Melissa Darnell - Covet

Her eyebrows drew together in worry or confusion. But at least she grabbed her phone and tried to call him.

“He’s not answering,” she shouted over the music.

“He’s hurt somewhere. We have to find him,” I told her as she circled around the table.

“How do—”

“I don’t know how. Maybe he was doing a connection spell or something. I thought I heard him talking to me, and then I felt his pain.” Even as I led the way across the cafeteria, I could still feel an incredible amount of pain throbbing throughout my body.

I pushed the doors open too hard. They slammed into the brick wall of the building. Emily’s eyes widened.

But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting to Tristan in time.

“Where’s your car?” I asked her.

She turned right, and I spotted the infamous pink convertible in the row closest to the sidewalk.

“What are you doing?” she asked as I grabbed the passenger door’s handle.

“I’m going with you,” I said.

“You can’t. You two are not supposed to—”

“I can still feel his pain.” In fact, it was stronger now that we’d left the cafeteria. “I think we can use it to find him.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I opened the door and slid in.

Huffing out a loud sigh, Emily got in, started the car and headed out of the parking lot. At the stop sign, she said, “Which way?”

I twisted toward the left, and the pain was a little less. “Go right.”

Our progress was too slow as we repeated the process at every intersection. But my feelings were all we had to go on. Emily had tried calling her parents, but they had no idea where Tristan was. Apparently he was supposed to have picked up Bethany half an hour ago but never showed up. Emily ended the call without explaining why she was worried about him or that I was with her.

Ten minutes later, we found ourselves heading out of town toward Drip Rock Road.

“Why would he be out here?” Emily muttered.

I had to wonder the same thing. It was in the opposite direction of Bethany’s house.

But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I could barely breathe, the pain was so strong. “He’s close. Go slow,” I said.

Thankfully she slowed down. Otherwise we might have ended up with flat tires from the glass in the curve of the road, which she narrowly avoided running over.

Tristan’s truck had taken out a huge section of wood and barbed wire fence as it either rolled or plowed through the ditch and field, coming to a stop right side up several yards off the road. I didn’t remember getting out of the car or even pulling to a stop. I just found myself running through the field toward that crushed-in hunk of metal and praying that he would be okay.

As I ran around to the driver’s side, I felt all his pain stop like a switch had been flipped off.

“Tristan!” I screamed, grabbing the handle of his door. But the twisted door wouldn’t budge. “Emily, I can’t feel him anymore. Call for help!”

I reached in through the broken-out window, carefully found the side of that strong column where his pulse should be throbbing out a steady beat to me. It was there, but just barely.

“Tristan, please,” I whispered. “Please don’t go.”

CHAPTER 8

Emily finished talking to someone on her phone. Then she reached past me and touched her brother’s shoulder.

“Oh God,” she gasped. “Tristan, don’t you dare die on me!” She yanked repeatedly at the door handle, her once smoothly styled French twist flying loose in all directions.

“Together on three,” I told her, grabbing the windowsill of the door, ignoring bits of glass as they ground into my hands. “One, two, three.”

We jerked as hard as we could, and the door burst open so quickly we landed on our butts in the grass. I scrambled to my feet, fighting the stupid heels as they sank into the soft dirt. Emily must have more practice with heels. She was already back at Tristan’s side, her hand pressed to his shoulder again.

“We have to get him out,” she muttered. “Then I can work on him better.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked. What if moving him made his injuries worse?

“We have to try. The ambulance won’t be here for another five or ten minutes. And his pulse—”

“I know.” I didn’t want to hear her say what I already knew, that his heartbeat was way too weak. That we were losing him.

We couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose him. I didn’t care if I couldn’t be with him. I had to know he was alive in this world somewhere. Otherwise I’d go crazy.

“Okay, get his feet,” I said as I grabbed his shoulders and tugged him toward me. Emily squeezed in between me and the door and freed his feet from the twisted frame and steering column.

Somehow we got Tristan out of the truck and onto the ground. I cradled his head in my lap, stroking the blood away from his forehead, while Emily knelt on her knees at his side.

“There’s so much broken,” she whispered.

“Please,” I murmured, begging her, begging God, begging a universe that had been nothing but cruel to me, in the hope that maybe it would finally answer just one request.

Emily closed her eyes and pressed her hands to Tristan’s chest as if she were about to do CPR. But she never pushed down. Instead, she sat perfectly still, her palms laid flat on the stained red and white shirt. The skin on my arms and the back of my neck erupted in prickles of pain far stronger than I’d ever felt before, even when Tristan was using magic while fighting Dylan. That had been a fire ant attack. This was like being in the middle of a swarm of really ticked off wasps. God, she was a strong witch. But was she strong enough?

If only I’d been allowed to learn how to use magic....

I bent over him, the pain in my chest my own now, the staggering force of it curling me over. Blood streamed from a gash in Tristan’s forehead near his left temple, and the bloodlust was there in the distance, wanting my attention. But nothing could dull the sheer terror pounding through my veins now, not even the bloodlust.

“Please, Tristan, stay with me,” I whispered against his forehead, my lips moving against the only clear area at his right temple, his hair brushing my nose and cheek.

And then I heard it. A strong, solid heartbeat, followed by more of the rapid, barely-there taps.

“Again, Emily,” I whispered.

More pinpricks stabbing at my arms and neck as she ramped up the energy level.

Another strong heartbeat beneath my fingertips. And another. And another, each one evening out the rhythm into a steady pulse again.

Tears streamed down my face now. I looked up at her for confirmation, needing to know I wasn’t imagining it.

“He’s coming back!” she cried out, grinning.

“That’s it, Tristan,” I murmured, stroking bits of glass out of his hair. “Keep fighting. Come back to us.” Come back to me.

Wailing in the distance. The ambulance was here. They pulled to a stop on the road, two figures jumping out from the cab to unload a gurney from the back end of the vehicle.

“He’s going to be okay now, I think,” Emily murmured. “A few stitches here and there and some broken bones that’ll have to be reset, which I’m sure the Clann will help heal faster. But he’ll be okay.”

I held Tristan’s right hand as the emergency workers wrapped a brace around his neck then got a stretcher under him so they could lift him up onto the gurney. When they carried him toward the van, I kept holding on, walking beside Tristan. He still hadn’t woken up. I needed to see those green eyes looking back at me before I could be sure he’d be all right.

“Ma’am,” one of the emergency workers said to me. “You have to let go so we can load him.”