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Asha and Valerian shoot the werewolf in the head at the same exact time.
The beast collapses.
We help everyone else next, dispatching the rest of the Overtaken one by one.
“Bebe,” I pant when the last of the enemies is no more.
Tossing our weapons aside, Asha and I rush over to her and kneel on either side.
Her face ashen, Bebe lies in a pool of blood. Her breath is shallow, coming out in pained gurgles.
“I couldn’t allow you to be killed,” she chokes out, her gray eyes glued to my face.
“Hush,” I whisper raggedly. “Save your strength.”
“Take her to the medical bay,” Valerian says urgently, coming to kneel at my side. “Kojo, Maxwell, and Asha can help you make sure she isn’t jostled. Once she’s safe, you all should patch yourselves up as well.”
I throw a frantic glance at the forest. “What if there’s another attack?”
As if to confirm my fears, an Overtaken elf steps out, then an uber.
“We’ll handle them,” Valerian says and tosses Asha’s gun to a dreamwalker who needs it. “Go.”
With a heavy heart, I work with the others to carefully lift Bebe.
As we step into the building, her breaths grow more labored, and her gaze struggles to focus on Asha and me.
We hurry as gently as we can, leaving a trail of Bebe’s blood behind us.
Midway to the medical bay, the sound of her strained breaths stops.
Ice coats my chest, and my throat feels like it’s being squeezed in a brutal fist. “Please hang on,” I whisper to my grandmother. “Please, please, just hang on.”
The rest of the way is a blur.
Once inside the sterile room of the bay, we lay Bebe’s frail body on a gurney.
A woman wearing all white dashes over. “I’m the doctor on duty,” she says quickly, already feeling for my grandmother’s pulse.
Her face goes carefully blank, and she does several more checks as I watch, Pom’s fur the dullest gray it’s ever been.
I know what she’s about to tell us before she turns to face us, pain and regret gleaming in her eyes. Even so, I need her to spell it out because a part of me refuses to believe it. Doesn’t want to believe it.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor’s voice wavers. “She’s gone. The sword went straight through—”
I don’t hear the rest.
My knees give out, and I sink to the floor. On the other side of the gurney, Asha does the same, her face—a mirror image of mine—a mask of anguish.
I can’t process this, can’t deal with the grief that feels like a giant sitting on my chest. Numbly, I watch as Kojo crouches next to Asha and gathers her into his embrace.
She starts to cry.
I wish I could as well, but I barely knew my grandmother—and that’s what hurts the most. It’s all the years we didn’t get to spend together, all the hugs that were never given, all the wisdom I’ll never learn from her.
The doctor shakes off her own grief and begins applying first aid to everyone as Maxwell approaches me uncertainly.
“Bailey,” he says hoarsely. “Are you okay?”
I nod. What else can I say? Everyone here has way more reason to be grieving than I do.
I’ve never felt more like an outsider in my life than I do in this moment, surrounded by family I don’t remember and don’t really know.
Eyes somber, my father squeezes my shoulder, and I draw in a steadying breath, shoving down that hollow, choking feeling. “Valerian,” I say thickly. “He’s out there. We have to help him.”
With his life on the line and Soma on the brink of destruction, I can’t just sit and wallow.
Maxwell frowns. “You’re injured. He can—”
Idi clears his throat in the earpiece, reminding me the device is still in my ear. “An Overtaken necromancer has just arrived at the gate. He’s resurrecting the fallen on both sides. I’m sending the rest of the guards down there. It’s our only chance.”
The faces of everyone around me reflect the same despair I’m feeling.
A necromancer is bad news. Horrific news.
I need to do something. We need to do something. But what?
“I’m going to take her to the morgue,” the doctor says somberly, and starts wheeling the gurney out.
No one stops her, though a part of me wants to.
“This is all my fault.” The words escape my mouth as if of their own accord. “Phobetor is after me. If I’d stayed away from Soma, Bebe would still be alive.”
Asha stops crying and gives me an incredulous look. “Two as One, remember?” she says with a hiccup. “He wants me just as much as he wants you.”
Maxwell nods grimly. “Asha’s right. This attack was carefully planned. He wouldn’t have had time to set it up after we arrived. If anything, your presence saved some lives.”
I shake my head, my throat tight again. “It was me she jumped to protect.”
