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Thin air

Кейн Рэйчел

Lewis was facing kind of toward me, but mostly away. Like he knew he had to have this conversation but didn’t particularly want to. “It’s bad,” he said. “She may seem okay now, but she’s not.”

“Then do your voodoo and fix her up,” I said. “Make her all-”

“She’s dying,” he said.

I felt like he’d punched me in the stomach, and for a second or two I was at a loss for words before I rallied. “No, she’s not. She’s getting better. Look, she nearly froze to death, but she’s recovering, and-”

He met my eyes, and the bitter fury rolling in him cut me off cold. “She’s dying, Jo,” he said. “The stuff that keeps her alive, the…I don’t know, the soul, is gutted. Cored out. I can’t save her. Once a Demon rips at someone like that, so completely, what’s left after it leaves can’t sustain itself. She’ll just…slow down and die. You saw how hard it is for her to focus. That’s only going to get worse. Fast.”

“I don’t believe in Demons!”

“You should!” he shot back. “You were killed by one!”

I had officially entered la-la land, and obviously it was no longer safe to be traveling on the crazy train with Lewis. Next stop: Lithium City. “I’m not dead,” I pointed out to him.

“No, of course you’re not…” He stopped himself with an effort, an overwhelming expression of frustration.

“There’s got to be something we can do for her,” I said. “Something. Anything.”

“No. Look, I’ve seen this before. She’ll just fade. Quietly. She’ll stop responding to us, and then she’ll just…go.” For a second there was a sheen like tears in his eyes. I couldn’t remember anything about him prior to his finding me in the woods, but I was fairly sure that crying wasn’t his usual thing. He’d seen it before. I was guessing it was someone who’d meant something to him.

“So what do we do now?” I asked. Lewis crossed his arms.

“What we were going to do before she showed up,” he said. “David and I scouted the route this morning. We hike to the rendezvous, make contact with Wardens we can trust, and find a place to hole up until David can lay his hands on Ashan and find out how to solve this thing.”

“Well, we can’t just leave her!” I said. “And I don’t think she’s strong enough to hike it right now. Not in this weather.” Wasn’t too sure I was, either.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t wait. Kevin’s still out there somewhere, and I have no reason to believe he can’t find her. Or worse, he might know where she is already. We have to leave her. We can get David to lead a rescue party back for her. We’ll leave her the tent, food, water, a supply of heat packs.”

“You think she’ll last long enough to be rescued? Even with all the supplies?”

Silence. Lewis rocked back and forth, restless and weary, and shook his head.

“Then no,” I said. “I’m not leaving her here to die alone.” Not because she was supposed to be my friend; it’s hard to have friends when you don’t remember the good times, not to mention the bad. But because it was just plain wrong.

Lewis looked like he wanted to argue with me, but I saw the torment in his face.

And the guilt.

“All right.” He sighed. “We’ll see how she is in the morning. But I still think it’s a mistake.”

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Cherise looked better when we went back in the tent, but one glance at Lewis told me that was deceptive; he wouldn’t be that grim if her condition had improved. At least she didn’t seem to be in pain. Certainly she was giving off no on-the-verge-of-death vibes. The only thing strange about her was the haunted, empty look in her eyes, and the fact that she seemed to have a longer and longer lag in responding to anything around her.

I tried to ignore it. The rest of the day was consumed with small talk, nothing very deep or probing. I didn’t ask her much about my own life; I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear how close we’d been. She volunteered details, though, mentioned people and places that I didn’t and couldn’t recognize. I was grateful when she fell asleep, finally, and zipped myself into my own sleeping bag next to her. Lewis sat cross-legged, crammed in the corner of the tiny shelter, lost in what looked like meditation but could have been a sitting-up nap for all I knew.

I was about to drift off to sleep when Cherise said dreamily, “Jo?”

I sat up and did some u

“You don’t have to pretend. I know something’s wrong,” she said. Her voice was soft. “Look, if I did anything…said anything, you know, earlier…I didn’t mean it. You know that, right? I didn’t mean it. Don’t be mad, okay?”

I didn’t even know her, not really, but that hurt. I tried not to let it show. “I’m not mad,” I said. My voice actually stayed mostly steady. “You should sleep for a while. Rest.”

Another one of those eerie lags, like talking to someone in space. While she was waiting to get the message, she seemed to be just…vacant. Then she excavated a hand from the foil wrapping around her and took mine. She had a tattoo around the ring finger of her right hand, some kind of Celtic knot work. I figured, given the alien gray tat on her back, she probably had more body art, probably in places that only her boyfriends knew about. A normalish girl, one who loved her looks and devoted a lot of time to their enhancement. A girl who probably had the guys buzzing back home.

A girl who’d been my friend. Who still was, in ways that counted.

She said, “Don’t leave me here. Not by myself.”

“I wouldn’t. I won’t.”

“I’m scared.” She didn’t seem to be hearing me, although her huge blue eyes were locked on mine. “I can’t just die, Jo. I didn’t even do anything heroic yet. Not like you.”

I looked over at Lewis, whose eyes opened as soon as I focused on him. Serene as the Buddha. I took in a trembling breath. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” I snapped. I was displacing anger, I knew that, but it felt good to let a little of it out.

He sighed. “I can try, but it won’t be enough, and it will only prolong things. It can’t stop the process.”

Cherise was visibly fading away now, panic in those huge blue eyes. She tried to move but her arm barely twitched.

Trapped inside her own body.

“Help.” Her lips formed the word, but there was no breath behind it.

I was watching her die.

Sudden fury spiked through me. Not at Lewis-at everything. At the unfairness of the world. At losing someone I’d barely begun to know and like. “No!” I said sharply. “No, I’m not just going to sit here…”

I reached out and put my hands on her head. I had no idea at all what I was doing, but the frustration and fury inside left me no choice. I had to act. I had to try. It seemed like instinct, to put my hands where I did, but then I remembered David had used the same kind of placement when he’d healed Lewis.