Chapter Thirty-One Pax
Chapter Thirty-One
Pax
The tendril whipped out of nowhere, striking down from above, aimed directly at Aria, who was a few feet out in front of me.
“Aria!” I shouted, my chest in a clutch of anxiety.
But the warning came too late. There was no way for her to get out of the way before the belt of fire struck the lower left side of her abdomen.
Horror squeezed my heart as I watched her grip the spot where she’d been hit.
Her hands pressed to it as blood gushed from between her fingers, her eyes wide with shock and pain as she stared at me like she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
We were both held in it.
In this devastating awareness that passed between us as evil hovered overhead.
One second later, she floundered one step to her left. A blip away from losing consciousness.
It snapped me out of the trance.
I ran for her, but I didn’t make it before she toppled over, landing hard on her side, then flopping onto her front.
Unmoving.
Panic assailed my spirit as I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Aria! Aria!” Frantic, I rolled her over.
Nothing.
No movement.
I patted her cheek to try to get her to open her eyes.
“Aria. Please. Baby, please,” I begged as my fingers went to her neck. Couldn’t get them to stop trembling as I searched for a pulse.
It was present, but thready and bare.
Terror slicked down my spine, and I ripped up her shirt to reveal where she’d been struck, and a gush of distraught air blew from my lungs.
“No.” It raked out of me on a low cry. “No, baby, no.”
The wound was gaping, but different from when we were burned in Faydor. It was deep. Flayed open. Blood pouring out.
I pressed my hands against it to try to stop the flow.
“Oh my God,” Dani rasped from where she’d run up behind us.
I blinked through the agony. Through the torment. “We have to get her to the hospital.”
It was a terrible fucking option. She’d be ripped away from me. Incarcerated or committed after what had happened at the mental facility. She’d be vulnerable, and Ambrose or whoever he sent would get to her.
Every fucking ignorant hope I’d let bloom inside me lost, but I couldn’t give in to all the turmoil that wanted to hold me back from taking her there.
Because the alternative wasn’t acceptable. She had to live. It was the only thing that mattered in this moment.
Saving her.
I’d deal with figuring out the rest later.
I tore off my shirt and balled it against her stomach, pressing hard as I scooped her up in my other arm and stood.
She felt too heavy and too light.
Those sweet, delicate arms didn’t wrap around my neck the way they normally did.
They were limp. The same as her head, which bounced listlessly as I ran.
Ran through the fields toward Dani’s car.
Dani and Timothy were right there, racing beside me, their gazes slanting to me with every pounding footstep.
Dread poured from their beings.
Heavy and harsh.
We ran through it, Timothy pushing himself faster so he could get the door on the rear passenger side open to have it ready when I got there. I ducked through it with Aria on my lap.
Timothy slammed the door shut and hopped in the front passenger side.
Dani was already inside and had the car started and in gear.
The tires spun in the dirt as she gunned it, and she made a U-turn in the middle of the field, the car jostling back across the uneven terrain as she headed for the road.
While I held Aria in my arms. Begging and begging her. “Stay with me. Please, you got to hold on. You can’t leave. This world needs you. I need you.”
I hugged her to me, rocking her, my mouth at the top of her head as I kept breathing the unintelligible words into her.
Begging her to stay.
Pleading with her to be okay.
Her wound was pressed tight against my abdomen. I could feel the sticky warmth of her blood saturating my stomach and crawling down into the waistband of my jeans. Could feel it spreading with every second that passed.
Dani flew, even faster than she had the first time. Though there was silence in the car as we blew down the two-lane road. A baited disquiet that clawed through the dense, suffocating air.
“What the hell is that?” Timothy asked as he sat forward, peering through the windshield.
A woman was in the distance, pulled off to the side of the road. She came up fast since we were traveling at such a high speed.
She stood at the back of a big white work van.
Flares in both hands as she waved them overhead.
At the sight of her, something unsettled rolled over me.
“The fuck is she doing? That would be a solid no, even if we did have time for that,” Timothy muttered.
That unsettled something convulsed.
Pushing and prodding.
Dani moved into the middle of the two lanes and blazed right past her.
It took me two more seconds to realize where I’d seen her.
Short, curly brown hair and desperation on her face.
It was the nurse who’d helped us escape the facility.
Jill.
Maybe I was being a fool, but I suddenly shouted, “Stop!”
“What?” Doubt tore through the single word as Dani glanced at me in the rearview mirror like she was wondering if I’d lost it.
“Pull over. That woman. She helped me get Aria out of the institution back in New York.”
Had no fucking clue how she was here. But it had to mean something.
Worry passed over Dani’s features, but she hit the brakes, skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. She threw it in reverse and flew backward to come to a stop in front of the van where it sat on the shoulder.
Timothy hopped out and jerked open the rear passenger-side door. I angled out, shifting Aria around so I could keep her secure in my arms. My heart beat a thousand miles a minute, anxiety and alarm pooling thick in my consciousness.
Jill came around the back of the van as I was running for her, blinking in disbelief when she saw me carrying Aria, who was quickly bleeding out.
I didn’t want to recognize it, but I could feel it—her spirit fading.
“How are you here?” Grief twisted my mouth to the side as I demanded it, unable to fathom what the hell was happening.
Her head shook, clearly not able to fathom it, either. “I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t slept since you broke her out, and the few times I did, I kept dreaming . . . dreaming that I was supposed to be here. In this place. That I was supposed to be doing something.”
She moved toward the back of the van. I was right behind her as she flung open the double doors. Surprise rocked out of me when I saw it was set up as some kind of makeshift ambulance. A stretcher in the middle and a bunch of medical supplies sitting along the side.
“Get her inside. Hurry,” she urged, looking behind us toward the road that remained barren, the howling from the skies having ceased.
Didn’t find a whole lot of comfort in it. Figured the Kruen were satisfied that they’d gotten what they’d set out to do.
I lifted my leg high so I could get my foot on the end of the bed. I grunted as I hoisted us up into the back, cradling Aria as I bent over so I could stand beneath the van’s low roof, terrified one wrong move would make things worse.
Jill climbed in behind us, her demeanor purposed and sure even though I could feel the chaos radiating around her. I laid Aria on the stretcher, which was lifted from the floor a fraction.
Dani scrambled in behind her, and Timothy remained outside at the gaping doors.
I gripped Aria’s hand, looking at her face, which was a different kind of pale than normal.
Gray and ashen.
Her lips turning blue.
“Keep pressure on her wound. Push as hard as you can,” Jill instructed, already in action, placing the earpieces of a stethoscope into her ears and pressing the chest piece over Aria’s heart.
I let go of Aria’s hand and pressed both of mine over my tee, which was completely soaked in blood.
She listened for less than fifteen seconds. She tried to cover it, but there was no hiding the bleakness that filled her expression.
I moved so I was angled up close to Aria’s head, words tumbling from my mouth as I begged near her ear, “Hold on, baby. Stay with me. Stay right here. Listen to my voice. Help is here. Jill. You remember her? She helped us before when you were at the facility? Remember how grateful you were? How you felt seen by her? She’s right here.
She came for you. You’re going to be okay. ”
“What can I do?” Dani begged.
“Go to the end over there.” Jill gestured with her head toward the interior part of the van. “There’s a cooler. Get me a bag of blood stored in there.” She kept her voice even as she reached into a box and pulled out what looked to be supplies for an IV.
Dani squeezed around behind me, the space cramped and tight, our breaths heaving and raking in the confined area. Her hand slid over my shoulders as she passed. No question, she was trying to offer me comfort. To give me some hope in the middle of the torment.
“You.” Jill glanced at Timothy, who hovered at the door. “Get inside the driver’s seat in case we need to move her. Shut the doors so no one can see if they go by.”
“On it.” Timothy slammed the doors shut and, a second later, was sliding into the front seat while Jill pulled a plastic cover from off a long, thick needle.
She leaned down, biting the inside of her cheek as she felt for a vein in Aria’s wrist. When she found one she could use, she pushed the needle through, then taped it into place.
“Here,” Dani said in a rush, passing her the bag of blood.
Jill pulled the cap off, attached the wire, then hooked it on a peg that jutted out up high on the van’s wall.
Red glided down the tube and into Aria’s arm, and Jill quickly added another bag, one that was filled with a clear solution; then she fumbled around to find something in another box.
She produced another needle, which she injected into some nub down near the IV by Aria’s wrist as she mumbled, “Painkiller,” under her breath, keeping me apprised of what she was doing.
Then she ordered, “Switch places with me.”