Baehrly Alive (21 page)

Owen Dark just stood there, studying Kodi with an openly critical expression on his face.

The phone rang, making us all jump.

Owen raised an eyebrow at me.

“Go ahead and answer it,” Kodi said. “It’s Dave.”

I nodded in agreement. Owen crossed to the house phone and lifted it up to his ear. “Yes?” His eyes darted to me as he listened to whatever was on the other end of the line. “Yes. Right.” He hung up and slowly turned around to face all of us. “That was Dave. He says everything’s green for go.”

I could feel the tension in the air. We had been planning so long for this moment.

But I trusted Kodi. I just knew that he wasn’t going to hurt me.

I shook my head. “We’re not going tonight. I believe Kodi. If he says that it’s a set-up, then I believe him. We’ll just have to try again some other time.”

The woman snarled at me, “That is totally unacceptable. You’re too close to the situation to see it clearly—you’re being played like a bad hand of cards. Well, we’re not going to wait any longer. We’re out of here.”

She whirled around and turned her stare to Owen Dark, who was still standing quietly next to the phone. “Well? Are you in or out? Are you coming with us to Faerie or are you going to listen to her little boyfriend?”

“I’m out,” Owen said smoothly.

The woman growled in frustration.

We watched as the trio gathered the last of their things together into one of the minivans and disappeared up the road.

“You didn’t have to stay,” I told Owen.

“I know,” he said. “But you trust the Baehr, so I do, too.” He turned and walked toward the kitchen, looking as relaxed and calm as if he planned this sort of thing every day of his life.

Gwyn, who had watched the entire exchange with wide eyes, slipped away to go back upstairs to Thomas, which left me standing awkwardly next to Kodi.

“Thanks for letting us know,” I said. “Especially considering how awful I was to you last time we saw each other.”

Kodi shrugged. “And I’m sorry about Donovan—I had no idea.”

I shrugged. “How could you have? It’s not like I’ve been open and honest with you lately.”

“No,” Kodi agreed. “But you shouldn’t have had to grieve something like that all alone. I left you alone, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

I shrugged again. “I probably would have just bitten your head off like I always do,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to feel better.”

“But you do now?”

I looked up at him. “I have to. I can’t wallow around in my pain if I’m going to help my brother. That’s all that matters right now.”

“It’s not too late,” Kodi said. “You could still stay here. You haven’t crossed that line yet. We could help you—get you the best healers that can be found. We’ll find a way to give your brother the Magic he needs to survive.”

I shook my head.

“I think you somehow missed the ending of the story,” I told Kodi sadly. I put a hand on his arm. “Goldilocks always ends up running away from the three bears.”

Kodi’s big dark eyes glittered moistly at me. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to fight so hard.”

I knew what he was doing—he was putting everything on the line. If I stayed here with him, there we would be—my future would be provided for—and as sure as any future could be for me. He would follow through with his promise; he would do his best to save my brother.

But they would fail, as all the other healers had.

It wasn’t enough.

“You know I have to do this,” I whispered. “And it has nothing at all to do with how I feel about you.” I cupped his cheek with one palm. “You know that I’m right, Kodi. I know that you know it. The Council of Magic is wrong. They are cowards. They’d rather face a Magical extinction than bend on this one, stupid, and archaic law. I have to do this. Don’t even try to convince me otherwise—for a lawyer you really suck at lying.”

“Then you know that I am speaking the truth when I say that I love you,” he whispered. “That hasn’t changed.

“And I love you,” I answered.

“Why isn’t it enough?” The words wrenched out of him as if they were torn painfully from his soul.

I hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe love seems so insignificant when we are dealing with people dropping dead around us. Maybe it’s all those promises I made when my dad died. Most, though… Kodi, I need to save Gwyn and Thomas more than anything else.”

“But you don’t know if you can,” he protested.

“I have to,” I said grimly. “Kodi, you need to stop resting your future on me. You know what’s happened to me—my soul is pitted and scarred and… growing darker every day. I don’t have a future, Kodi—but you do and you are going to take care of Gwyn and Thomas after I am gone.”

Kodi opened his mouth to protest, but I shushed him.

“It’s too late,” I said gently. “I’m already broken beyond repair. Even your love can’t save me now.”

“I’m not going to let go,” Kodi said starkly.

“But I am,” I said softly, feeling his tears trickle across my palm. “I’m cutting the line. It’s too late to save me—but it’s not too late for you.”

Kodi reared back. “Stop talking like that,” he roared. “I hate it!”

“No, you don’t,” I said softly.

He glared at me, his nostrils flaring. I could tell that his bear was on the alert, readying to rise at any moment.

“I wish I could hate you; hate what you are doing,” he spat. “Fine—go—die—whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing. Don’t act all resigned and martyred. You think you know me, Goldie? Well, I know you, too. You’re not resigned. You’re terrified. And what’s worse is you can’t bear to let anyone know. It’s not your love that makes you push me away—it’s your pride. I can smell bullshit miles away, and all of this reeks.”

He stormed away from me, lumbering like a bear—his shoulders broad, his arms hanging at his sides, hand curled into claws.

“The Council isn’t the only one being blind. You would see it, too, if you weren’t determined to be so moon-damned noble.”

I wondered if this was it—if this was the moment that I lost him, too.

He turned just enough to look back at me. There was something like regret in his eyes. Something like… defeat.

“You’ll be banished if you go.”

“I’ll be damned if I stay.”

I didn’t want to think about what Kodi had said to me. Of course, he was right.

But he was wrong, too.

Everything wasn’t as black and white as he wanted to believe it was. There was nothing noble about staying—about letting Thomas die—and Gwyn surely would be gone soon after. I wasn’t choosing to be bad or wrong, or evil.

I was choosing to give my brother a chance.

Maybe that meant that I loved Thomas more than I loved Kodi.

Maybe it just meant that Thomas needed me more than Kodi did.

I couldn’t let Kodi distract me. I couldn’t hear his voice in my head over and over again if I was going to succeed—if I was going to make this plan work.

“No!” the scream shattered the silence of the house. Chills tore through my body. The sound wrenched through me in a wave of agony—a cry of such pain that it only ever could have one source.

A mother.

A mother losing her child.

I didn’t remember getting up and running. One moment I was in the library, the next I was pushing the Resistance healers aside so I could see my brother.

I stuffed both fists in my mouth to keep from echoing Gwyn’s cry.

Thomas was dying, but he couldn’t die peacefully, no, he was fighting the process with all his might. On the bed, his body convulsed violently, his back arching to the point that I thought it would—it had to—shatter under the strain. He went limp for the length of a gasping breath and then it started all over again.

We stood there, all of us, hopeless witnesses to his suffering.

“No,” Gwyn whimpered. “Please, no. Not yet—not now—not when we are so close. Please, he’s just a baby. Please, someone. Someone has to help him!”

I turned my head.

Somehow, I knew he was there. I met cool, gray eyes with mine and hissed with the shock of what I saw there.

Compassion.

“Can you help him?” The words may not have come out even as loud as a whisper, but I knew he understood me, knew what I was asking of him.

A subtle nod was my only answer.

Time slowed. I saw Nat—Death—glide toward the bed—Thomas’s body frozen in mid-convulsion—the world caught between heart beats. Faces around me were caught in a flash—locked into a still-frame of grief and horror on all sides. No one else could see Death standing there.

I was the only one he didn’t hide from.

As he had said.

We were the same.

The hand on the clock ticked forward, another heartbeat passed. Gwyn reached for her son, beat by beat, time crept forward.

As Death bent over the little boy, touched his face with gentle hands.

Then he pressed his lips against his forehead.

“Stay,” Death commanded.

Time leapt forward. It seemed so frantic a pace now—the way my heart insisted on beating so frequently—how the people around me pushed and rushed—trying to help in any way.

Never seeing the one who had risked it all.

And saved my brother.

The change was instant. Between those heartbeats, Nat had anchored Thomas’s soul back into his body, forcing them to be at peace together. He was not healed—he could not last for long—but he would keep breathing for as long as Death himself demanded.

“Is he suffering?” I asked, feeling Nat reappear behind me.

“No.” The single word was reassuring in its stark honesty.

“Thank you,” I whispered. It was completely inadequate. There was nothing I could have said that would encompass the enormity of what he had done for me.

I still didn’t understand why—just because of being ‘unlive’ like him? There was so much I didn’t understand—that there was no time for. I didn’t understand the whole unlife/unlive thing—and couldn’t worry about it right then.

But I was grateful.

“He will make it to Faerie,” Nat said. His words held more assurance than I had heard before—he hardly even stumbled. “You still need to hurry.”

I nodded. On an impulse, I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

He stepped back as if I had struck him, his eyes staring at me in utter confusion.

“Thank you,” I said. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“You w—will be fine,” he said awkwardly, his stutter back in full force. I must have totally flustered him with that kiss. “You won’t change any more than you already have. You’re not… dying anymore.”

I shook my head in wonder. I had been so very wrong about him—about Death in general.

“You’re a good person,” I said. “I don’t really understand what you are—but you are good. I’ll always be grateful to you for saving my brother.”

Nat nodded awkwardly. He raised his hand.

And faded out.

Of course, no one else saw any of this. Thanatos had showed me, and me alone.

The healers said it was too late—Thomas couldn’t be moved. He was going to die. It was best we just try to make him comfortable and accept it.

“No,” I said confidently. “I have it on authority that he’ll survive the trip. Get him ready to go. We’re going to have to leave at a moment’s notice.”

It said a lot about Gwyn’s faith in me that she didn’t even protest. She just accepted that I somehow knew that Thomas was going to last that long.

I didn’t want to tell her how I knew—I couldn’t without her knowing how close we had been to losing Thomas altogether.

Owen Dark searched me out, a few hours after Thomas had miraculously stabilized.

“I’ve been listening in on all the different Magic Council frequencies,” he told me in a low voice. “Your friend was right about the ambush. Our companions were taken into custody moments after arriving at the first safe house. You owe him.”

“
We
owe him,” I told Owen with emphasis. I wasn’t going to let him forget that Kodi had saved his ass, too.

He hesitated for a moment before nodding seriously. I might not like the guy much, but I had a feeling he took something like that seriously.

I just hoped no one ever found out that Kodi had helped us or he would be in a huge amount of trouble.

“I’ve made arrangements,” Owen announced. “They’re not ideal, but we’ll be able to drop under the radar as long as none of us use Magic.”

I nodded in agreement, not that any of us really had to worry about that—except for him. Thomas and Gwyn had hardly any Magic left and I had no idea what condition my own Magic was in—I’d gotten pretty used to not using it lately.

“It’s time to go,” Owen Dark said quietly.

Chapter Sixteen