“Shut up. Just shut the hell up.” I press my hands against two of the wounds, desperate to stop the bleeding. My efforts only create more problems, the third wound gushing.
“Two,” she says. Still counting? While horror absolutely ravages me.
“How could you do this? How could you do this to me?”
“One,” she whispers—and stops breathing.
No. Hell, no. I won’t let her... She can’t be...
I perform CPR, check for a pulse. Nothing. No, no. This isn’t the end. I won’t let it be the end. I continue CPR until I feel her sternum crack underneath my palms. Tears burn my eyes, blur my vision.
“Damn you,” I croak. “Come back to me. Please. Please.”
But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. Because, no matter how much I want to deny it, the truth is the truth. She’s dead. Like Kat, she’s dead.
This time, I won’t recover.
I roar up at the ceiling, just as an alarm blasts to life.
Kat is waiting for me under the arch of a massive gate that looks to be made from a single, flawless pearl.
I would gawk at the beauty, the absolute majesty, but I’m once again connected to that stream of consciousness where faith saturates every thought.
“The journal!” Emma is running toward us. There’s no sun here, not one that I can see, and yet light is everywhere. The most glorious light I’ve ever beheld, sparkling with diamond dust around the girl. “Remember the journal!”
“I won my case, Milla Marks. You’re going back.” Kat shoves me.
I fall down...down...and scream. Or try to scream. I only gasp. The pain! My body is too weak to fight it, blood pouring out of me at an alarming rate. My mind is hazy as another gasp escapes.
“Milla!”
Frosty’s voice rises above the screech of an alarm, thick with relief. He’s here...where is here? I crack open my eyes. The cell. Right. I’ve been shot, but the answer is in the journal...the journal...the journal.
Covered, covered, covered.
If something’s been covered, you uncover it.
I know that. Have tried, have failed.
Try again. The only sure way to fail forever is to give up.
Darkness can always be chased by light.
Hands press against my wounds. “Hang on, sweet pea. Just hang on.”
My eyes close. Light erupts from behind my lids.
Light...
“Ali!” Frosty proclaims. “Help her! You have to help her.”
Ali must have entered the cell. I don’t have the strength to open my eyes a second time. A moment later, a white-hot fist punches through my chest and into my spirit. The pain intensifies exponentially, and I scream. This time, sound escapes. My back bows. Thánatos spills out of me of its own accord, trying to protect itself and drive Ali away. Ali...whose scream of pain rivals my own.
I do my best to extinguish the red flames...have to protect...
“Let them out,” she commands. She’s panting. “Don’t fight the flames.”
But...but...
“Uncover, Milla. Uncover.”
Uncover...how? I’m too dazed to figure it out, but the first order I understand. Don’t fight the flames.
So I don’t. I...just...stop, allowing the floodgates to open and thánatos to pour out of me right alongside my lifeblood. Soon I’m engulfed, and because I’m in the physical realm, my clothes are burned away. But...but...my wounds only grow worse. That can’t be good for me.
I suspect Ali is experiencing the same reaction. When I scream, she screams. We scream together, again and again and again. The agony! It’s too much, too much—it’s my nightmare.
I’m burning to death. Soon I’ll be nothing but ash.
Trickster. Darkness tricks. Darkness lies.
The nightmares...a trick to ensure I hold on to thánatos?
I want to hold on. I want to so bad. The pain will end, and I so desperately want it to end. I need it to end. But still I lie passive, accepting, the flames burning hotter and hotter, tremors wracking me. Of their own volition, my arms and legs curl inward, and even that is a new kind of agony.
Then, the strangest thing happens. The haze clears from my mind, and pain ebbs. Both Ali and I stop screaming. And for the first time in weeks, I can feel the comforting power of dynamis healing me. Bone, muscle and skin begin to weave back together. Strength fills my spirit...my body.
Except, it doesn’t last for long. Thánatos springs forth with new life, pouring out of me, flames blistering me, melting me, but it’s worse now, it’s so much worse...until it’s not. Until I start to heal again.
“Three layers,” Ali pants. “One more.”
Before the last word leaves her, the pain kicks up yet again, and it’s worse than the first two combined, but it doesn’t last nearly as long, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. I’m free! I’m healing!
Thánatos might have covered my inner light, but it could not destroy it.
Not too strong, never too strong.
“Tell me,” Frosty demands.
“She’s going to survive,” Ali replies.
Callused hands I know belong to Frosty skim over my torso, checking for wounds while also imparting strength. “She’s really healed.”
His shock matches my own. We did it. We did it!
“Thank God,” Ali rasps.