“Van,” he says slowly, “we need to go, now.”
“What?” I ask a split second before the glass of both passenger side windows explode.
Lunging for Ketchup, I drag him down to the wheel wells and throw my body on top of him. Bullets continue to slam into the car, jerking it back and forth as I bite back a terrified scream. Heat sears across my shoulder, and at least one bullet is lodged in my left thigh. It’s only seconds, maybe five, but it feels like a lifetime before the report of gunfire stops and squealing tires replace it.
As soon as it does, I lift myself off Ketchup and ask, “Are you okay? Ketchup?”
I’m stuck trying to get out from under the steering wheel when a strange choking noise freezes me. Warm fluid bursts against my forearm, and suddenly I can’t breathe. “Ketchup? Ketchup? Answer me!” Panicked scrambling gets me out from under the steering wheel and I reach for his half-turned body. Terror and my own pain kept me from recognizing anything else until I see the blood seeping from his chest.
Tears blur my vision as I start babbling, “No, no, no, no,” over and over again. His pain overwhelms me and my hunger screams at me to lap it up, but I can’t. This is my fault. My doing. I knew how dangerous it was to leave without protection. I didn’t care when I sped away from the house, didn’t put his safety above my own delusional self-importance.
My whole body shakes as I begin sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I…love you,” Ketchup whispers. He tries to lift his hand to comfort me, but doesn’t have the strength to complete the motion.
Seeing his hand breaks something in me and I lose control of my hunger. It bursts out of me with such fury it’s terrifying. I try to rein it back it, but my second of lost control set it free. It rushes through him, drawing a gasp from his bloody lips. I worry it’s hurting him, even as his agony seeps into me and eagerly converts itself to pure power, but his expression relaxes and a faint smile plays on his lips.
I start crying again, hating myself for feeding off him, but pleading with whatever horrible gods who created me to let me at least ease his pain until someone with real power to help him can get here. Sirens are already blaring in the streets, but I know they won’t be fast enough. I can feel his life slipping through my fingers as easily as his pain.
The well of suffering begins to taper off, ripping a body-wracking sob from me, and I try to pull back from the feel of his coming death on instinct, but Ketchup whispers, “Don’t.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that experiencing his death like this will destroy me, but I carefully press my hand to his chest as I nod. I caused this. I’ll stay with him, keep my power with him, until the very end. I owe him this. It doesn’t matter what’s left of me after that.
The flow of his pain continues to be siphoned off by my power, easing his suffering and feeding me in a disgusting circle. As it slows to a trickle, terror that this is the end sends cold sweeping through my body, but the pull of my power continues, begging for more as Ketchup’s body pleads with me in return.
“Take…the rest,” Ketchup says as his eyes flutter and close.
“Ketchup? Ketchup?” I shriek. He doesn’t respond, but his body continues to plead with my power, begging for something, but I don’t understand what it needs. Panic tries to steal my focus, but I refuse to fail Ketchup in this. Whatever he wants, I’ll give it to him. I’ll give him everything.
Suddenly, the pain stops. So does my breathing. I’m on the verge of shattering completely when I feel something familiar brush against my consciousness. It feels like home and love, like Grandma and Ketchup, and the tiniest hint of…Annabelle. It moves from where my power lives, next to my heart, and flows down through my hands to pick up where my hunger left off.
It isn’t pain I feel being sucked into me, but something deeper. Closing my eyes, I focus on it, desperate to know what it’s doing, and not let it hurt Ketchup. As it continues to pull from Ketchup, what I’ve already taken circles back to him in an endless round. What I take in pales in comparison to what leaves me, but I don’t dare try to stop it from seeping into Ketchup’s motionless body.
For a brief moment, the circular flow begins to slow, but then I feel something else, something old and frightening and dangerous. I’m losing my ability to focus, but as soon as I feel it and know it’s a danger to him, my power begins pulling again, at such a frightening rate I don’t know if it will ever stop. I’ll give every last bit if I have to, and I begin to realize that is what it will take as my fingers buzz with numbness and I can only gasp in frail breaths I know won’t be enough to sustain me. The last of my power leaves me as blackness takes over.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Death Come Quickly
(Oscar)
I hate waiting. I have never liked it. Or been good at it. I hate being forced to stay behind as well. I hate not knowing things, like whether or not Van is alive. Ketchup too. He is one of the few I like. I hate having guards watch me, prevent me from leaving. I tried to go after them, but Zander and Annabelle stopped me. Working my jaw back and forth, even though it healed seconds after Zander smashed his fist into it, I plan to repay him for that. Maybe. It was necessary. Emily and Joshua can’t be left behind unprotected.
It isn’t Zander’s fault this time that Van is in danger. Not wholly. We both let her escape. Only Ketchup managed to follow. Which I am surprised by. There is something odd about him. I’m not sure what. I hate being unsure almost as much as I hate waiting.
Emily watches me pace. So does Joshua. He knows something is wrong. Every few minutes he’ll look up at me and ask, “Ba?” He saw Van run out and is worried about her as well. Someday I will figure out his secrets, but I can only focus on Van right now.
Everyone freezes when my phone rings. I snatch it up off the coffee table, startling Joshua, and answer Annabelle’s call. I don’t get a chance to ask a single question before her voice bursts over the line. “Don’t panic,” she commands, “but we couldn’t get to them in time. The SUV came out of nowhere and starting shooting before we could get up to them.”
A car door slams and Annabelle’s breaths come faster. Running. She’s running to them. I am frozen. Terrified. Losing my parents, being responsible, the one to kill them, it nearly broke me completely. Even though I despised their lies and may never have been able to forgive them. Losing Van would be so much worse. I don’t know if even Emily and Joshua would be enough to save me.
“No,” Annabelle whispers.
Thoughts shatter. My full attention is on her. “What?” I growl, unable to force more than one word past my clenched jaw.
“The car is destroyed. There are bullet holes everywhere.” Her voice breaks in a sob.
“Van is a Godling,” I snap. Bullets aren’t that bad. She can survive bullets.
Annabelle sniffs. “But Ketchup isn’t. The bullet holes are on his side.”
“Get to them!” I shout.
“Zander’s trying. Caleb’s helping him. There’s people in the way, trying to help.”
I hear sirens behind her words and don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. If Van has healed herself, there will be questions. But there is Ketchup as well…. I decide the sirens are a good thing. Ketchup needs to be saved. Ketchup is like Van is to me. She needs him. So very desperately. He fixes her missing pieces like she does mine. I still don’t know how. He does it, though. And she is not fixed yet. He can’t die. I refuse to consider it.
“Zander’s getting into the car,” Annabelle says.
Shoving, shuffling, pleas for people to move back, crackle in the background as Annabelle tries to get closer. I know the second she makes it. Her gasp sends a hopeless cold through my body.
“There’s blood,” she whispers, “everywhere.”
“Van’s or Ketchup’s?” I demand.
“I…I don’t know. They’re down in the wheel wells. Neither of them are moving, Oscar.” Her voice breaks off as fear cinches itself around her. She’s crying
, but I want to shake her, make her explain better, more details. Choking back sobs, she says, “Zander’s pulling Van up onto the seat.” She hesitates, her breathing spiking for some reason. “Ambulances are pulling up. They’re going to make us get back. Hurry, Zander!”
My fingers tighten around the phone. Not crushing it takes effort and focus I don’t want to expend on something so trivial, but the phone is my only way to know.
“She’s wounded, but breathing,” Annabelle says, confusion in her voice. I echo that in my own thoughts. “Gunshots to the thigh and a graze on her arm. She’s soaked in blood, not waking up. Why didn’t she heal herself? Why isn’t she conscious?”
The pitch of her voice rises with each question and panic threatens to take over.
“Back up!” someone yells. “Step back!”
“She’s my sister!” Zander growls furiously.
Struggling and voices echo in my head. Annabelle tries to explain they know the people in the car. Zander yells and fights, but I can tell he’s doing his best to restrain himself and not hurt the people there to help. Finally, the struggling stops and I hear Annabelle whispering to my little brother, telling him it will be all right, they’ll help, they need to let them do their work. It is agonizing to wait for him to calm enough to speak.
It is his voice to come over the line next. “She’s alive, but…she wouldn’t respond to me, Oscar. I don’t know what happened.”
Few of us ever do when it comes to Van. She is alive, though. She is a Godling. Whatever is wrong with her, we will find a way to heal it. Other questions need answered. “Ketchup?”
Zander blows out a frightened, shaking breath. “I don’t know. I…”
His voice breaks off, the emotion it carries too heavy to support his words. I wait impatiently for him to continue, pacing, grinding teeth, trying not to crush the phone.
“He was covered in blood. Lying in a puddle of it, Oscar. There were holes in his shirt. Two. One above his heart, one in the lower abdomen.”
“Holes? In his shirt?”
Zander exhales more steadily, but there is still a tremor in his words when he speaks. “Just in his shirt.”
“Not…his body?”
“I don’t…yeah, yeah, just the shirt. But he was unconscious too, so pale I thought for sure he was gone, but…he had a pulse, Oscar. Faint. I don’t understand.”
Neither do I.
There will definitely be questions. Many, many questions. What could anyone do? Even though Van is a Godling, she is not okay. Ketchup even less so. They need help. Maybe not hospital help. That could be bad for Van to wake up amid so much anguish. What choice is there? Ketchup needs something still. Whatever Van did, it didn’t seem to fix everything. The puddle of blood doesn’t belong there. Most likely, it belonged inside Ketchup’s body. He’d need more to replace it. That means a hospital, unfortunately.
“Call Chris,” I command.
“Caleb’s already talking to him. He’ll meet us at the hospital as soon as we know where they’re taking them. I don’t know what they’ll do with Ketchup’s car.”
I don’t care about the car. Cars are replaceable. People are not. I don’t respond to that concern. What I want to say to him, I don’t, because I can’t. Going to the hospital to be with Van will not be good. As much as I need to be there, to see her, to unravel what has happened and whether or not it can be fixed, being with Van will lead to unpleasant consequences. Going back to Peak View, away from my wife and son, cannot happen.
It feels like a betrayal of Van to say I will stay away from the hospital in order to stay with my family. Maybe it is. Should I be willing to risk such a thing?
“Dada,” Joshua says as he grips my pant leg and pulls himself up to standing. He holds himself steady with one hand and reaches up to me with the other. Reaching down, I pick him up and cradle him against my chest, but my attention is on my thoughts. When he pats my chest roughly, I glance down at him and he shakes his head. “Dada,” he says, shaking his head determinedly.
“No?”
He shakes his head again, then lays it against my chest.
Maybe I am not betraying Van by staying. The warmth of Joshua’s body against my chest sinks into me. As I hold him, I think Van would not want me to risk seeing her any more than Joshua would. My being locked up again would upset her, separate us. Zander will be with her, Annabelle, Caleb, and Chris. It will have to be enough for now.
“Zander,” I say into the phone, not even sure my brother is still there.
“Yeah?” he asks, wariness backing his words.
“I’ll stay here, but keep calling. I need to know,” I plead.
A huge sigh is ripped from him, and I realize he was waiting, trying to determine what I would do and if he needed to stop me. “I’ll keep you updated. They’re loading them into the ambulances now. I’ll text when I know where they’re taking them, okay?”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond before ending the call. My teeth grind together at his abruptness, but he’s staying with Van. He’ll call. He’ll tell me and explain. For now…I will wait. Even if I hate it more than almost anything. The only thing I hate more is whoever did this to Van and Ketchup. I didn’t think my hatred of Isolde could get any deeper, but if this was her, I will not let her death come quickly. She will regret this decision. If it was hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Where It All Falls Apart
(Zander)
I have to let Annabelle drive. My hands won’t stop shaking, and Caleb doesn’t know the area well enough to get us to the hospital if we lose the ambulances. I text Oscar and Chris to let them know what hospital they’re taking Van and Ketchup to, but I have to retype it five times because I can’t stop trembling. Annabelle swerves away from the ambulances we’ve been following and into the ER parking lot. We’re sprinting for the doors a few seconds later.
There’s a moment of confusion as we look around for where to go. Paramedics burst into the building on our right, and I immediately recognize them and Van’s white hair trailing off the side of the gurney they’re pushing. Grabbing Annabelle’s hand, we rush after them. Someone tries to stop us, but I shove them aside with a growl that she’s my sister and they immediately back off.
A doctor and several nurses rush forward to meet the paramedics, nodding as one of them spouts off acronyms like GSW and wound locations and vitals. The doctor looks to me and asks, “You’re family?”
“My sister and her boyfriend,” I tell him. Gesturing back at Caleb, I say, “He’s our cousin.”
The doctor nods and the gurneys are suddenly moving, the paramedics left behind to deal with the next tragedy. They’re pushed into a large room with a curtain drawn between the two sets of equipment. The doctor is skimming the reports from the paramedics, his brows furrowing, as a nurse cuts away Ketchup’s shirt and stares.
“I thought they said he was shot twice?” she demands.
The doctor looks up from the report. Now he’s staring as well. “What…?”
I couldn’t get a very good look at Ketchup in the car. I saw the holes in his shirt, the blood, but was too panicked and terrified to see the two round dots of scar tissue matching the holes in his shirt. In the moment, I hadn’t been clear-headed enough to process much of anything. I didn’t know if Van had somehow managed to stop the bullets before they pierced his flesh, or what, but the scars prove they had…and were later healed. Within minutes.
The second nurse cuts away the leg of Van’s jeans and removes the pad of gauze the paramedics placed over the wound to stop the bleeding that shouldn’t have even been there. Where the bullet grazed her arm is still exposed, angry flesh. It doesn’t make sense either, but Van isn’t the highest priority right now, oddly enough.
“He needs blood,” I say to the doctor, pointing at Ketchup.
He shakes his head, “But those are old wounds.”
“No, they just happened. There was a puddle of blood in the car. His. He needs more blood!”
; I can’t really blame him for being freaked out, but I don’t have time for his disbelief. Ketchup needs saving, and this idiot isn’t moving fast enough. Grabbing the scissors off the tray next to Van’s gurney, I open the shears and slice it across my arm before anyone can move to stop me. Everyone in the room gasps, and one nurse backs up like I might attack her. Even Caleb looks uncertain of what I might do, but he doesn’t move to stop me. My blood drips onto the floor, but I send power racing to the wound and it stops a second later. Tossing the scissors aside, I wipe the blood from my arm and hold it up for them to see. Their mouths hang open as fear fills their eyes.
“He was shot,” I snap. “Twice. He lost a lot of blood. I can’t explain what happened. I don’t care if you believe me. Just help him!”
My voice is so loud, all three of them flinch, but they start moving. Another doctor rushes up, whether because he was called or was drawn by my yelling, I don’t care. “What’s going on in he…?”
His voice trails off as his gaze lands on Ketchup. “William?” He rushes over to the bed, then glances back up at me, “What happened?”
“You know him?” I ask, surprised a random ER doctor would recognize Ketchup by sight.
“Of course I know him,” he snaps. “As many times as he’s been here, it’s a wonder everyone doesn’t know him. What happened?”
The nurse beside him mumbles, “That’s what we’re all asking.”
“Shot, twice,” I say, glaring at the mouthy nurse, “but he’s…okay. He lost a lot of blood. I’ve been trying to tell them…”
“We need to type his blood,” the first doctor says, still too freaked out to be angry at me for trying to tell him how to do his job.
“AB negative,” the new doctor snaps and he shoves the first doctor out of the way. “It’s in his chart. Hasn’t anybody looked up his chart yet? He should have been sent up to ICU immediately. He can’t withstand gunshots or losing blood in his condition! We need to move, now!”
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