I looked at Drea, who was completely broken by the sight of her dead friend, and then turned to Dash and pleaded with my eyes for him to do something. I couldn’t hear Drea emit one more sob or I too would crack. I was barely holding it together.
“Jacob already took Marlow. Bring her to Lumen Academy,” Dash said, nodding toward Skye right before he gripped Drea by the armpits and shot into the air with her kicking and screaming Skye’s name.
Whatever shred of control I had left failed me. My eyes blurred with tears as I slipped my arms under Skye’s lifeless form. The angelic marks on my arms lit up, giving me the strength to lift her. With a kick and a flap of my wings I was airborne, only taking a quick second to peer down at Skye’s lifeless body in my arms, hoping for the twitch of an eyelid or the rise and fall of her chest… but there was nothing.
This isn’t happening.
The emotional impact of what just went down hit me so hard that I struggled to fly. I wobbled as I pumped my wings and ascended higher and higher into the sky, knowing that the silver bracelets around my ankles masked us from public view.
Healing center, just get her to the healing center,I told myself.
The healers who saved Gran were amazing. Surely they could fix Skye? I wouldn’t believe it was final until a healer looked me in the eyes and told me she was gone. I wasn’t a doctor. Maybe Skye was just paralyzed or something from a broken neck.
That sounds plausible.
Dash was a blur in the sky in front of me as I followed him across town. In less than ten minutes we were at the Lumen Compound. Dash bypassed some of the Lumen buildings, flying Drea to the academy, but I zeroed in on the healing center, dropping into the alleyway next to the building. Barely slowing to land, I ran to the entrance and sucked my wings into my back as I kicked one of the doors open with my boot.
When I stumbled in with Skye’s body in my arms, the color drained from the nurse’s face who was manning the front desk.
“Help her!” I screamed, rushing forward. “Call the healers! It was a level ten.” I hurried to hand Skye to Rose, the nurse who’d helped me with Gran, when she reached up to feel the pulse at Skye’s neck.
I started shaking my head, my hair whipping me in my face, before Rose even uttered a word.
Don’t do that. Don’t tell me—
“She’s gone,” Rose said, compassion and sadness reflecting in her gaze.
I couldn’t stand anymore. My knees buckled and I fell forward, Skye still in my arms. A giant sob racked my body. “No! Get the healers… save her,” I wailed.
My freak-out must have been heard by half the healing center, because one of the healers who’d removed the curse from Gran stepped into the waiting room and peered down at me. Her gaze went from my face and then to my arms loosely holding on to Skye.
Her face fell. “Oh dear.”
“You have to try!” I stood, almost pitching forward with the weight of Skye’s limp body still in my arms. “Try for me? Anything’s possible, right?”
The healer shared a look with Rose and chewed her lip. “I can take a look.”
Hope burst inside my chest and I all but threw Skye into her arms. The next thing I knew we were running into the operating room.
“I’ll take it from here. You can sit up in the viewing area,” she said, and I nodded, tears tracking down my cheeks. I couldn’t get them to stop. I could barely breathe.
I took the stairs two at a time into the upper viewing area of the operating room and pressed my nose against the glass as the healer laid Skye’s form on the table and started to scan her with an open palm. Light burst from her fingertips and spiraled around Skye’s body as my heart pounded in my chest. The light hit Skye’s body and then fell to the side as if recoiling.
When the healer looked up at me and shook her head, it felt like something died inside of me.
“No!” I pounded the glass.
The healer reached out and closed Skye’s eyelids, before raising a sheet over her face, and I fell into the chair behind me. Mind-numbing grief seized me then as a pit opened in my stomach.
First Gage.
Now Skye.
It was too much loss, too soon.
I grabbed my face, rocking back and forth weeping as I tried to get a handle on my breathing.
“I’m so sorry, Skye,” I told the room, sniffling. It was my fault, it felt like my fault.
