Chapter Thirty-Five • Power • Damien #2
It’s dark in the forest—almost a new moon.
But regardless of how dark it is, there looms something darker.
A sort of wrongness in it. A shadow that looks like it escaped the lines of code constructing this world.
There’s no cast to it, no bluish-violet.
It’s just... void. Nothing. And it towers over her even as she hangs from its shadowy claws.
The damned thing must be twelve feet tall.
Lillith’s throat and the moth tattoo on her chest vanish under too-dark shadows.
It’s choking her out. Her lips take on a frightening blue tinge, her eyes roll back in her head. She starts convulsing.
And I’m totally powerless. I have no way to help her. All I can do is sit there and watch her struggle. She’s going to die and I can’t do a fucking. Thing.
Her long lashes flutter. Her clawing fingers going weak and falling limp at her sides. I already know I won’t be able to survive this pain. I can’t. And still, this is happening. This is reality. She’s going to be gone. Gone from the world. And I’m going to be lost. I’ll never recover. I’ll never—
Hot, blinding light. It sears my eyes.
It’s like someone threw a lasso around the sun and pulled it down into our orbit. It bakes the outermost layer of my skin. A sunburn in seconds flat. There’s a terrible sound, like the scream of thousands of people all at once.
A hard thud. Then silence.
“Gods, no,” Wren’s voice. “No, no, no.”
“She’s not breathing—” Bastion says
“Do something, Bash.”
“Healing is her forte, not mine, remember?” I’d be annoyed at him for being a snarky asshole if it wasn’t for the panic lacing his snipped words.
Big, fat black spots hinder my vision, but the scene in front of me comes into a haphazard focus. Lillith lies limp on the ground, her head cradled in Wren’s lap, her eyes open, but unfocused—pupils blown out so wide her eyes are almost black.
Deep, purple bruises mottle the delicate skin of her throat, and her blood vessels spiderweb from the hand-shaped marks there.
I can’t figure out if the poor lighting is painting those little vessels black, or if that thing did something to her blood.
Bastion has her wrist in his hands, pinching the pulse point all wrong.
Something clicks. Some distant memory of who I am beyond the terror of losing the one thing I love most in life.
I hurry to my feet and run over to her side. “Move over,” I say, taking Lillith’s wrist from his hand.
Bastion, for once, doesn’t retort something shitty.
He just follows my instructions. Wren sobs.
I think she might be in shock; she whispers and brushes Lillith’s hair out of her face.
I press two fingers against the artery in Lillith’s neck, and wait a few precious seconds for it to thrum against my skin the way it did less than ten minutes ago.
But it doesn’t. And her skin has already chilled in a way that just sits wrong in the back of my mind.
I slip into a familiar headspace. I set aside who she is to me, for a few moments, and become a paramedic. This is just another code. I just need to do what I always do—everything I can to save this life.
“Wren, let her head down on the ground and tip her chin back. I’m going to start chest compressions. When I tell you, I need you to breathe for her,” I say. “You’re going to plug her nose and exhale as much air as you can into her lungs.”
“O-okay,” Wren warbles.
I place my hands where I know they should go.
Lillith’s ribcage feels too delicate underneath my balled fists—like she really is a Little Bird with hollow bones.
Even with the years of experience I have doing this, I’m afraid I’m going to crush her underneath me.
I take a deep breath and start chest compressions, knowing every second counts right now.
As little as four minutes without oxygen in her brain could be catastrophic.
I count to thirty, her heartbeat literally in my hands as I force it to continue circulating blood through her body. “Breathe,” I command.
Wren blows a sharp breath into Lillith’s mouth and I continue compressions.
My awareness flags in and out. It’s like there are two of me occupying the same amount of skin.
I feel like I’m going to implode or burst. Part of me focuses on pumping her heart at a rate of one hundred and twenty beats per minute—avoiding cracking her ribs—avoiding snapping off the tip of her sternum.
Another part of me panics as she lies there, her body surging with nightmarish violence every time I compress her chest.
At some point, Bastion catches the rhythm of what we’re doing.
He takes over telling Wren when to breathe.
I’m sure three minutes have passed. Wren starts to weep between breathing for Lillith.
Another minutes goes by. Lillith still isn’t breathing.
But I keep going. We’re going to keep going until I pass out from the exertion of trying to revive her.
“What the fuck are you still doing here?”
I know whose voice it is, so I don’t bother looking away from Lillith’s pale face. Her lips are turning blue.
“Fuck,” Aemon says. He kneels at Lillith’s side, right across from me. “What can I do?”
“Unless you have a defibrillator, nothing,” I grind out.
“Breathe,” Bastion commands.
“Is she dead?” Wren sobs. “Oh my gods, is she going to die?”
“Wren, I need you to stay focused. You need to breathe for her.”
“A defibrillator—that’s one of those electric machines, isn’t it?” Aemon asks as Wren bends over to blow air into Lillith’s lungs again.
I finally meet Aemon’s eyes and… Fuck, the guy is worse for wear. “Yes,” I say, feeling a pang of hope in my chest.
“I can produce electricity. How much?”
“Around two thousand volts, give or take?” I pant out, keeping contractions going.
Aemon nods, shaking out his hands and rolling up his sleeves. “Have no idea how much that is, really, but I’ll do my best,” he says. “I suggest you stop touching her.”
I nod once, but I lift the hem of Lillith’s shirt before backing away from Lillith just enough to technically not be touching her.
Wren sobs softly as she clears away too.
Aemon rubs the palms of both hands together.
When he separates them, a flashing spark of power arcs between his fingertips before snaking around his both palms.
“Put one above her left breast and the other beneath her right,” I say.
Aemon nods touching her with clinical precision.
Her whole body arches off the ground, every muscle fiber being stimulated by that pulse. I check her pulse. Nothing.
“Fuck,” I say, starting compressions again. “Wren, one more big breath. Aemon, can you do that one more time?”
“I think I can manage it,” he says.
I nod, knowing that an AED usually runs about two minutes of analysis before administering another shock.
“Okay, we’re going to do eight more breaths, Wren, alright? And then Aemon, same thing again.”
“Right,” Aemon says, already rubbing his hands together.
Thirty compressions.
Breath one.
Thirty Compressions.
Breath two.
Thirty compressions.
Breath three.
Thirty Compressions.
Breath four.
Thirty compressions.
Breath Five
“Come on baby, you can’t fucking leave me now, sweetheart,” I pant, every muscle in my body burning.
Breath six.
Breath seven.
Breath eight.
And then it’s out of my hands again. In Aemon’s now. We clear from Lillith’s body, and he touches her again. She arches, but this time she blinks.
She inhales a shallow breath, I watch her chest rise and fall on its own.
“Oh gods,” Wren sobs, leaping into Aemon’s arms and squeezing him around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I press my fingers to the artery in her neck and feel the feather of a pulse. Lillith wheezes in a breath and exhales it. She blinks more, breathes more. Her tongue brushes her lips. Her pulse gets stronger.
I cup her face in my hands, watching her pupils constrict as she focuses on me. Her pupils are reactive, thank god.
“Baby? Baby? What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”
Her throat works with the attempt to swallow. She winces.
“Damien?” she rasps out.
I can’t help it, I smile and shake my head. “Close, baby. We’re looking for your name.”
Her eyes close and she exhales, her blue lips slowly gaining color again. “Lillith,” she whispers. “Lillith Nightingale. Right?”
Now it’s my turn to sob. I rest my head on her chest, my ear pressed to her sternum where I hear the steady beat of her heart. I cry like a little fucking boy, some mixture of terror and relief making my whole body tremble. Her fingers brush softly through my hair.
“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” she says, beginning a soothing rhythm starting. “Don’t cry... I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I can’t calm down enough to tell her not to apologize. I’d be content to stay here just like this forever, until my body understands that she’s not dead, but Aemon shatters the fragile relief I’ve slipped into.
“I hate to rush you, Lillith,” he says. “But we really must get you back home. We scared those cretins off for now, but they’ll be back.”
“Yeah,” she croaks. “Let’s go home.”