Page 138 of Somnium

Cadi tried to focus on anything other than what was happening to her hand: beaches, mountain streams, puppies. Nothing worked. She needed something else to distract her.

“Was that Elias?” she asked through clenched teeth. “On the phone?”

Sera shook her head, not breaking her focus from her work. “Kai. He and the others are on their way.” She paused for a moment, placing a hand against Cadi’s knee. “Elias will be here soon, babe.”

Cadi gave a tight nod, then turned away again as Sera moved on to the next suture.

After countless minutes and several swigs from the bottle at her feet, the nauseating pressure in Cadi’s palm disappeared. A dull throb remained in its place as Sera pressed a strip of gauze to the wound, then covered it with a tan bandage.

Sera’s hands shook as she started to clean, repeatedly dropping scissors and towels until she finally stopped and gripped the end table so hard her knuckles blanched.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Cadi felt something inside her crack at the pain in her friend’s voice, but she didn’t understand. Sera had gotten her out, stitched her up, taken care of her. If it hadn’t been for her, Cadi may very well still be sitting on the temple floor, bleeding onto the stone.

Sera met her gaze, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I couldn’t get to you. I should have tried harder, should have pushed more, but I⁠—”

Her voice cracked, and she dropped her eyes to the floor between them. With her uninjured hand, Cadi reached out to grip Sera’s shoulder with a strength that felt foreign and wrong.

“This wasn’t your fault.”

She felt herself say the words, heard her voice, but all of it was hollow. As if it no longer belonged to her, but to someone else who didn’t exist anymore. Sera gave her a shallow nod and drew the back of her hand beneath her nose as she sniffled.

A crash from the hall made them both jump. Cadi let out a grunt of pain when her fingers squeezed the armrest of the chair and the fresh stitches in her hand strained against the movement. Then a familiar voice screamed her name.

“Cadi!”

A second later, Elias burst through the door, freezing at the threshold when his eyes found her. His wild panic dissolved into devastation as he took in the blood that soaked her clothes, her tear-stained cheeks, and the fresh bandage covering the hand that had sealed her fate.

“No …” he whispered. His voice broke against the word as he stepped toward her, and she pushed up from the chair, ignoring the painful protest in her hand.

“Elias,” she started, but no other words had a chance to break free before her knees buckled, and the weight of everything crashed through her to pull her down. It was as if her body had been holding itself together by the thinnest thread, waiting for him, refusing to let her crumble until he was there to put her back together.

Elias rushed forward, winding his arms around her to stop her fall. He guided her to the couch on the opposite side of the room and lowered them both down before he pulled her tight against him.

She broke. Sobs tore through her, tears stained the fabric of his t-shirt as she cried, clinging to him like a lifeline.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed between tattered breaths, “I tried to get out. I couldn’t. I promised. I’m so sorry.”

Elias’s arms tightened around her, gripping her with a strength that almost hurt. His chest shook like he was barely holding himself together as he pulled back and took her face in his hands.

“Why were you there, Cadi? You were safe at Sera’s, why did you—” The fracture in his voice was reflected in his eyes as he looked at her.

Cadi shook her head, confusion and despair tangling her words. “The text.”

Elias’s face pinched, and he brushed his hand against her cheek. “What text?”

“She said she got a text that I was in trouble,” Sera chimed in from her spot by the door. “A text from you.”

Elias let out a breath. “But I⁠—”

Cadi watched the bewilderment on his face shift to bleak comprehension as he dragged a hand over his mouth.

“My phone …” he muttered.

“What?” Sera asked.

Elias turned to look at her, the lines of his face hardening. “They took my phone.”