Heal him. Just heal him.
Adrenaline pumps through me as that piercing pain intensifies, tightening around my heart like a vice, winding tighter and tighter until I can barely breathe.
“Why aren’t you healing? What am I doing wrong? Zadyn? Zadyn!Help!” I screech over my shoulder at my horror-stricken friends.
No one moves.
“Why is there so much blood? Why can’t I—somebody help me!”
Zadyn’s eyes begin to roll back. A hand lands on my arm, but I brush it off it, shaking Zadyn’s shoulders. His head drops to the side, caramel hair spilling into his eyes like it always does. I clear it away, clutching his face, as if my iron grip is enough to keep him here, tethered to this earth with me.
“No, no, no. Stay awake, Zadyn. Zadyn?Zadyn!”
There is a roaring in my head. Or maybe I’m screaming. I’m not really sure.
His eyes go still on the ceiling as the last of his life drains out of him.
Silence echoes down the corridor linking our minds. I’m suddenly the only one standing there. I’m standing there alone in the darkness.
An empty stillness settles over the room, and I’m certain I’ve stopped breathing too.
“No. Wake up. Wakeup,” I demand, shoving the stinging tears off my face with blood-soaked hands. I stifle my burgeoning anguish, sucking back the sobs lodged in my throat.
“Wake up. Wake up.”
The words become an incantation, falling from my tear-soaked lips. I give his face a few brisk pats. When that does nothing, I climb on top of him and start chest compressions.
One, two, three.
Breathe.
One, two, three.
Breathe.
Somewhere in my mind I know that CPR doesn’t work on fatal stab wounds to the heart. But I do it anyway.
Silly me.
“You’re not going,” I grit, bearing down on his open chest. “You’re not leaving me.Come. On. Zadyn.”
All logic, all sanity leaves me as I work like a woman possessed over his pale body, pumping his lifeless heart. My lips slam into his, pushing air down into lungs that refuse to fill.
Those lips that once kissed me soft enough to crack me open, those lips that once tasted like him…Now they taste like blood and tears.
“Serena.” Jace murmurs my name with unnerving gentleness. As if I’m in danger of shattering. His hands wrap around my arms. I whirl, heaving a violent shove to his chest, fire brimming in my eyes and heating my fingers.
The distraught faces of my friends stare at me, at us, with sympathetic eyes. “Why are you all looking at me like that? He’s fine. He’s gonna be fine.”
My hair falls into my eyes as I lift my fists and begin pounding his heart to no avail. But as I stare down into lifeless eyes, warm even in death, there is no denying that I’m sitting on top of a corpse.
I take in the blood now pooled around his outline—the blooddripping down my fingers. The cloying scent of salt and iron. The dull pallor of his skin. His colorless mouth.
And I fracture.
A banshee howl bursts from my throat as something in my chest tears. I rock back and forth, keening, every single cell inside of me aching with overwhelming grief.
Somewhere behind me, stone is crumbling, trees are bending. Furi is howling like a wounded wolf. Inside me, it’s like something pivotal has been severed. Something has burst. Something I cannot live without. I collapse on top of him, sobbing into his neck and clutching his hair.
