Page 20 of Awry
“Oh, Precious,” I murmur.“This isn’t the end, but you need to go.This is going to draw attention.The blood will call to creatures you don’t want to face.There’s a reason those assholes stopped for lunch on the edge of neutral territory, then ran us off the road here before we got …” I don’t manage to finish that sentence clearly, choking on blood that has suddenly accumulated at the back of my throat.
Presh turns my head gently, opens my mouth, and clears my airway as if she knows what she’s doing.I get the tiniest hint, more a whiff of a sense than a fullknowing, into the future that awaits her as we’re skin to skin.The gentle power simmering within the teen that will grow and spread.That will heal.And not just flesh and bone.
“So worth it …” I say, closing my eyes and savoring that sense like it’s a gift from the universe, offered up to help me get through this … next transition.
“Or … what, Zaya?”Presh asks gently, trying to keep me talking.
I huff at her managing me, but say, “Or the noise disturbance will eventually bring what passes for law enforcement.And you don’t want to have to talk your way out of this scene.”
Her tone firms a bit, as if I’ve given her something to hang onto with that bit of info.“The two possibilities, right.Okay.And the certainty?”
I meet her purple-hued gaze.It’s easily been a year or more since I’ve seen even a hint of my own eyes on a stranger’s face, as opposed to reflected in a mirror.The last time I’d been in the same room as Coda, maybe.My … tech.For lack of a better word.
And the next reflection I see?Will my eyes be a shade lighter?Again?
“The certainty is that I’m going to die.I really should be dead already.”
“No,” she says firmly.“Your bleeding has slowed —”
“Because I’ve bled it all out.There is no more blood to bleed.”My inappropriate attempt to be playful about blood loss and dying falls seriously flat, but I don’t hear it myself until after the words are out of my mouth.“It’s going to be a bitch on the other side … of this …”
“What do you mean?Other side?”
I grimace.My mouth is running too much.I’m not thinking straight.I mean, dying does that to a person, but I need Presh to move forward because I can’t help her while I’m dead.
I make another attempt to say the words that will make her go.I try to open my mouth.Nothing comes out.
Then finally, the pain fades away.
And with it goes the sound of Presh’s renewed sobbing and begging.
Then the gray sky blackens.
I can’t even close my eyes.
The darkness takes me.
I feel, see, taste nothing at all.
Three
I breathe,my chest hurting, weirdly compressed as if it’s the first time my lungs have ever been inflated.
Which it is, I suppose.In this particular reincarnation.
After getting some oxygen recirculating through my system, my hearing filters back, and I pick up Presh gasping, saying, “She’s breathing!She’s breathing!”
I think my eyes are open, but I see only darkness.Then Presh leans over me, my phone pressed to her ear and tears streaming down her face.And I realize that instead of running, like I told her, she’s managed to rig some sort of shelter over my head and shoulders … with hunks of driftwood and … Breaker’s remarkably intact leather jacket.
Right.He removed it before attempting to rape me.
“Presh,” I moan, rolling to my side in a move that takes way too much effort.Not enough time has passed.
“How … how …” Presh hiccups, then she practically screams, “You died!”
“Yeah,” I mumble, not remotely in control of my limbs yet.“I do that.Occasionally.”
Someone snarls over the phone still pressed to Presh’s ear, loud enough that I can hear the command but not the exact words.Presh winces and almost drops the device into the blood-and-rain-sodden sand as she gets the phone switched to speaker mode.
