Chapter 49 #2
Aiden fished the paste out of his pocket and tore the packet open.
He raised it to his mouth and sucked, downing the entire packet of strawberry goo in a few gulps.
No sense in prolonging the unpleasant mouthfeel.
After drinking some water, he turned to assess the trunk.
Gotta be seventy feet tall. Aiden didn’t want to know how much the damn thing weighed.
It wasn’t as much as a ship, he knew that for sure.
He planted his feet and focused on the beauty of the tree as he raked his gaze over the bark, the leaves, the remaining branches. He saw the tree lift from the ground in his mind’s eye and raised his hand in a slow, steady upward path.
The tree stayed planted. Brow furrowed, Aiden focused harder on the tree, picturing its path more intently.
It began to tremble. He could feel the weight of the tree and again pressed against it with his mind.
He clenched his jaw and felt the muscles in his neck tense.
He was determined to ignore the physical toll, his desire to be useful to Evelyn drowning out any doubts that he could accomplish the goal at hand.
The trunk jerked off the ground. It seesawed up, alternate ends raising and stabilizing as Aiden poured all of his focus into the attempted levitation.
Sweat was pouring down his face, but he paid it no mind even as it stung his eyes.
Every breath he took seemed to refuse to fill his lungs, and his pulse started to beat rapidly.
A small voice inside him screamed at him to stop, but he ignored that, too.
None of it was as important as finishing this experiment.
He got the tree to stabilize four feet off the ground.
He went to swipe the sweat from his face and saw his hand come away bloody.
That’s not good.
He heard Evelyn’s cry as his eyes closed and his knees gave out. The thump of the trunk hitting the ground echoed throughout the forest.
Evelyn found herself at Aiden’s side in the blink of an eye. She hadn’t registered moving toward him, just that he was hurt. He was splayed on the ground, blood pouring from his ears. His breathing was coming in shallow gasps. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t respond to her calling his name.
She fumbled in her pocket for her communicator and sent an emergency message to Nannette before throwing the device aside and pressing her fingers to the side of Aiden’s neck.
She couldn’t find a pulse. She pressed her ear to his chest and held her breath.
There. A thump, followed by another, slower than they should be coming, but his heart was still beating.
What had they been thinking, wandering out onto a strange planet like this to practice martial psychic skills with no guidance? Nutrient paste wasn’t going to save the day here.
Were you supposed to do CPR on someone with a faint heartbeat? Evelyn didn’t know.
I need an adult.
She wasn’t sure if it would do more harm than good to thump on his chest in the condition he was in. Pale, clammy. Barely breathing with blood still dripping from his ears, crusting in the coarse hair of his beard. She sat back and stared at the trees.
It filled her with rage that they were sitting in a forest teaming with life while Aiden’s was slowly drifting away.
Tears burned her eyes, pouring down her cheeks.
She tipped the backpack upside down, looking for something useful.
Aiden had packed with her having a crisis in mind, not for this.
She knelt on the ground, scattered nutrient paste and water bottles surrounding her as she howled into the trees in frustration.
The thermal blanket bounced against the pack, the straps that held it on buckled firmly in place.
She fumbled them open and spread the blanket over Aiden’s body.
He was so pale.
You were a fool to think this would ever last.
The thought slapped her back into reality.
Now wasn’t the time to flagellate herself; now was the time to act.
Maybe she wasn’t used to being treated the way Aiden treated her, but if he heard her say that to herself, he’d be severely disappointed.
What would he tell her? That she was smart, and strong, and would figure it out.
She saw the screen of her communicator light up and assumed Nannette would be running to the rescue. Another glance at Aiden made Evelyn think she might not arrive in time.
She paced the path, thinking of her scant medical training.
A first-aid class when she was too young to consider mortality as something that happened to real people.
Adrenaline? Would that help increase his heart rate?
Yes. But she didn’t see any vials in the contents of the pack chaotically strewn across the forest floor.
What was adrenaline but energy, really?
She thought about how she’d felt when the energy had been careening through her body unconfined. Her heart rate had definitely been up.
This is insane. It could kill him.
Evelyn looked at Aiden and knew that if she didn’t at least try, he might well die anyway.
She approached a tree, pressed her hands to the rough, craggy bark, and closed her eyes.
In her visualization, the forest had spliced itself into her mental chamber, trees springing from the hardwood floor around her.
She felt the energy of the maple, wild, untamed, alive, and she pulled with all her might, remorseless.
It fought, spiraling out of her grasp, but Evelyn’s desire to reel it in was too strong for the tree to deny, and she took just enough to be useful, weaving the tendrils into a pulsing, glowing ball of life.
When she opened her eyes, the tree looked worse for wear, but it was still alive. It could still recover, given half a chance. “Thank you,” she whispered, petting the trunk.
Evelyn raced back across the clearing and placed her hands on Aiden’s chest. She closed her eyes and saw him in her mental space, bloody, barely breathing.
She hovered the ball of energy above his chest and peeled off a tendril.
She urged it into the man before her with sweet promises of adventure and travel, new planets to see, new skies to grow under.
Slowly, the energy began to sink into Aiden’s body.
She opened her eyes and placed her ear on his chest. It seemed like the slow beats were stronger. Still too far apart for her liking, but they felt steadier. Evelyn coaxed another tendril into Aiden’s chest. Another. The second the entire ball of energy was gone, she heard him gasp.
Her eyes flew open to see his, wild and searching her face for answers.
Another rush of tears poured down her cheeks as she let out a croak of laughter.
He tried to lift his hand to her face, but he was weak, and his arm flopped back to the ground before he could make contact with her.
She flung herself over his body, tears flowing freely now, just as Nannette and Veselko finally crashed into the clearing.
They’d got him back to the Dawn with little trouble, the hover stretcher taking him directly to a waiting Veronique with her scanner and a frantic Lillian and Elenor.
Evelyn had dashed back into the forest and pulled tendrils of energy from a dozen more trees while Cairn prepared the Dawn to leave Antopolet.
She had them stored in her mental vault, carefully labeled and locked down tight in case of emergency.
She woke up four times a night to make sure his heart was still beating, that she didn’t need to shock it back to work with a flood of stolen energy.