Page 29 of Veradel
But with each second she doesn’t wake, my anxiety only rises, and my lungs only fight harder for oxygen. Why is the venom affecting her so much so soon? I thought we hadyears. Could the world really be so cruel as to take away this woman a mere day after I finally got to lay eyes on her?
Beside me, Taika makes fast work of gathering his equipment, checking the pulse on her wrist with his fingers, opening an eyelid and shining a flashlight into her pupil. Her arms hang limply at her side.
“She’s going to wake up, right?” I ask.
Taika ignores me with that damn stethoscope back in his ears. My mind whirs, watching him go eerily still as he presses the bell of it against Saskia’s chest, right next to the gold chain around her neck.
“Did shehit her head?” he asks.
“I don’t know! She was trying to run away from me, dammit.”
His eyes flick to mine, dark and tired and troubled. If another second passes without me knowing whether she’s going to be okay—
I reach out, my mind uncontrollable, to snatch the stethoscope out of Taika’s hand and heave it across the room. Then I grab hold of the necklace’s vial tight in my fist, waiting for that spurt of electricity to connect our minds like usual. Something swells in my bloodstream, but it’s not like light—it’s like darkness.
Saskia!I roar into the void, tugging on the necklace as if I can tug her back to me.
Nothing answers back.
And the vial on the necklace snaps off.
Before I stepped foot in the Blood Moon Palace, I’d never taken a bath. I’d never even seen a large body of water until I saw the rivers from the top of the palace’s balconies and the snow-capped mountain this morning, so I’ve never had any need to wonder what drowning might feel like.
Until now.
Now, my lungs explode with need, like oxygen has completely vanished from the world. Darkness encircles me, but it’s not a comforting kind. It’s restrictive, a white-hot band wrapping around my throat and chest and squeezing tighter and tighter.
Somewhere far above me, a familiar voice shouts my name, but I sink lower and lower toward the bottom of my torment. Myneed.
I need something, but I don’t know what. It’s like a ravenous hunger raking long, jagged claws down my body from the inside-out. Not for food, exactly. But not for touch, either.Whatdo I need?Why do I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t get it? The answer hovers somewhere just out of my grasp, but even though I try to reach for the light, I only sink lower.
And lower.
And lower.
Until Ithumpagainst a solid ground.
“Not possible,” a deep, male voice echoes, like a whisper through the room.
What’s not possible?
Blinking rapidly, I open my eyes, expecting to find myself in bed with the people I love hovering over me, all concerned expressions and relieved smiles when they see me wake. But I forgot who it is I love, and when the darkness ebbs away in watery ripples, I find myself back in the housing unit from my childhood. I’m a girl again, just like in my last nightmare.
“Saskia,” that same voice pleads, closer this time.
I look up, only to find someone completely different smiling gently at me. Not a statue in a cruel garden. A flesh-and-blood human being with an olive complexion and freckles dotting her nose just like mine.
But it’s the wrinkles around her eyes I always loved the most. She used to compare them to a bird’s feet, but to me, they etched a map of all the smiles she’d ever given me. A map of comfort and love that so many other children my age never got from the parents who were forced into having them.
“Saskia,” she says again, this time her familiar tone like a song to my heart.
“Mom!” I cry, and race forward.
She enfolds me in an embrace immediately, warm strong hands grabbing my frame so that I don’t fall apart. She smells sweet and tangy, like some kind of fruit and flower mixed in one.
“My girl,” she breathes, brushing away a strand of my hair. “How I’ve missed you.”
“I-I’ve missed you, too,” I say, sniffing up tears before they fall all over the front of her shirt. “When I saw you in the garden, I thought it would be the last time. I thought I’d failed you.”
