I opened my mouth in a silent scream as I met Cabe’s sorrowful eyes. He was holding his pain back from me, even though it was impossible for him to withhold his emotions in a normal situation. I could now feel the wavering control that vibrated through our bond, shimmering with constrained agony. Water flooded into my mouth and I began to choke, but Silas quickly refocused on me. He grabbed the back of my head, fitting his mouth over mine to prevent the stream of water from flooding into me further. He lent me his breath, even though he should have been close to running out of oxygen himself, and then he pulled back, his black gaze searing right through me. He grabbed my hand, laying it over Cabe’s chest. When my hand was in place, he gripped Cabe around the middle and Cabe’s concentration slipped, leaking through in a blinding flash of agony that threatened to rouse my anxious valcrick… and then I knew exactly what Silas needed me to do.
I closed my eyes against the scene that threatened to sever my heart right through the middle, drawing on a harmless feeling of numbness and pushing it desperately into the valcrick that fought to be free. As soon as the power rushed out of me, Silas pulled Cabe free. I clung to them both, keeping my eyes closed and my power flowing as Silas pulled us toward the surface. Hands caught us almost immediately, pulling us up and separating us, breaking my valcrick’s hold of Cabe. My body immediately began to spasm, causing me to crumple into a ball on the stone bridge that we had been pulled onto. I knew that Cabe was the injured one, but I couldn’t seem to convince my body of the fact. Quillan—the one who had pulled me out—immediately moved away as a dreadful scream rent the air. It sounded like Yas, and some small part of my brain immediately wondered at the sheer emotion behind the sound. Who was Cabe to her? Footsteps rushed all around us, and the sounds of a scuffle ensued. I forced myself to focus on the spill of red-tinged water that crept along the stones toward me, steadily growing thicker and brighter the closer it loomed. I struggled up onto my hands and knees, dragging myself closer despite the horrible pain that radiated from my midsection. Noah, Quillan, Poison and Clarin were now holding back the Klovoda members, who were all shouting various things that were too rushed and loud for me to pay attention to. Silas was tearing Cabe’s shirt off, bundling it with his own shirt and jacket in an attempt to stem the bleeding.
I could barely make out Yas’s demand to call for an ambulance, but it was a useless request. There wasn’t anything an ambulance could do that my valcrick couldn’t do faster. I knew that with a certainty that forced me all the way to Cabe’s bloodied body. Noah and Quillan knew it, too, because they refused to let anyone near.
Silas backed off immediately as I reached them. I slumped over Cabe, my head falling onto his chest as a pained groan slipped from one of us.
“Help,” I pleaded the valcrick, desperately clamoring to bring all of the emotions that swirled through the bond under control.
It hadn’t been so bad the year before when Weston had cut Silas, partly because the wound had been smaller, but also because I had only been bonded to two of them and Silas was better at ignoring his own pain. He wasn’t very good at ignoring the pain that he had caused Cabe, and the agony that emanated from him was almost as bad as the serrated wound that threatened to steal Cabe away from us all. Quillan and Noah were similarly hanging on by a thread, their inner hysteria becoming more prominent as they fought to contain the others.
Something fluttered inside my chest, and I knew that it was my connection to Cabe.
He was slipping away.
I swore and sobbed and screwed my eyes closed so tightly that my face started to ache, but the mangled chaos that screamed inside my head refused to quieten. Silas leaned over me, his body shaking as his head touched my back, his hand on Cabe’s shoulder. We were both crouching over him, trying to stem the reality with the shield of our bodies.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered against my shoulder, his chest shuddering with the breath he pulled in. “Heal him, angel, and I’ll be different. I swear. I’ll stop fighting… I’ll get… help… I’ll stop… Just heal him… don’t let him die.”
He seemed to have momentarily forgotten that Cabe dying would mean the death of us all. He only cared about Cabe. He continued to whisper disjointed promises and his words began to tame the turbulent storm of shouting that swelled around us, pulling the onlookers into a kind of shocked silence. He pleaded brokenly and his words became manifest in a kind of magic that tripped down my spine. I wasn’t sure what had shifted, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. The others grew silent and I was finally able to concentrate on the ebbing life below me. I poured everything into my valcrick and released it into the air. Silas wound his arm below me as I started to slump, keeping my weight from pressing against Cabe’s injury. I had no control over the valcrick whatsoever; I simply allowed it to flow out of me, drawing on everything that I possessed. It ate away at my energy, and when that was depleted, it took my sight. My eyelids fluttered closed and my breath stopped for a moment of time, causing me to surface in a fit of choking coughs as Cabe stirred beneath us, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tightly enough to convince me that the valcrick had done its job.
I succumbed to the exhaustion that called for me then, a gentle whisper of relief falling from my lips.