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I turned back to the forest.
I cut through the trees, pressing into the earth as hard as I could to gain speed. Then my legs carried me off the trail, veering toward the coast, like Lana would have done. I raced down the incline, searching the forest floor, the moist leaves, the soft dirt, the broken twigs.
I spotted a small footprint in the mud and slowed my pace, searching for the next set. In the moonlight, it was hard to distinguish her tracks against the heavy leaves.
Each tiny track led to another, and then a few feet away, one more appeared.
And I stopped.
Danny found her before I did. He didn’t follow me to the vault; instead, he had started his search at the spot before the mountain pass. He knew her well.
I gently approached. He held her tiny body in his lap, cradling her as he sat on the forest floor. Danny didn’t look up as I neared and threw myself onto the ground.
“Danny, move your hands. I need to see where she’s hurt.”
Lana was so pale, her creamy skin now eerie white—almost translucent, all the way down the extensive wound at her chest. Bits of muscle and bone were flayed away, leaving a huge cavern. The brutally sharp teeth of the Raiders had torn into her flesh like a rabid animal.
I thought she would’ve been safer away from the coast… I had been wrong.
I put my hand to her neck, holding my breath, praying for something beneath my fingers. A weak heartbeat thudded against my fingertips.
She was alive.
“Danny, she’s still alive, give her to me,” I whispered.
Danny hesitantly peered up at me. The cold terror in his eyes made me want to weep. If I hadn’t commanded him, he wouldn’t have let her go. I felt his grief possessing his thoughts. He shook as he handed her limp body to me. His eyes held the same look I had seen when hewas dying.
I cradled her in to my chest and watched the blood seep through her torn clothes. She had moments left before death shadowed over us.
I stared into Lana’s glassy blue eyes. Her fiery hair was too vibrant against her sickly skin.
Boot steps sounded a few feet away.
Ales and Talon had found us.
Ales gripped Talon around the waist when he surged toward Lana. He lowered Talon to his knees. Then Talon let out such a guttural cry, the entire island stood to attention.
Logan found us and ran to Danny, grabbing him.
“Please, Charlie, please save her,” Talon pleaded, but Ales continued to hold him away from us.
I tore my eyes from Lana’s limp body to her red-haired brother, and then at Ales.
Ales shook his head in denial. He knew what I was going to try. He knew it wouldn’t work.
He gently whispered to me, “You can’t make her an Einherjar. You can’t change her. The Fates only choose men.”
The Valkyrie understood it wasn’t possible.
“Do something, Charlie,” Logan growled.
I saw Talon’s pain, and Danny’s grief. Their collective anguish stole my breath.
She was my friend. My only friend. It might be selfish, but I wasn’t losing her. Death wasn’t taking her.
With her last breaths, her pale lips tilted into a smile. She was such a stubborn ass.
How can she smile at me while she tries to leave us?
