Cameron is saying my name, so is his son. But me, I’m considering my options. Jonah’s heart ... it sounds good. The memory of the Elders stabbing him in it lingers, though. I felt those attacks, saw them. How did he survive? Could it be possible they missed his heart, even if by millimeters? If so ... why is he still asleep? He’s Kate Blackthorn’s best friend’s son. There is no way she wouldn’t have worked her ass off to heal him. Why is he asleep?
I need to fix him, fix whatever is still wrong. I ... I brought Kellan back. He didn’t even have a heart, and now he’s breathing. I can fix Jonah, too. I just ... I just need to figure out what’s wrong. Find what’s wrong and make it better.
Lightbulbs are popping around us, Fourth of July sparklers set ablaze as I draw every last atom and molecule toward me. I thought I put all of Enlilkian’s life force into Kellan, but ... maybe there’s something left. Something extraordinary enough to fix this man I don’t know if I can live without. If not, I will happily give him all that I have. I have the power of reanimation, right? I will just ... reanimate him. That’s all. So easy. I grab his face between my hands, ignoring the sharp spikes of pain ripping through my broken arm; I take the worlds’ largest breath, let it out slowly.
Here goes everything ...
A hand comes to rest on my shoulder just as I begin shoving every single piece of life force I have inside me into Jonah. “Hen, please, let’s get you taken care of before—”
I jerk out of Cameron’s grasp, collapsing onto the bed. I’m woozy, stars dance in front on my eyes for the second time in one day. I’m not done, though. Not by a long shot. “Let ... me ... finish.”
“I don’t know what is going on right now,” he says, and I marvel at how he can sound both curt and worried all at once, “but it cannot be good. Hen, you’ve just lost all your coloring, even more than you had when you first came in here. Please. Let me help you get out of this bed so we can get you healed and in the right form on mind.”
Laughter, wonderful, bitter laughter forces its way out. Doesn’t he see? Doesn’t he get it? Why does everybody keep worrying about me? I am not that important. I’m just a girl who keeps screwing everything up.
Will’s hand stretches out toward mine. “I cannot imagine what you’ve gone through, but you need to—”
“I don’t need to do anything other than what I’m doing!” I don’t like the look on their faces. They’re all so bloody sad. So worried. No. I can’t accept this. NO. Please let them be only worried for me. Not for him. Not now, not when I’m holding him, not when I know I can fix him. I just have to find what’s wrong. Did the Elders take something from him, too?
“Chloe, you are not in control of yourself,” Will barks. “Do you even see what you’re doing to the room? Hospital? You are scaring people!”
Oh gods. Oh gods. I force my eyes closed, count to ten. It’s not working. Twenty. Thirty. He’s talking, he’s telling me it will be okay, Cameron too, but nothing is okay, not if Jonah has to pay for all my sins.
It’s my turn to be slapped. Shock stuns my eyes back open. Callie is standing there, shaking. The room is a broken mess. “If you think for one moment that, if J were awake, he would ever put up with you ignoring your health, you can think again, Chloe Whitecomb. You are going to get your ass up and to a Shaman, do you hear me?”
She’s not the only one shaking. My fingers curl into fists. I force more breaths in and out. Say, as calmly as I can when all I want to do is to give myself over to the rage once more, “What is going on? Why isn’t he waking up? What did those things do to him?”
All Callie’s heat leaves as her mouth falls open, wordless. Will looks over at his father, helplessness darkening his brown eyes.
“Did Kellan not talk to you when he found you?” Cameron asks me slowly at the same time Astrid bursts through what’s left of the doorway, out of breath. She takes in the room with wide eyes before sagging against the wall.
“There was fear the Elders had somehow gotten into Annar again,” she murmurs shakily. And then, straightening up. “Chloe, I know things are hard right now, but you need to take a breath.”
I’ve taken a breath. I’ve taken a hundred of them. None of them are working.
“I just talked to Karl, he told me ...” She approaches me warily. “He told me how he found you and Kellan. Sweetling, nobody can blame you for being on edge. But ... you must calm down. You must—”
“I obliterated them.” I grab Jonah’s hand again. “I obliterated them all. They won’t be coming to Annar again. You don’t have to worry about that. And I will go and obliterate all the rest of them below the city as soon as my husband is okay.”
Her lips press together. “Darling—”
“Now. I would like somebody to tell me what is wrong with Jonah.”
A full count of forty happens before she says, “I wish we could.”
Everything just kind of goes hazy. I focus on the person below me, on his still face. “Where is Kate? Shouldn’t she be in here helping him?”