by W. J. May
Then the world had come crashing down.
“Call an ambulance!”
“Rae, can you feel his pulse?”
“Call nine-nine-nine!” she shrieked. She remembered what he’d asked and grabbed at a pale wrist. “It’s…yeah, it’s there. But just barely! It’s really faint!” A dry sob caught in her throat as she looked down at the boy lying on the ground beneath her.
Luke.
He lay sprawled out on the floor, blood from a major head wound spilling less generously now through his blond hair and onto the ground beneath. His clothes were disheveled and ripped, his knuckles and hands bruised like he’d put up one hell of a fight.
Rae fell to the ground beside him and tore her cardigan off to stop the bleeding. Guilty, broken tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Instead, she pressed the sweater firmly to Luke’s head and listened as Devon called for help in the background.
“This is Devon Wardell, calling from Heath Hall in London. We’ve got a man down. Around six foot one, twenty years of age. It appears to be a concussion sustained from a severe head wound. Send back up immediately.”
He hung up and Rae met his eyes with a look of wild confusion.
“We don’t call nine-nine-nine,” he explained, as he rushed to the living room beside her. “Whatever Luke was doing here was apparently not sanctioned by either organization and can’t just be explained away to the police. We’ll have our own medics transport him to the hospital.”
The Privy Council had their own ambulance service full of physicians? She’d never known. Not that it mattered now that she had Charles’ tatù.
Wait! She knew the healing tatù could only be used on her, but if she tried, really tried, could it work? Using every bit of focus and determination she had, she placed her free hand on Luke’s forehead and shut her eyes. There has to be a way, she thought as she steadied her breathing and tried to channel the healing tatù. There has to be a way to project it onto him.
“Rae, what’re you doing?” Devon wrapped his hand gently around hers and stared down into her panicked face.
“I’m trying to heal him, using Charles’ tatù,” she gasped with the strain.
Devon frowned. “Is that…can his tatù even do that? I thought it was limited to the carrier.”
“I don’t know,” she wailed, “but if there were ever a time to find out, it would be now!”
Nothing happened. Rae hadn’t really believed it would. Luke stayed as cold and quiet as ever beneath her shaking hand.
“It looks like someone ripped this place apart,” Devon muttered as he looked around. He had stuffed his own jacket beneath Luke’s head to prop him up and was kneeling beside him in a watchful, protective sort of way. “We’ve only been here a few days and it’s just a cover. Everything of value is either back with Curtis or down at headquarters. I wonder what the hell they could have been looking for…”
Rae sucked in a quick breath. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Luke tells her that he found something on a surveillance feed, something that she needs to see, the very day after she meets him in London to recover the contents of the box. This had something to do with her mother, she had no doubt about it. This had something to do with…
“The files!” she screeched, staring wildly around. “My mother’s files!”
“It’s okay, just calm down.” Devon tried to steady her. “Where did you put them?”
Rae tried to think back. “They were in my jacket when we got home last night. Since you and I stayed up a bit and talked, I slipped them out and put them…” Her eyes fell on the ransacked coffee table by the front door. It had been overturned, one leg smashed off, and the center drawer where she had stashed the papers was gone. “I put them in there,” she finished, gesturing with her head. “They’re gone.”
There was an escalating pounding above them as two sets of footsteps headed their way.
Rae glanced up towards the sound and automatically crouched her body over Luke’s, protecting it as she put her free hand on his cheek. “Who’s that?” she hissed between her teeth. “Do you think that could be—”
“It’s Carter and Jennifer,” Devon said quietly. “They must have heard the noise.”
“How come we didn’t?” Rae said suddenly, the guilty tears finally pouring over as she met his gaze. “There was a tremendous commotion in here! How come we didn’t—”
“Rae,” Devon flushed, “we were making quite the commotion ourselves.”
Rae’s heart tightened as she stared down at Luke, lying prone between them. If there was ever a betrayal in the world, this was it.
Just then, the door burst open and Carter and Jennifer came rushing inside. Their eyes grew wide as they took in the damage before falling on Rae, Luke, and Devon huddled in the center.
“What the hell happened?” Carter demanded as they rushed forward.
Jennifer quickly assessed Luke’s condition then gave Rae a reassuring squeeze. “I think he’s going to make it,” she said softly. She shook her head with a disbelieving whistle. “It’s a miracle, he’s lost a hell of a lot of blood.”
“I don’t understand.” Carter knelt down beside them. “What happened in here? And why is he here?” His eyes flashed up. “Your…”
“College counselor,” Rae finished firmly. She glared up with a ferocity she didn’t know she possessed and Carter seemed to back down. Out of embarrassment from his recent behavior or from the look Rae was giving him, she didn’t know.
“Of course,” he finished mildly. “Well then, help is just a few minutes out. They’re going to bring him to the nearest hospital. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Rae nodded shakily and Devon squeezed her hand. “Here.” He offered to take her blood-stained cardigan. “Do you want me to take over for a minute?”
“No.” She pulled herself together. “I’ve got it. But thanks.”
“I don’t understand what he was doing here, in PC lodgings.” Carter glanced around the living room. “And what the hell happened to this place?” He turned to Devon expectantly.
Devon shot Rae the quickest of glances as he scrambled to come up with something to say.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Rae and I were—out. We didn’t hear a thing.”
Whether Carter heard the slight hitch in his voice, it was impossible to say. Jennifer, on the other hand, definitely heard it. She flashed Rae a look but turned her eyes to the room instead.
“Whatever it was they were after, it’s probably safe to assume they didn’t get it,” she said quietly. “Nothing’s really stored here. Everything of value is back at the base.”
Devon nodded. “That’s what I thought too.”
“So what about him?” Carter pointed at Luke. “He just got in the way?”
“Looks like it,” Jennifer muttered.
“But why was he here in the first place?”
“Because he’s a friend!” Devon snapped, ending the back and forth. Carter looked at him sharply, but let it go, averting his gaze with belated, debriefing guilt.
No one said a thing after that.
Jennifer and Carter stared around at the room, Devon stared at Rae, and Rae stared at Luke—stroking his face, silently begging him to wake up.
She just couldn’t believe this was happening. Last night, she was attacked at a ball. Early this morning, she’d seen her mother’s face for the first time in decades. This afternoon, she and Devon…she refused to let herself think about it while she was holding a cloth to Luke’s head. Then this evening, Luke was nearly beaten to death in her makeshift living room, while she lay in the room beside. How could she have not heard or one of her tatùs not sense it?
It was too much! Everything was happening too fast, unraveling too quickly. How could she be expected to keep up?
Finally a few minutes later, the incoming sound of sirens roused them to their feet.
“All right, let’s carry him down,” Carter instructed. “Be careful
to brace his neck.”
He reached out to help, but Devon withdrew from his open hand so fast it was like he’d been burned. Their eyes met for a brief second before Carter flushed crimson and looked away.
“It’s okay,” Devon muttered, “I got him.”
Ever so gently, he lifted Luke into the air and started carrying him to the door—careful not to disturb his position in the slightest. Rae walked along beside them, keeping her sweater pressed firmly to Luke’s head to stem the bleeding. The steady drip that trailed behind them told her that no matter how sincere her efforts, she wasn’t doing a good job.
“He just won’t stop bleeding,” she whispered in panic as they carried him down the stairs to the front lawn. “Devon, he came here to tell me something, and now I can’t get him to stop bleeding.”
“It’s all right,” Devon reassured her again as paramedics rushed towards them, “these guys know what they’re doing. He’s going to be okay.”
Luke was lifted away from them and placed in the back of a Privy Council ambulance. It was unlike anything Rae had ever seen. Jet black, armor-plated—and inside—armed to the teeth.
“I don’t understand,” standing in the midst of a swarm of frantic people, she suddenly felt tiny, “is that for saving people or killing people?”
“Excuse me, miss.” One of the paramedics pushed past her. “Does he have any family members or superior officers who’ll be riding with us?”
Rae looked up hopefully and Carter gave her a small nod.
“Me!” she exclaimed, hopping into the back of the van. “I’m going with him.”
As the doors closed she caught Devon staring at her from the other side of the glass. For a split second, she thought he might be angry with her eagerness. However, there was no time to think about it. The engine revved and the doors hummed with the vibration. A minute later, they were flying down the streets of London.
Although she’d traveled these roads enough to know them like the back of her hand, Rae had never seen them like this. The traffic congestion from yesterday’s royal event had the entire city in some sort of lockdown. Roadblocks and overworked police officers directed people through detour after detour until Rae thought she’d pull out her hair from the stress.
“Can’t we go any faster?” she demanded, holding Luke’s hand tightly in her own.
“I’m sorry, miss,” a paramedic said in reply. “Even with the sirens, we’re merely being directed through the ‘faster’ detours. There are few things the government takes more seriously than the safety of the royal family.”
Rae shook her head and pressed her free hand up against the window. “Don’t I know it.”
After about two hours in the van, they finally pulled up to the hospital loading dock. Luke was shuffled out on his stretcher as Rae hovered alongside him, doing her best not to get lost in the crowds. Despite her protests, Luke was quickly wheeled away to the ICU and she was relegated to the main lobby to wait for news of his condition. It was sheer torture.
Not knowing what was happening to him now. Not knowing what had happened just a few hours before. The only thing she did know was that no matter the details, she was at the center of this whole catastrophe. She was culpable in all this—whether she knew what was happening or not.
Time began to stretch on and distort. There was not a word about Luke, and Carter, Jennifer, and Devon had yet to arrive. Not that she expected them to. If they had to use the regular channels like everyone else, it could be days before they got here.
In a fit of nerves, she finally collapsed into a chair beside the water cooler, watching a group of rowdy kids crowded around the registration desk. Her head fell into her hands with a tired sigh.
How much longer could this possibly take?
“What are you in for, honey?”
Rae jumped as a kindly old woman patted her comfortingly on the arm.
“Oh…um…” Her mind came up blank and she bit her lip to stop the tears. “I’m not really sure,” she whispered. “I’m not really sure what happened.”
The woman nodded understandingly. “I’m here for my son, Jimmy. Gallstones. Third time in four months, if you can believe it.” She lowered her voice soothingly. “Is it something like gallstones?”
Rae stared at her for a moment, before collecting herself. “No, it’s nothing like gallstones.”
The woman nodded and pulled some throat lozenges out of her purse. One of them got away from her and rolled onto the floor.
“Here,” Rae offered, “let me get that for you.” She bent down to pick it up and the base of her shirt pulled up, revealing her fairy tatù. When she handed the lozenge back to the woman, she was surprised to see that her entire demeanor had changed.
She looked at Rae the way someone looked at a stray dog that might be a little dangerous. “I don’t approve of ink art,” she sniffed and turned her eyes front.
Rae bit back a sarcastic response and sighed again. The ol’ tramp stamp judgement. “You know what,” she said too softly for the woman to hear, “I’m starting to agree with you.”
One hour stretched into two. Rae switched to Devon’s tatù to sharpen her senses, so when she heard a doctor across the noisy hall say Luke’s name, she nearly knocked people down in her rush to get over.
“You have news on Luke?” she said breathlessly. “I’m the one who came in with him. Is he going to be okay? What’s happening?”
A doctor took her gently by the arm and gestured to a small, side room. “Here, let’s talk somewhere a bit quieter, away from prying ears.”
Rae followed obediently as he led her inside and closed the door firmly behind him. She was about to start pelting him with more questions when a mark on his inner arm froze her in her tracks. It was a small, symmetric pile of bones. Almost like a pirate, but more deliberate. Clinical. In fact, the more she looked at it, the more it reminded her of something she’d seen before.
“You…you have a tatù,” she said in amazement. She’d known that the Privy Council had people everywhere, she just hadn’t imagined that this doctor could be one of them.
“That’s why the PC brought your friend to this hospital, despite its distance from where you were staying.”
“I have a friend who has a similar mark,” Rae said, putting two and two together.
“Alecia.” The doctor’s eyes lit up as he smiled. “She works with us now too. She’s one of our most promising students.”
Whatever the circumstance, Rae found herself strangely comforted that there were people here with abilities like she had. People working to make Luke well. That is, she was comforted until she heard the doctor’s next words.
“I’m sorry,” Rae shook her head like a child, “a subdural hema—what?”
“It’s a brain bleed,” the doctor explained. “Your friend is bleeding inside his skull and it’s putting pressure on his brain. We’re going to need to do surgery to relieve the pressure.”
The room seemed to tilt and Rae put her hand on the wall to steady herself. “Well is it… I mean, could it be life threatening? Is it a common procedure? What are his chances here?”
“It’s brain surgery,” the doctor said kindly. “Whenever the brain is involved, there’s an enormous risk. The good news is, we think we caught it in time. We’re prepping him for surgery now, just waiting for a call from the blood bank.”
Whenever the brain is involved, there’s an enormous risk.
Rae’s head was spinning. “I’m sorry…the blood bank?”
The doctor put his hand on her shoulder. “Luke lost a great deal of blood and you caught us right after a significant national event with this ball the Royals were throwing. You heard about it?”
“I heard about it,” Rae echoed faintly.
“Anyway, we’re in short stock, and I’m hesitant to put him under until we have a full supply. Do you know if he has any family nearby? Is there someone we should inform?”
“I don’t…I don’t know…”
“Rae!”
She looked behind her to see Devon running ahead of Carter and Jennifer. She collapsed into his arms with a small gasp. “Thank goodness. I think I was about to fall over.”
“So what’s the prognosis?” Devon asked with concern. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He needs blood,” Rae bit her lower lip, “he needs blood and they don’t have any.”
“I’ll donate,” he said instantly. He turned to the doctor. “I’m O-negative, universal donor. I can do it right now.”
“That would be wonderful.” The doctor gestured him down the hall. “Right this way.”
“Devon…” Rae didn’t know what to say, “…thank you.”
He squeezed her hand and winked. “Anytime.”
As he disappeared around the corner, Rae turned back to the doctor. “Do you think I could see him? Luke, I mean. Before you take him into surgery?”
“That’s not exactly standard practice,” the doctor hesitated. “You’re not family.”
“I’m the only person he’s got.”
She stared at him with wide, teary eyes before he finally conceded.
“Fine,” he said, pointing her to a room behind a thick set of double doors. “But only for a minute. He needs to rest.”
“Thank you so much! Only for a minute!” she promised.
She darted through the doors then abruptly slowed down as she saw Luke lying on the bed in front of her. He was pale as a sheet. Tied to a million ominous machines by a tangle of tubes and needles stuck deep in his skin. A shrill beeping coming from the nearest one assured her that his heart was still beating, but she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t heard it for herself.
“Oh Luke,” she murmured. She perched on a chair beside his bed and took him as gently as she could by the hand. “I’m so, so sorry about all of this. I don’t know why you were in my place, but I know you are the victim here. You didn’t deserve any of it!” The steady machine beeped back at her and she winced. “I promise, I’m going to figure out who did this to you. I’m going to figure it out, and I’m going to make them pay!” She glanced up at his face, half expecting him to speak, but all he did was lie there. Clinging to life in a hospital far from home. It’s all my fault!