Faintly, from far off, I heard someone calling my name.
“Ari? Ari!” Jess ran toward me, and I let go of Echo’s hand.
I tried to run to meet Jess but my knee would barely let me stand. She reached me and hugged me, almost knocking me back onto the sidewalk, and I buried my head in her shirt.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jess said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Shhhh.”
No one came to hug Echo. No one came to carry her home.
Echo was in a coma on the way to the hospital, and she died a few hours later. Loss of blood, they said. But doctors don’t really understand hekame—not like I do, with my multiple spells. Echo made herself a spell that allowed her to break though doors, snap locks with her hands, and rip apart metal cabinets. The side effects of something like that would be disastrous.
The spell made her superhuman, ever so briefly. To balance that, she had to know what she’d give up.
The smell woke me up. (Someone left meat on the grill too long.) Then the hurt. (I am a white-hot metal knife of pain.) I tried to will myself back into unconsciousness, but it was like running headfirst into a brick wall. So instead I opened my eyes.
“Hello,” Diana said.
“You’re okay,” I said—barely. My vocal chords crackled.
She held my hand, which set off such pain that part of my vision went white, but I never would’ve told her even if I could.
“Cal?” I said, or at least shaped my mouth into the word. I couldn’t hear very well because of the sirens. We were moving. An ambulance.
“In another ambulance,” she said. He’d set fire to the hardware store. Would they arrest him for arson? For Ari’s house, nine years ago? Either way it was a relief, not only that he’d been caught and we’d gotten away, but also that he was alive. Dead is so permanent. You can’t actually summon the dead for pep talks, or to see what they think about your situation.
The ambulance went over a pothole and I started to fade—or the world did, at least, Diana and the paramedics and the pain.
—Win?
I wanted to tell Diana I was sorry, and that even if she never wanted to see me again, I would still be sorry, but I couldn’t open my mouth, so I squeezed her hand.
—Win?
I couldn’t see the real world anymore, but a room in my mind opened up, bright and cool, and I decided to lie down and rest in there because everywhere else was so noisy. But I kept the door open, so I could come back when it calmed down.
—Goodbye, Win.
Severe concussion. Second-degree burns on my face and legs. Third-degree burns on my hands. Part of my right eyebrow would never grow back, though they promised me the angry, puckered skin on my cheeks and nose would fade. I wouldn’t look so much like my brothers anymore. An unmatched set.
“You’re lucky your skull didn’t crack,” the doctors said.
Yeah. Lucky.
Diana slept in the chair next to my hospital bed. Her shirt was half-burned and her hair a tangled, charred mess. They’d given her fluids and a sedative, but she seemed mostly fine for someone who’d been locked in a cage and nearly burned to death. Better than the rest of us, for sure.
When my mind wouldn’t stop racing and I couldn’t sleep I’d turn my head and watch her breathing, shifting slightly in her chair, red hairs curling at the back of her neck. I was lucky.
I couldn’t tell how long passed before Brian, Dev, and my mom showed up. Brian was out of uniform but he had on his full Cop Face, hardened and watchful. Dev wore pajamas and watched Brian and Mom with a lost expression. Mom—I couldn’t look at her. She had rivers of tears running down her cheeks and agony filled her face. Diana took one look at all of us and slipped out of the room, closing the door carefully behind her.
“Oh my god, Markos,” my mom said, crying more when she took in the bandages, the hospital bed, the IV running to my right hand. “I told you not to talk about the spell. I begged you. Why didn’t you listen?”
“Me?” It hurt when I breathed in; the doctors had failed to catalog a couple broken ribs, probably from when Echo got me out of there. “Cal set the fire.”
“Only because you told him—”
“I mean the one nine years ago. The one that killed people.”
“Accidentally.” Her face twisted, as if she could hear how that sounded. “He was a boy. A good boy. He was acting out, and he made a mistake. Set off some fireworks—I don’t know why it was the Madrigals, and it was terrible—a terrible accident—but it didn’t have to be his whole life. They would’ve taken him away from us, Markos. He would’ve grown up in juvenile detention. That would’ve changed him. Ruined him. But instead I helped him—he started over.”