted out from the machine, long, thin blue-white forks so close to the color of the machine they seemed to be a part of it. There was no burning, no charring, no cooking of flesh. The currents traveled along Jude's body and disappeared, over and over, for a long minute of deafening, crackling electricity.
Then it shut of. The lights in the apartment flickered, but stayed on.