by Chloe Garner
“Ethan,” Valerie said, but Susan put her arm across Valerie’s chest.
“Don’t move,” she said. “Not without me helping you. He’s coming up here, anyway.”
Something jarred loose in Sasha, and Valerie’s roommate came running past, leaping into the back of the giant SUV and crouching next to Valerie.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Is he?” Valerie asked, and Sasha shook her head.
“I don’t know. They went and got him and… the lady… Jenna?”
“Gemma,” Susan corrected.
“She told us it was time to go. They haven’t let me look at him.”
“You really are Ivory Mills’ daughter,” Susan murmured. “Let me do this.”
“I’m going to help you,” Sasha said. “Is Valerie okay?”
“She will be, as long as we don’t let her do anything stupid in the meantime.”
Jason and Grant got to the car, and Jason stepped up and in without letting Ethan shift, sliding him shoulders-first into the back of the car.
There really wasn’t that much room back there, with the five of them crammed in, and Valerie moved to get out.
“Nope,” Susan said. “You aren’t to walk under your own power. Sasha and James need to go.”
“Jason,” Valerie muttered, looking down at Ethan’s face.
There was a blood bruise on his forehead, square cornered, like one of the tables had hit him in the head.
But he’d been laying on the floor, and the tables had been at least further off of the floor than that…
Valerie felt ill when she realized that it had to have meant that the table had landed on him.
“Mom,” she said, and Susan shook her head.
“Let me work,” the woman thundered.
“He’s breathing,” Jason said. “I see two options. We can take him to the hospital, or we can take him back to my place and get a healer in to work on him.”
“I am a healer,” Sasha said.
“You most certainly are not,” Susan answered.
“I am,” Sasha said, her voice dark. Susan looked up at the redhead, pausing.
Valerie had never heard Sasha talk like that.
“What do you know about dealing with non-magical injuries?” Susan asked, and Sasha went to get the pile of ingredients that Susan had left on the floor of the SUV.
“You didn’t organize them,” Sasha chided, and Susan frowned harder, backing away slowly until her feet slid out of the SUV and quietly onto the pavement outside. She watched Sasha work for a moment, then Valerie’s mother turned her attention to Shack.
Jason stayed where he was, feet under him, back pressed against the ceiling, just waiting.
“Do you need me to move him for you?” he asked when Sasha looked up.
“Do you know if he has any other specific injuries I need to look at, beyond the head wound?” Sasha asked, and Jason shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said, and she nodded.
“If you can stay, just in case,” Sasha said. “Otherwise Valerie will try to help me.”
Jason nodded, settling in against the back of the seats with his hands on his knees.
Sasha looked over at Valerie, then nodded a dark focus and went back to what she was doing.
“When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine, my Aunt Ruby was my favorite person in the whole world. She was so smart and so funny and she drove my mom crazy with all of the things she would let me do, when my mom wasn’t looking. She was teaching me so much more magic than my mom would, because I was so little.”
“Okay,” Valerie said, something about the dark mood warning her that this was significant.
Sasha glanced at her again, then started making large, confident motions with a cluster of tell-weed over top of the cast.
“Did you use tell-weed with your wand to hurt the demon?” Sasha asked, and Valerie nodded. Sasha smiled. “Good.”
“Do you want it?” Valerie asked, shifting to get out her wand. The bolt through her chest twanged uncomfortably even as Sasha shook her head and Valerie stopped moving.
“No, it’s designed for you, more or less,” Sasha said. “I wouldn’t know how to use it.”
“Okay,” Valerie said again.
“When I turned twelve, my Aunt Ruby came to my birthday party with a magic kit and my mom got so mad, because it was really complete. It was a war medic’s kit. Lots of defensive magic, lots of healing magic. They didn’t tell me, because they thought I was too little, but my Aunt Ruby was a battleground healer, like Shack’s dad, but during the war, they hit her with something that they couldn’t ever get rid of. It didn’t matter what they tried or who they talked to, it was just… It was eating her away, little by little, and…” Sasha paused, looking down at Ethan with a hard mouth. “She wanted to teach me all of her magic because she knew she wasn’t going to be around when I was old enough to learn it. She died before I turned thirteen. And I swore I wasn’t going to let anyone die in front of me again.”
“Sasha,” Valerie said softly.
“I let it happen at school because I was afraid,” Sasha said. “But I’m not going to let it happen again.”
Ivory Mills had run away from the war.
Valerie had thought that it was curiosity that drove Sasha forward, into the conflict rather than away from it…
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jason said. “Sounds like a hell of a woman.”
“She was,” Sasha said, looking up. “Thank you.”
Jason gave her a firm nod, and Valerie felt a tear roll down the side of her nose. He looked over at her and narrowed his eyes.
“You got stuck with your arm underneath you, didn’t you?” he asked, and Valerie twisted her mouth to the side.
“Kind of.”
He grinned and stood - as much as he could in the confines - coming over to lift her gently by her shoulders so that she could get her arm back out again from going after the wand.
“If he’s worse than you can help, I can get a healer to meet us at my place,” Jason said. “You just have to say.”
“Give her a minute,” Susan said from outside. “You should take a look at Shack, too, when you’re done.”
Sasha nodded, and Valerie looked over at her mother with astonishment. Susan shrugged.
“Ruby McIntire was a legend,” she said. “Ivory is the best of the best for what she does, and she’s still someone I consider a friend, but if Ruby taught her…”
Valerie watched her friend work, moment by moment. Hanson and Grant came around to sit in the seats near Jason, and Shack sat down on the bumper of the car, the heel of his hand still pressed to his temple.
Sasha worked quietly, probing Ethan’s ribs with her fingers, and then putting her hands around his neck and closing her eyes as she felt whatever it was she was paying attention to, there. His spine? His pulse? Valerie wasn’t certain. Maybe both.
“He’s going to wake up,” Sasha said. “And it’s going to hurt a lot, but he will. Okay. You need to tell him to stay still until I’m sure that it’s just his head.”
She looked back at Valerie, and Valerie nodded, trying to roll up over her knees to sit closer to Ethan’s head, but the bolt through her stomach felt like it was tearing. Susan cleared her throat, and Jason came to help her.
Valerie didn’t like needing help like that, but she didn’t fight him. She leaned over her knee to look directly down at his face as his eyelids began to flicker.
Why couldn’t she do this? The healing? Why was it that Valerie’s only skills were at fighting?
She looked back out at her mother and saw it.
It wasn’t just type. It wasn’t just genetics. She had her mother’s actual magic, and her mother couldn’t do real healing.
Not like Sasha could.
“Valerie?” Ethan asked, and she looked at him again. He tried to put his elbows underneath him and she grabbed his wrist, pushing his shoulder back down again.
“You nee
d to be still,” she said. “Sasha is helping you, but if you move, you could hurt yourself worse.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he said, putting a hand up to his forehead. “I can’t… What happened?”
“The demon landed a table on you, I think,” Valerie said. “I don’t know what else happened, but Sasha is taking care of you. You just need to be still.”
He twisted his head to the side, trying to pull his shoulder away.
“Ow,” he said. “Owww.”
His breath came funny and he tried harder to pull away.
“It hurts.”
“Be still,” Sasha said. “I’m checking your spine. If anything suddenly hurts a lot more, I need you to tell me.”
Ethan arched his back and howled, and Jason put a hand out and pushed him back down.
“You’re going to make it worse,” Jason said, and Ethan panted, the not-noises coming out of his mouth something that Valerie would never, ever forget. He was in so much pain.
“Is that the only spot?” Sasha asked, and Ethan rolled his head back against the floor of the SUV, his hands spasming.
“Yes,” he finally grunted.
“All right,” Sasha said, putting a hand up to his forehead. The oil smelled of sweet herbs that Valerie might have been able to name on a test, but not now.
Ethan eased, his eyes closing and his breath going back to normal. After a moment, he bent his arm, his hand finding Valerie’s wrist, and she sat back, holding his hand in both of hers.
“Is he going to be okay?” Valerie asked.
“You shouldn’t ask that in front of him, in case the answer is no,” Sasha said.
“Is it no?” Ethan pressed.
“I don’t know yet,” Sasha answered. “You didn’t help, thrashing like that.”
“Wasn’t his fault,” Jason said. “If you’ve never hurt like that, you wouldn’t understand.”
Valerie looked at the man with a new respect.
“You’ve been injured this badly before?” she asked, and he gave her a grim sideways smile.
“I don’t want to ruin your view of the world with my stories,” he answered. Gave her a little nod. “I’ll say it, even if she won’t. He’s going to be okay. Even if it’s different, it will be okay. All right? That’s life.”
There was a cold shiver to it, the sense of hard reality underneath his words, as warm as they were. She nodded back, slow, then turned her attention back to Ethan, squeezing his hand.
“Do you feel better?” she asked, and he nodded.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore, but I can’t move.”
“I needed you to tell me what hurt,” Sasha said. “I’m getting you stabilized, and then we’re going to call my mom and she can come finish healing you.”
“What happened?” Ethan asked. “Did we win?”
“Your girlfriend kicked ass,” Jason said, and Valerie glanced at him. He nodded, doubling down.
“How… He threw me,” Ethan said.
“Me, too,” Shack said from outside. “And that’s a lot harder.”
“Demon thing,” Jason said. “I’m sure my friend could explain to you how it happened, but it happens.”
“He couldn’t throw you,” Ethan said to Valerie. “I saw.”
She shook her head.
“I guess I had enough warding. You saved my life.”
His fingers shifted in what was probably an attempt to squeeze her hands.
“Always,” he said.
“You killed him,” Valerie said softly, and he nodded.
“I know.”
She blinked quickly.
“We’re exposed here,” Susan said. “We need to get moving.”
“I can take the kids,” Jason said. “You guys can meet me wherever you want and we can make a plan, but I can just load them up and drive right now, if you want.”
Valerie looked out at her mother, who hesitated, then nodded.
“My daughter has a great deal of faith in you,” Susan said. “I hope you live up to it.”
“Thought I already did that part,” Jason said without offense, climbing out carefully over Ethan and Sasha.
“All right, you’re up,” Sasha said, turning her attention to Shack. Valerie shifted gingerly to sit cross-legged next to Ethan.
“You’re not okay,” he said softly, and she shook her head.
“They’re going to fix it,” she said.
“What happened?” he asked again, and she shook her head, dropping her forehead to touch his.
“I’ll tell you everything when we’re both feeling better,” she said. Right now, the thought of talking about it made her afraid; she didn’t want to really think about what had happened or that they might not be okay, the two of them. There was stony, bedrock comfort in what Jason had said, but she still didn’t want to think about it.
“Can you do this from the back seat?” Jason asked Sasha, then everyone in the front of the car was moving. Grant got out and Hanson switched to the front seat while Sasha and Shack got into the back.
“Wait,” Sasha said. “Wait. The people in the room, the others. I can’t leave them.”
“You’re leaving,” Susan said, and Sasha shook her head.
“I don’t know what Valerie did to them. I need to go check them.”
“Their people will take care of them,” Susan said.
“No,” Sasha said. “Shack will be fine for a few minutes. I’m going down to make sure that none of them are dying.”
She got back out of the car, and Valerie lost sight of her. She just sat with her head hung over Ethan’s, trying not to move. The bolts weren’t sharp and local anymore; they were spreading into a much wider ache that flared any time she shifted.
There was an argument going on outside, but Valerie wasn’t paying all that much attention.
“Fine,” Grant finally said. “You guys go. We’ll run down and stop any bleeding, then we’ll follow.”
The noise that Susan made told Valerie that it wasn’t completely settled yet, but it was right for Jason to go. Valerie and Ethan were worthless, and Shack… She didn’t know how he was, actually. The world was getting smaller, the pieces she cared about. She did care about him, but not with any energy, not that moment. Just the back of the SUV, just her own body and Ethan lying on the floor in front of her.
The engine started up and the floor rumbled beneath them, and Valerie swayed as they set off, then grunted, trying to brace herself as Jason drove off the sidewalk. He had been parked on the sidewalk, hadn’t he?
“You okay?” Ethan asked softly, and she shook her head.
“It hurts.”
“Why didn’t Sasha give you something?” Ethan asked, and Valerie shook her head.
“Probably because it’s magic. You just had a table land on you.”
“He cast on you?” Ethan asked and she closed her eyes, nodding.
“Yeah. He was stronger than me.”
His fingers shifted again.
“But you did it,” he said. “I saw it. You got rid of the cast. The one that was going to kill people.”
She nodded.
She needed to talk to her mom about it, to understand what she’d done, but she’d felt it as it had happened. It had worked.
There was conversation up in the front, Hanson’s voice talking to Jason, calm, but Valerie was slipping. She still hurt, but she could let go of it if she wanted to.
“Valerie?” Ethan asked, and she nodded.
“Mm-hmm?” she said, her body sliding sideways. It was easier, that way. If she just let go of it.
“Valerie,” he said again as she lay down, her shoulder along his head.
He sounded worried.
Someone should check on him.
There might be something wrong.
A New New World
She woke up in a big, soft bed.
This was not her dorm room.
She was comfortable, and it took her a minute to figure out why that was impo
rtant.
She sat up.
Remembered, late, that she hadn’t been supposed to do that.
Sasha was sleeping down on the foot of the bed, curled up like a cat, and Valerie drew her feet in, trying not to disturb her.
Valerie felt fine; there was no reason to keep Sasha from sleeping when she needed sleep.
“How do you feel?” someone asked softly. Valerie looked over to find Samantha sitting next to her in a big armchair, her knees over the arm and a laptop in her lap.
“Good,” Valerie said. “Is Ethan okay?”
“He’s going to take some work,” Samantha said, closing the laptop and putting it down on the floor next to her. “Your stuff was easy enough to pull off, once we got the right person here to deal with it, but physical injuries take physical healing, and that takes time. I think he’s going to get back to a hundred percent before very long. He’s young.”
Valerie lay back against the pillows again, looking over at the woman.
“Sam told me what you did,” Samantha said before Valerie could figure out the next words. “Said that you burned all of the knowledge about the cast out of the scientists and out of the computers. I’d love you to teach me how to do that, but Sam doesn’t think you can.”
Valerie shook her head.
“No. I don’t know how I did it.”
Samantha nodded.
“I understand doing a cast because you’re inspired, but doing it without even understanding the components? That has got to be strange.”
Valerie shrugged.
“I’ve never known anything else, really.”
Samantha nodded.
“Your parents are down the hall. I promised to sit up with you so that they would go get some sleep.”
“Shack and Hanson?” Valerie asked. Samantha nodded.
“You’ve got a good crew. I like them.”
Valerie nodded, shifting lower on the bed.
“Why am I so tired?” she asked.
“Injuries sap your energy,” Samantha said. “But I suspect it’s more that you’re punching above your weight for your casting. As you get stronger and better at it, it won’t tap you out so badly.”