Betrayed

Stevie Rae was coughing.

Damien was directly to my right. Then came the Twins. Stevie Rae had chosen the block of cement farthest to the right, and closest to the entrance to the room with the food. A bunch of the kids were already eating, but about half of the group had stayed to watch us make the handprints and talk, so there were several more people between Stevie Rae and me, but I could see that she was still on her knees in front of her cement block. She must have felt my eyes on her because she sat back on her heels and looked over at me. I could hear her clear her throat. She gave me a tired smile and I saw her shrug and then mouth the words, Frog in my throat. And I remembered that's what she'd said during the monologue performance. She'd been coughing then, too.

Without looking at him I told Erik, "Get Neferet. Fast!"

I stood up and started moving toward her. Stevie Rae had al­ready made her handprint and signed it, and she was wiping her hands on a towel. Before I could get to her a wrenching cough claimed her. Her shoulders shook with it. She had the towel pressed to her mouth.

Then I smelled it, and it was like I'd slammed into an invisible wall. The scent of blood washed over me, seductive, alluring, and horrible. I stopped and closed my eyes. Maybe if I stayed very still and didn't open them I could convince myself that this was all just a bad dream, that I would wake up in a few hours, still ner­vous about the Full Moon Ritual, with Nala snoring peacefully on my pillow and Stevie Rae snoring just as peacefully in the bed be­side me.

I felt an arm go around me, and still I didn't move.

"She needs you, Zoey." Damien's voice was shaking only a little. I opened my eyes then and stared at him. He was already cry­ing.

"I don't think I can do this."

His grip on my shoulders tightened. "Yes, you can. You have to."

"Zoey!" Stevie Rae sobbed.

Without another thought, I wrenched myself from Damien's arm and ran to my best friend. She was on her knees clutching the blood-soaked towel to her chest. She coughed and gagged again, and more blood sprayed from her mouth and nose.

"Get me more towels!" I snapped to Erin, who was sitting white-faced and silent beside Stevie Rae. Then I crouched in front of Stevie Rae. "It's going to be okay. I promise. It's going to be okay."

Stevie Rae was crying, and her tears were tinged red. She shook her head. "It's not. It can't be. I'm dying." Her voice was weak and gurgled as she tried to speak through the blood hemorrhaging in her lungs and throat.

"I'm staying with you. I won't let you be alone," I said.

She grasped my hand and I was shocked by how cold hers was. "I'm scared, Z."

"I know, I'm scared, too. But we'll get through this together. I promise."

Erin handed me a pile of towels. I took the blood-soaked towel from Stevie Rae's hands, then I started wiping her face and mouth with a clean one, but she started coughing again and I couldn't keep up. There was just too much blood. And now Stevie Rae was shaking so hard that she couldn't hold a towel herself. With a cry, I pulled her onto my lap and wrapped my arms around her, and like she was a child again, I began rocking her, telling her over and over that it would be all right, that I wouldn't leave her.

"Zoey, this might help." I'd forgotten that there were other people in the room, so Damien's voice surprised me. I looked up to see that he was holding the relit green candle that represented earth. Then somehow, in the midst of my fear and despair, my in­stinct kicked in and I suddenly felt very calm.

"Come down here, Damien. Hold the candle close to her."

Damien dropped to his knees, and oblivious to the growing pool of blood that surrounded us and soaked us, he pressed close to Stevie Rae, holding the candle in front of her face. I felt more than I saw Erin and Shaunee kneel on either side of me, and I drew strength from their presence.

"Stevie Rae, open your eyes, honey," I said softly.

With a nasty, gurgling breath, Stevie Rae's eyelids fluttered open. The whites of her eyes were totally red and more pink tears leaked down her colorless cheeks, but her eyes caught on the can­dle, and they held.

"I call the element earth to us now." My voice strengthened and got louder as I spoke. "And I ask that earth be with this very special fledgling, Stevie Rae Johnson, who has been so newly gifted with an affinity for the element. Earth is our home—our provider—and earth is where we will all someday return. Tonight I ask that earth hold and comfort Stevie Rae, and make her jour­ney home a peaceful one."

With a rush of fragrant air we were suddenly enveloped in the scents and sounds of an orchard. I smelled apples and hay, and heard birds chirping and bees buzzing.

Stevie Rae's reddened lips tilted up. Her eyes never left the green candle, but she whispered, "I'm not scared anymore, Z."

Then I heard the front door burst open and Neferet was there crouched beside me. She started to move Damien and the Twins out of the way and take Stevie Rae from my arms.

My voice blasted the room with its power, and I saw even Neferet jerk back with surprise. "No! We stay with her. She needs her element and she needs us."

"Very well," Neferet said. "It's very nearly over anyway. Help me get her to drink this so that her passing will be painless."

I was going to take the vial filled with milky liquid from her when Stevie Rae spoke with surprising clearness. "I don't need it. Since earth came there hasn't been any pain."

"Of course there hasn't been, child." Neferet touched Stevie Rae's blood-smeared cheek and I felt her body relax and stop trembling completely. Then the High Priestess looked up. "Help Zoey lift her onto the stretcher. Keep them together. Let's get her to the infirmary." Neferet told me.

I nodded. Strong hands gripped Stevie Rae and me, and in moments I was placed on the stretcher with Stevie Rae still in my arms. Surrounded by Damien, Shaunee, Erin, and Erik, we were carried swiftly out into the night. Later, I remembered so many weird things about the short trip from the rec hall to the infirmary—how it was snowing heavily, but that it seemed none of the flakes touched us. And it seemed abnormally quiet, as if the earth were holding itself still because it was already mourning. I kept whispering to Stevie Rae, telling her that everything was okay, and that there was nothing to be scared of. I remember her leaning forward and vomiting blood over the side of the stretcher and how the scarlet drops looked against the clean white of the new-fallen snow.

Then we were inside the infirmary, and lifted off the stretcher onto a bed. Neferet gestured for my friends to move close to us. Damien crawled up beside Stevie Rae. He was still holding the lit green candle, and he lifted it so that if she opened her eyes again, Stevie Rae would see it. I drew a deep breath. The air around us was still filled with apple blossoms and birdsong.

Then Stevie Rae opened her eyes. She blinked a couple times, looking confused, then she looked up at me and smiled.

"Would you tell my mamma and daddy that I love them?" I could understand her, but she sounded weak, and her voice was filled with a terrible wetness.

"Of course I will," I said quickly.

"And do something else for me?"

"Anything."

"You don't really have a mamma or a daddy, so would you tell my mamma that you're their daughter now? I think I'd worry about them less if I know y'all have each other."

Tears were pouring down my cheeks and I had to take several sobbing breaths before I could answer her. "Don't worry about anything. I'll tell them."

Her eyes fluttered and she smiled again. "Good. Mamma will make chocolate chip cookies for you." With obvious effort, she opened her eyes again and looked around at Damien, Shaunee, and Erin. "Y'all stick with Zoey. Don't let anything pull you apart."