Skye
I crash into my condo with a crack that echoes through the space, rattling the potted plants along the window where the skyline is nothing but starlight, and the ever-present aurora dancing almost as if to mock me. Tonight, it’s crimson, just like the red glare of the alarm still painting my condo in red light, but thankfully, the sound of the alarm is off, or maybe I’ve tuned it out.
I gasp several breaths. Icy pain jets up and down my spine. I’m depleted, for sure. It’s been decades since I’ve felt this kind of cold, and I live in the coldest place in our world.
But the body beneath mine is warm. Just a little bit warm.
“Alex?” I rasp, grabbing his face between my gloved hands. He’s impossibly bruised. His hair is frozen in odd angles, but his skin is soft and only slightly gray from the cold.
When he doesn’t answer me, I press my gloved hand to his chest, waiting seconds to feel the rise and fall. His heart already beats so slowly, but now it only flickers every minute or so, like he’s in the deepest kind of sleep. I frantically rip at the torn fabric of his jacket and press my ear to his chest over his thermals, listening closely, whispering small prayers that overwhelm the sound of my door opening and closing and twin footsteps rushing toward us.
“Skye? How–” Abby rushes to my side in shock, but Toby quickly ushers her out of the way and kneels on Alex’s other side, turning his head.
“I think one, if not both, of his legs are broken,” I say, noticing the blood seeping into the carpet. “He’s hurt.”
“We’re gonna help him,” he says sternly, gripping my hand. “Okay? It’s gonna be fine, but what the fuck was that back in the conference room?”
I recoil at his tone, and even Abby is looking at me like I just turned into a monster right before their eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m a mystic. I don’t know–I don’t know how else to explain. I’m sorry.”
Abby shakes her head and looks down at Alex, then me, squinting at what I’m sure are ice crystals clinging to my cheeks. I’m shivering violently, and I think she realizes it’s not from being in the tunnels. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I–if I deplete my powers to a certain point, my body is–is programmed to sh-shut itself down to maintain–maintain my heart rate. It’s called a depletion event. It’s very common in–”
“Witches, I know,” she says under her breath. She takes a deep gulp of air and braces her hands on her hips. “Okay. This is insane. Is everyone in agreement that this is completely insane? I feel like I’m owed a major apology from all three of you right now, which is the only reason why I’m going to help.”
I wince, but she continues, “I’m going down to the clinic. Toby, give me your badge. I’m guessing everyone is still evacuated to the commons, and I need to be able to get into the clinic and the storage room without a fuss.”
“Do not get caught,” he warns, handing her the badge in question. She rolls her eyes at him.
“What do you need? Healing tonics, for sure. Bandages. What else?” She looks at me sharply, obviously so beyond livid my frozen skin begins the thaw under the scorch of her glare. “What do you need, Skye?”
“I’ll be fine soon.”
“That’s another lie. What do you need?”
I nod, hating this, wishing I knew what to say, how to grovel at her feet for forgiveness for years of lies. “Healing tonics are fine. I just need rest, and then I can heal his wounds.”
Silence rushes between our sorry group.
“You can do that?” Toby asks.
“Kind of,” I admit, meeting his eyes. I’ve never felt worse in my life than I do now, and it’s entirely my fault.
Abby growls something under her breath and leaves in a rush, slamming the door shut behind her.
We spend the next ten minutes trying to keep Alex alive, but he doesn’t so much as flinch against our poking and prodding. He’s getting colder, too, and I eventually regain enough strength to help Toby get Alex out of his torn lab clothing and down to just his thermals.
Toby covers him with a thick blanket. “There isn’t much we can do for him now. Not until Abby gets back. Do you think healing tonics are going to work on him, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I hope they do. I think he needs… blood.” I meet his eyes. “First and foremost.” I start shrugging out of my parka, but he stops me with a hand pressed to my chest.
“Not you.”
“He’s fed off me before.”
Toby grits his teeth. I wonder if Alex told him that, but based on his face, no. “You’re barely able to hold yourself upright. It can’t be you. Fuck, okay, get me a knife.”
“No!”
“Skye, look at me. You’ve done enough. You got him back. He was going to die down there. It could have been days or weeks until the tunnels were settled enough to get a rescue team down there, and it would have been far too late. You saved him. I’ve got it from here.”
My body refuses to move. He sighs deeply and runs his fingers through his hair.
“He can feed off other people, right? It doesn’t have to be just you, or is that… vampire cheating?”
“I don’t know how that works!”
“Okay, then let me do this. Go warm up. Take a bath or something. You’re gray.”
My lower lip trembles as I slowly slide away from them on my knees. It takes me several attempts to rise and surrender, but when I do, the entire weight of the situation settles on my shoulders. I run a shower as hot as I can handle. I strip out of my thermals and step inside the porcelain box, sliding down the wall while being beaten by water that feels like little needles on my frozen skin. My body steams, but the heat wraps me in a warm embrace, and soon, I’m sitting near the drain, my cheek against the wall, my eyes open but reeling over visions I siphoned from Alex’s head. He mentioned the likelihood that someone was hunting him, and now it’s clear to me, at least, that that’s the case.
Could someone–another vampire–especially someone not familiar with the university or his lab–cause a tunnel collapse like that? Was it premeditated?
Just like Laney’s murder?
Also, why am I feeling so… territorial over the idea of Toby giving Alex the blood he needs? It should be me. Only me.
An entire half hour creeps by. The endless supply of hot water blurs the time. I only step out and towel off when my fingers turn to prunes, and when I emerge, dressed in thick flannel pajamas and slippers I brought into the bathroom with me, my wet hair twisted in a towel, Toby is resting against the side of the couch with a bandage roped around the palm of his hand, and several empty healing tonics are scattered across the floor.
Alex is no longer on the ground.
“I dragged him onto your bed,” he says with a shrug. “You’re right. His legs are pretty fucked up, but after a few shots of my pristine, shifter, Alpha blood, he stopped bleeding and warmed up a bit.”
I bend to pick up the tonic vials. “How many did you give him?”
“Four or five.”
I stare at him in shock, but he shrugs again.
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
“That was far too much.” I look at the bloodstain on the floor with a sigh. “Where’s Abby?”
“She went to clean up our mess,” he replies, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I mentioned I couldn’t find Alex before you showed up. She’s making sure you and Alex have alibis if anyone questions that.”
“She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. You know how she can be.”
“I’ve been lying to her for so long.”
“About what? Having the power to teleport?” He chuckles. “She’ll get over it. It was a rough night for everyone. Especially you.”
He meets my gaze. I feel him reaching out with an invisible hand. I know what he wants to ask before the words can materialize on his tongue.
“I like Alex a lot. I’ve known he’s a vampire for a while now, before you did. It hasn’t changed anything between us. But he’s… he’s in danger now, I think. I don’t think the collapse was a freak accident or anything your team did. Alex is so careful. If he thought for a second that anyone was in danger, he would have gotten everyone out with time to spare. The collapse might not have even happened.”
“I know.”
“I think someone did this on purpose.”
Toby looks down at his hands. “I have my suspicions, too.”
I edge toward him. “What can we do? I can–I should get my family involved.”
“Don’t,” he warns but then calms, adding, “Talk to Alex first. I’m going to stay here, on the couch, if that’s cool with you. I doubt Abby wants me in our apartment right now anyway, and I know Alex and I are going to have hell to pay tomorrow when we explain what happened. I want to be here when he wakes up so we can get a story lined up.”
“Okay.” I walk into the kitchen on unsteady feet, my powers still pulsating and settling while they’re coming back to life. My wolf is in a tizzy, however, when I glance at my open bedroom door and the heap of shadows on my bed. I pull a few cleaning supplies from a kitchen cabinet, dead set on cleaning the stain on the carpet but abandon the task.
Toby groans as he lifts himself up onto the couch and lies back. He shuts his eyes and immediately falls asleep.
The rest can wait, but this can’t.
I silently edge into my bedroom. Alex looks peaceful in a dead way, which is definitely unnerving and would be slightly frightening if I didn’t know him well. I sit next to him on the bed and take his hand.
“I’m so sorry, and you’re going to hate this, but I’m involved now. Whatever you were trying to shield me from has caught up to us, and you almost died today. I might die right now trying to mend your wounds,” I murmur, looking down at his legs. Toby cut his thermals off at the knees, giving me a clear view of the swollen, bruised skin and dried blood. The healing tonics must have had some effect because Toby was right–the gashes on his calves and ankles are closed, but the tonics only went so far.
My powers grumble when I flex my fingers. I’ve never done this before, but I know my dad can do it, and I really don’t want to have to call him and ask if he’ll help. I’m sure I have a hundred missed calls from my family in Moonrise after my abrupt departure. I’d rather not dig myself a deeper grave than I already have, not yet.
As someone who adores the sciences, I’ve taken enough entry-level biology and anatomy classes to be able to guess my way through Alex’s biology and anatomy, so I rest my hand on his right leg, imagining his bones and muscles. The tissue and fascia holding him together. The veins and arteries. The singular cells. I imagine knitting them back together just so–all better.
I’m not sure if my powers do anything, but when I open my eyes again, curling my achingly chilled fingers into fists, his bruises are less severe, and his legs aren’t nearly as swollen and painful to look at.
I sneak under the covers and roll to face him, propping my chin on his shoulder, and spend the next hour looking out the window watching the aurora dance against a field of stars.
I wonder what that vision earlier was trying to show me–the one about curtains and a baby. A future I’m not sure Alex is in, but for now, he’s here, and as I close my eyes and drift into a shallow sleep, I know he’ll be here when I wake up.