I sink my nails into the soft, muddy grass and pull my feet out of the hot spring. I dive toward the princess, but Brooke’s arms close around me. She pulls me away from Victoria’s unconscious body as Henry and Theo kneel over their sister.
“Tor! Tor! Can you hear me? Victoria!” Theo screams, shaking her shoulders. Wet hair is tangled across her face.
My stomach lurches. I turn and press my face into Brooke’s shoulder. The air is freezing, and our knees knock together.
“She’s already weak, and the heat must have gone to her head. I should have said something,” Brooke whispers. I pull back and look up at her. Her face is stricken, but if anyone’s at fault for this, it’s not her. The guilt makes me nauseous.
“She’s not responding,” Henry says.
I squeeze my eyes shut as a chorus of denial echoes through my bones.Not now. Not yet. Not now. Not yet. Not now. Not yet.
“She needs water and food,” Theo roars, snapping me back to reality.
Thisishappening now, and we can still save her.
“You get water,” I tell Henry. “We’ll find fruit.”
I grab the backpack and turn it upside down. First aid supplies, Winston’s handcuffs, and spare clothes scatter across the ground, but our passion fruit supply is gone, and our water supply is drained.
We sprint into the dark trees, and I’m immediately disoriented. Brooke veers to the left, and I hear Henry to my right, but the pitch black keeps me from seeing anything. I stick my hands out and move slowly, but soon I’m tangled in damp leaves and muddy moss.
“Find anything?” I yell.
“Not yet!” Brooke calls, barely audible over the sound of my jagged breaths.
“Hurry!” Theo screams. The terror in his voice makes my blood run cold. This is taking too long.
My eyes slowly adjust to the dark and I finally run into a passion fruit vine. “I found some!” I call into the black as I untangle myself and load my arms with as many as I can hold. I drop half of what I’m carrying, stumbling over my own feet in panic, but still have a handful of fruit when I reach Theo’s side. I drop to my knees and bite open a passion fruit. Theo holds Victoria’s mouth open, and I squeeze the juice onto her tongue.
“Do it again,” he tells me. “Come on, Tor. Wake up,” he pleads, tears slipping down his cheeks.
“We’ve got more,” Henry calls, running out of the forest behind Brooke with loaded arms. They drop piles of passion fruit and a filled water bottle to the ground. Henry tips the liquid into her mouth until she’s swallowed several gulps, and thenBrooke and I take turns breaking the fruit apart and dripping pulpy juice into Victoria’s mouth.
I’m desperate and frenzied, covered in sticky juice and goose bumps, tears pooling in my eyes and a pain welling in my chest, when Victoria finally coughs and opens her eyes.
“Oh thank god,” a voice says. (Maybe me.) I crumple, and Theo catches me, his arms wrapping around my shoulders. The pain in my stitches flares.
“Eat this,” Henry says, pushing a passion fruit into Victoria’s hand.
Victoria slowly eats, then drains the entire bottle of water. After a long, tense moment, she sits up and sucks the juice off her fingers. “Why all the panicked faces?” She bats her eyelashes innocently.
Henry laughs weakly, but Theo sits back wordlessly, his eyes wide with shock.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Fine.” I don’t comment on the way her eyes seem to slide out of focus when she looks at me. Then, more quietly, she says, “Thank you for the fruit.” She picks up another piece and bites it open.
“You shouldn’t get back in the hot spring,” Brooke says, handing Victoria one of the extra shirts that we brought with us.
“Obviously.” Victoria’s eyelashes bob in the moonlight as she avoids making eye contact with any of us. She pulls the shirt on and wraps her arms around her knees, looking more scared than I’ve ever seen her.
“You should sleep by Comet tonight,” I blurt.
“Okay,” she whispers. I want to do more, but I feel utterly helpless.
The mood of our little campout has turned quiet and anxious.Brooke starts the fire in silence, and Victoria is asleep with her head on Comet’s stomach by the time the flames are big enough to produce heat. Henry takes the spot next to his sister, his breathing turning slow and even within minutes. Brooke checks in on me to make sure I’m okay (a word that has lost all meaning), and then she dozes off too.
When everyone else is asleep, Theo finally moves from the edge of the hot spring to the last open spot around the fire. He lies a few feet away from me and stares at the inky sky in a silence that neither one of us knows how to break.
