I withdraw on trembling paws, my sensitive nose clogged with the rank smell of death.
I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to look.
Darkness is kind to me once again. As I retreat, a cloud passes over the moon, and my sister’s body is swathed in shadow.
I shift to my human form, a shiver racking my bones. The midnight cold pierces my fragile human skin, but I ignore the chill and rush over to Christine.
Her condition is as bad as I feared. Looking at her ruined throat makes me retch. I have no idea how she can possibly swallow any blood with her esophagus in tatters.
“Oh god…Christine,” I whisper.
The door to the stairs bangs open, and Erik rushes onto the roof with my name on his lips. When he sees me, his shoulders sag with relief. “Thank Fate, you’re alive.”
“Yes, but…Christine…”
Alarm floods his face, and he rushes forward, dropping to his knees on the other side of her body.
Behind him, framed in the doorway, is the big man with the red beard, the one who wielded waves and drowned so many shifters of the Collective. He stands with his arms folded, surveying us.
Erik tears off his coat and hands it to me. “Put this on, or you’ll freeze.”
Slowly, I obey while he strokes Christine’s hair back from her forehead. The ends of her dark curls are soaked with red.
“She needs blood,” he says.
“She can’t drink blood, Erik.”
“I’ll pour it into her,” he says desperately, tearing at his wrist with his fingernails. “Come on, Raoul. Both of us. We can save her.”
His urgency spurs my own desperate hope, and I bite my own wrist until it bleeds. We hold our forearms above her body, our blood dripping onto her parted lips, slipping into her mouth, running in rivulets along the terrible wounds in her throat. We clasp each other’s hands over her, and we bleed.
I’m weeping. So is he. When he kisses me, I taste his tears.
And still we bleed.
The man with the red beard doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to help us—not that anyone could—but neither does he move to leave. He witnesses our grief in silence, with his head bowed.
When our bodies begin to heal, Erik and I open the wounds again. There’s so much of our blood and hers cloaking her throat that we can’t tell if it’s working.
We weep, and we bleed until I feel dizzy. I’m not sure if it’s from grief or blood loss.
At last, I venture a question. “Will we see her ghost, do you think, if she…”
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t say it.”
“Can you see every ghost, though?” I know it’s risky to push him on this point, but I’m reckless and sick with loss. I need to know.
“Only the ones who could not find rest. Would you wish that on her?”
I ponder for a moment. “Yes, if I could see her again.”
He stares at me. “I do believe that is the most selfish thought you’ve ever had.”
“Iamselfish.” I gather her limp hand in mine. Her fingers feel so fragile, so breakable. “Iwanther, Erik.”
“I would cut out my own heart and place it in her chest if I thought it would do any good,” he says. “For your sake and hers. I would die if I believed the two of you could be happy.”
“Stop it,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes again. “Not without you.”
