I know him. I know he didn’t mean it, that a part of him still loves me. The pressure of our lives got to us, in between us. Now I know how to make it better.
I wind my ribbon around my wrist, red as love, red as blood, red as want. Let my magic bubble to the surface of my skin. I gasp when my power surges through me, like the slap of cold water, and I shudder from head to toe. Healing magic should be warm, but I can’t reel it back now. I breathe faster and faster, think of every kiss and touch and secret we’ve shared.
“Lula?” Maks inches closer, our thighs pressed side by side, and throws his jacket around my shoulders.
It’s working. It has to be because when I look up, Maks’s eyes are trained on me. I don’t dare look away from his face. There’s a nick on his chin I didn’t notice before. He must’ve cut himself shaving, but when I push my magic into his skin, the red cut disappears. His lips part, and we’re so close I can feel his intake of breath, the race of his heartbeat.
When he closes his hand around mine, I shut my eyes and memorize the feel of us, skin on skin.
When I kiss Maks, the world falls out of focus, everything around us pixilated except for him. The bus speeds down the highway, dozens of horns blaring, and we slide against the window. I rest a hand on his jawline, freshly shaven and smooth. I push away all other thoughts and focus on us. Whatever broke between us, I can fix.
The kiss feels like a thousand years, but it’s been seconds. I pull back to catch my breath, and he leans forward, like he can’t be apart from me. He kisses my cheek. My forehead. The tip of my nose.
“I said sit!” Coach shouts at a group of guys dancing in the aisles.
Maks starts to wrap his arms around my waist, but every part of me turns cold. Maks looks down at me, worry riddling his features. Our breath comes out in icy clouds.
There’s the crackle of static as the music cuts out. I stand to look around at what’s going on. Then the bus swerves, and my feet are no longer on the ground. I don’t have time to scream as I struggle to find something to hold on to. Maks’s hands grip me hard and pull me back.
“Are you—”
The screech of tires is followed by the warped crush of metal. Then, down is up. Windows shatter. Something hard breaks inside me, at first a dull, pulsing ache. The pain shoots from my belly button right to my heart, and I scream and scream as the bus spins in a fury of broken glass and bodies.
I shut my eyes, and warm liquid splatters across my face. When I open them, blood blurs my vision. I hear my name, distant as a memory, called out until there is nothing but piercing static.
There’s a final slam. My body so numb I can’t move. Can’t stay awake. But I know I’m alive because of my thundering heart. Maks and I lie face-to-face on our sides. I can’t feel a thing but see his hand resting on my arm, giving me a tiny shake.
“Stay awake,” he tells me, choking on the blood that bubbles from his mouth.
“Maks.” Pain slams into me all at once, concentrating on my abdomen, where a metal pole stabs straight through my torso and into his chest.
3
La Mama was lonely up in the sky, chasing after El Papa, night into day.
Her light so great it left him in shadow.
—The Creation of the Deos, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz “Look at me,” Maks tells me. His mouth is full of blood. “Lula.”
Maks’s ragged voice falls away amid the screams for help and the crackle of fire nearby. I try to reach for him, but a sharp pain stabs at my rotator cuff. Every part of me fights to hurt more than the rest, so I stay as still as possible. There is one thing I can do. I search for my power, burrowed within me protectively, and picture my sister’s face. Alex. I shout her name in the dark corners of my mind and hope that, wherever she is, she can sense me. She has to know I’m alive. She has to know I’m still here.
I move my arm again, screaming through the ache that follows. If I can’t heal myself, then I can at least heal Maks. But my arm won’t go any farther, and the edges of my vision darken with shadow. My throat burns, liquid choking my windpipe, the taste of a thousand coins in my mouth.
“Look at me,” Maks repeats.
When I do, it isn’t his face I see. It’s my own.
? ? ?
Voices. Familiar and strange. Angry and hopeful. Near and far.
“We can’t save them both.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. How are they both still alive?”
“He won’t be for much longer.”
“If we remove the boy, she might have a chance.”
“Get them on the gurney. Clear it out!”
“God dammit! I’m losing her.”
“What’s the count?”
“Forty-five dead.”
“Forty-six now.”
“Get me a crash cart!”
“Come on, Lula.”
“Lula, baby? It’s Mom. We’re all here.”
“Can you hear me? It’s Alex. I felt you. I felt you right here.”
“I’m here with you too.”
“You have to live, you hear me? You have to fight—I swear to gods, I will summon your spirit and kill you myself.”
“Miss, please, you need to leave.”
“Nurse, get them out of here.”
“I can’t. Let go of me! She’s my baby girl—”
“Maksim! Where is he? Where is my son?”
“Get them all out of here!”
“Stay alive.”
“Scalpel.”
“It’s not time yet, nena. I’m watching over you. I’ll always watch over you girls. You have a great destiny. All three of you.”
“She’s tachycardic.”
“Lula Mortiz. The Deos blessed you. The Deos will always bless you. Do not betray us.”
“She’s crashing.”
“Baby, it’s cold here.”
“Pressure’s rising! She’s back.”
“Stay with us, Lula. You’re stronger than this.”
“Would you like to do the honors and close?”
“Her eyelids are fluttering. She shouldn’t be awake yet.”
“Pushing one milligram of Midazolam.”
“Lula Mortiz. Do not betray the Deos.”
4
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
—Healing Canto, Book of Cantos
When I dream, I relive every moment of the crash. Maks is throwing himself around me like a shield as shattered glass rains down around us. The bus keeps spinning until there is silence. But when I stand over my own body lying on the bus ceiling, I know this is a more than a dream.
Two dozen broken bodies lie in heaps inside the overturned bus. Some are still alive and crying out. Others lie still. I recognize Kassandra, eyes shut but her fingers twitch with life. I move to hold her, heal her, but I’m an apparition and I pass right through her. I spin around at the sound of Maks’s voice.
Maks tries to lift his hand to touch mine but he’s broken. He tells my body to look at him. Begs me to open my eyes. He’s still holding me, even after everything that happened.
I move on, walking through the bus and onto the scene outside. A dozen cars are rammed into each other. The second bus is turned on its side, and a lucky few are being removed from the wreck by civilians and paramedics. Red, blue, and white lights swirl all across the highway as more emergency vehicles try to make their way through. Cars try to move out of their way as best as they can, driving into ditches off the sides of the road. People leave their stalled cars and rush out to help, taking off clothes to staunch open wounds and wrap around bone jutting through skin.
That’s when I notice her.
She was always there, I suppose, lingering in the edges of the dark. An omen at the crossroads.
She stands at the center of the highway, dressed all in black. Her face is pale as the moon and her eyes are black as the longest night. She’s completely bald, wearing a crown of twisted, gold thorns that dig into her skull but don’t draw blood. Her dress blows in the breeze and she walks with a spear, the sharp end of it a metallic spike that sparks when she slams it on the ground.
She walks right through the bus and I follow after her.
“You,” I say as she approaches Maks and me.