I blinked at my surroundings even as Amethyst pulled and pulled, moving me away from the white light.
Or was I? Whatever Amethyst was doing seemed to keep me away from the tunnel of light. And as enamored with it as I’d been just moments before, the luster was gone.
I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my love and my friends.
So I stopped moving forward and allowed the fingers grazing my back to yank me into the darkness.
“Her pulse! It’s getting stronger. I’m going to sink more energy into her.”
I heard the words, knew they were Alex’s, but as air slammed into my lungs like waves ravaging a rock on the coast, I could only focus on one thing.
Breathing. Air—precious air.
Nothing else mattered.
I gasped and gasped and gasped, until finally, what felt like years later, the sucking of air slowed.
A sob sounded from nearby, and I heard a man assure a woman. “It’s okay, sugar. She’s back. She’s alive.”
Hunter. Eva. Alex.
The three who had changed my mind.
“Her spirit is in her body now,” Amethyst said, and I recalled her place too. She’d pulled my spirit back, saved me. “Give her everything you’ve got, Alex. Her wrists already look better.”
My wrists? With a massive effort, my eyelids fluttered open. The world was blurry, but I recognized my loved ones—standing around me. In the woods?
The last part made little sense, but that was hardly important. What was important was my friends’ presence. And . . .
I blinked, confused. My totem blazed red. The exact same color as Alex’s magic. I sucked in another breath as understanding and memory surged up through the cloudy confusion of death.
Amethyst had brought me back, but Alex was healing me. Healing the cuts I’d inflicted to banish the ghost, and probably regenerating my blood too. He was doing what only the most advanced healers could. He was sending his own life-force into me—gifting a part of his own life. And my totem was helping.
The thought was so overwhelming, so miraculous, that my eyes slammed shut and I passed out once more.
I awoke the next morning to Alex’s arms wrapped tightly around me, and an insistent knock on my bedroom door.
“What the hell?” I rolled out of bed and found not only Alex in my room, but Eva and Hunter too. They were spooning on a mattress on the floor. Mascara stained the pillowcase beneath Eva’s head, as if she’d cried herself to sleep.
But why?
My eyebrows furrowed, and I reached for my robe on the back hook of the bathroom door. The sunlight streamed in from the window. It caught my wrist, and I gasped.
Marks were present on my skin, thin white slices that stood out against my normal olive complexion.
Scenes from the night before came rushing back, and I had to grip the bathroom doorknob to keep from falling.
I’d cut myself to banish the ghost. The bleeding hadn’t stopped. I’d died, and my friends—Alex and Amethyst, in particular—had brought me back.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, recalling how Alex had poured his own glowing life-force into me.
I glanced at my boyfriend on the bed. No wonder the knock on the door hadn’t woken him up. He’d spent so much energy saving me that he was probably dead to the world.
Another knock came at the door. “Miss Dane? Are you in there?”
Why is the headmistress here?
I grabbed my robe off the hook, sidestepped my friends sleeping on the floor, and opened the door.
