Sophie Littlefield - Unforsaken

Prairie parked and we got out of the truck. Chub slept on, oblivious. Kaz opened the passenger door, and our eyes met.

“I’ll carry him in. Why don’t you and Prairie get in the Audi with Chub-I’ll be right back.”

“No.” The firmness of my voice surprised me. “I’m coming.”

No one spoke for a moment. Prairie slowly got out of the car, wiping blood from her arm. She stared at Rattler like she’d never seen him before. And I realized that in a way, she hadn’t; at least, she’d never looked at him without fear before, never known him when he wasn’t a danger to her.

“Give Prairie the keys,” Kaz said gently.

I did; then I handed Chub over, and Prairie cradled him in her arms and walked slowly toward the Audi without looking back.

It was down to Kaz and me. He dragged Rattler from the car and got him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. It took effort; Rattler was solidly built, every ounce of him muscle and bone. I walked ahead, and when we reached the front door, I knew the knob would turn in my hand. I’d guessed that Rattler would not lock his home, that he would not be afraid of any threat that could come through his front door.

I was right.

Inside, I snapped on a light switch and the front parlor was lit with the ocher glow from a china lamp on a battered hutch. Even in the dim light I could see that Rattler had made an effort to prepare his home for Prairie. Every surface-the humble pine floors, the old furniture, the paneled walls-was scrubbed and gleaming. Yellowed lace-edged linens were draped over tables. Crumbling crocheted doilies covered chair backs. Jars of wildflowers lined the windowsills.

My heart hitched as Kaz laid Rattler on a faded sofa, his long legs extending far past the end. It had been important to me that my father die here, in his home, among the Banished. There was no love between us; I knew that. Besides Prairie and Chub, he was the only family I had left-but more important, he was my link to my ancestors, and the blood that ran in my veins was his blood. I owed at least some part of my strength, my determination, even my bravery to him.

As I knelt in front of him, I could feel the energy of the place, the low, thrumming, familiar heartbeat of my ancestors, who lived on in the very soil here. The blood shed in these streets was Banished blood; the tears that fell in the rooms of these shacks were Banished tears. Our people had gone terribly wrong since they’d left the ancient village centuries earlier, but as I watched my dying father take his last struggling breaths, I knew that I would never be able to turn my back on them, on who I was.

I looked up at Kaz. He was watching me, his expression full of concern.

“You’re going to heal him,” he whispered.

He knew it before I did, but once he said the words, my hands were already reaching for Rattler. I was going to heal him, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

COMPARED TO HEALING BRYCE, healing my father was simple. The words slipped from my lips; the energy traveled smoothly through my fingertips into his damaged flesh. Almost instantly I felt the jagged edge of the bullet wound begin to skim over.

Beginning the process was easy. Stopping it was hard. I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut and wrenched my hands away in the middle of the verse. A splitting pain sliced through my head, and my hands twitched as though I’d been electrocuted. I almost fell, but Kaz crouched beside me and put his arms around me.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What happened?”

“I’m okay,” I said hoarsely, disentangling myself from his arms and easing myself into a straight chair next to the sofa. “I just need to talk to him for a minute. Would you mind… I need to do this alone.”

Kaz hesitated, but he bent and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll be right outside,” he whispered before stepping out onto the front porch.

Rattler was awake now, and he was watching me, his eyes narrowed and his mouth a tight line. I knew he was in a lot of pain; I could sense it in the connection between us. I also knew he would live if I left right now-if he got to a hospital quickly enough, if they took the bullet out, if he followed doctors’ orders. I had not healed him all the way. I had stopped well shy of restoring his flesh. I’d slowed the leaking of his blood and I sensed that I had fixed something critical that had been severed-that much I could tell from the exchange of energy that ran between us.

“You’ll be all right,” I muttered. I didn’t want Rattler to die; I didn’t want his death on my conscience. I wasn’t afraid of him, not really, not anymore. His gifts were strong, but so were mine. As hard as he fought for what he believed was rightfully his, I would fight harder if I needed to.

But there was Prairie to consider. And there was Chub.

I leaned closer so that our faces were only inches apart. Up close I saw how fine and unlined his skin still was. And something else: for the first time I noticed that his nose, his chin, his eyebrows-all of them were similar to mine.

He was, unquestionably, my father. But I owed him nothing.

“You can’t have her,” I said softly.

He started to speak, then grimaced with pain. When he tried again, it was through gritted teeth. “B-b-… bitch shot me.”

“She’ll do it again,” I said. “And so will I. If you ever- ever -threaten any of us again. If you so much as show your face to me or her, or Chub or Kaz or Anna. This is your one chance. Next time I let you die.”

Rattler’s eyes sparked with fury and his mouth curled with contempt. “I’d li… li… like to see you try,” he said, and then he passed out.

His words barely registered. In my mind, I was already long gone.

JULY 4

THEY WERE SETTING FIREWORKS OFF over the lake tonight. Kaz told me about it-how they loaded the fireworks on barges and floated them off the lakeshore, the colorful explosions competing with the beauty of the Chicago skyline. I couldn’t imagine anything more spectacular.

But there would always be next year.

We were staying with Anna and Kaz. It had been a week since the terrible night in the office park. After we left Trashtown, Kaz had driven all night long and we got to their house as the sun rose high in the sky above the north side of Chicago. He’d called ahead, and Anna was waiting on the back porch for us, the dark circles under her eyes testament to her worry since we’d been gone.

A week later the dark circles had faded, and there was laughter in the house as Chub chased the cat and sang Elmo songs and Anna cooked one delicious Polish meal after another and Prairie and I slept late and we all took long walks along the lakefront. We didn’t talk about what had happened. That would come soon, I was sure, as would discussions about the future-where we’d live, where I’d go to school in the fall, what Prairie would do for work. But a few things were certain: we weren’t changing our names again, we weren’t going to run anymore, and we were all going to stay in each other’s lives somehow. Even-especially-me and Kaz.

I knew this not as a Seer knows things-I didn’t know what shape our relationship would take, or where our paths would lead-but I knew he would always be there for me, just as I knew the exact shade of his eyes and the way his heartbeat felt when I leaned against his chest.