Dan quickly leaned over her, pumping her stomach and giving her mouth-to-mouth.
“Stop,” I said faintly. “Let me.”
I put both hands over my best friend’s heart. “I couldn’t save you last time, Cass,” I said. “But I can now.” And I let the silver powers I had left flow through my fingertips, into her blood. For the briefest of seconds, she glowed.
Then she coughed up a lungful of water and opened her eyes. I pulled my hands away and fell back, exhausted to the point of tears.
“Skye?” She wheezed. “Did you save me?”
“We all did.” I tried to smile. “It was a group effort.”
“Babes?” she said, her eyes searching for Dan. He smoothed her hair back and kissed her. He couldn’t say anything—I think because he was crying.
Cassie noticed Raven standing behind him.
“You!” She choked, struggling to sit up. “Did you do this?”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t Raven. She’s one of us now, remember?”
“Like hell!” Cassie’s eyes rolled deliriously. Her face was flushed with fever and effort. “She tried to do it again! We can’t trust her, Skye. None of us can. She’s a total traitor!”
“I—I didn’t.” Raven looked shocked—and almost sad. “I wouldn’t. Skye, you know that, right? Cassie? I’m on your side now.”
“She knows,” I said, trying to calm her. “I know, too. Cassie doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“It was so nice out,” Cassie panted. “Dan took me down to the river, to practice for prom.”
“Practice for prom?” I looked to Dan for an explanation.
“Yeah,” Dan said sheepishly. “I felt like Cassie didn’t think I was taking prom seriously. I wanted to do something nice for her—you know, since it might be our last dance and all.” He took a breath and looked at her. She nodded and squeezed his hand. “I had the idea that we could do the dance from Dirty Dancing. You know, the one where he lifts her up?”
I was starting to catch on. “They practice in the lake,” I said.
“So that if he drops her,” Cassie explained, “there’s a nice watery cushion. It was warm out, so we came down to the river.” She beamed at him. “He thinks of everything.”
“Yeah, but then it started to rain.”
“It was flooding before we knew it,” Cassie added. “It had to be angelic, there’s just no way—” She looked fiercely at Raven.
“Cassie,” I said, “it wasn’t Raven. Or the Order. It was the Rebellion. Just like the fire.”
She looked at me, then glanced in Raven’s direction.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Raven nodded uncomfortably. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice soft. “What I did to you back then was horrible. It was unforgiveable. You have every right to hate me.” Cassie’s eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I just don’t understand you.”
We were all exhausted as we trudged through the mud back to Cassie’s house. I asked Raven to drive us over to my place. In Cassie’s weakened state, there was no way I was letting her and Dan sleep at home tonight. I needed them under my roof, where I could keep everyone safe.
I had to find Ian’s father soon. I knew it was only once I reunited the three most powerful Rogues that the fourth would finally be revealed to me. Secretly, I was hoping it was anyone but Earth. I felt a fierce need to protect her, and the idea of bringing her into this made me feel sick.
But she had known about the flood. Maybe not how or why, but somehow she knew. Especially after today, I had a feeling it was her destiny.
That night, I sat on the floor in the hall outside my room, my knees pulled up to my chest.
People I love are being attacked. My friends keep almost dying.
I knew in my heart that this was what I was born to do. But putting my friends in so much danger wasn’t something I’d signed on for. Sure, they promised to stick by me and fight. They were my best friends. No, more than that—they were my family, and had been since I was five. I had been there for Cassie when Kim Mancuso called her tomato-head in middle school, and I had personally hand-delivered the Ben and Jerry’s Kitchen Sink ice cream when her first boyfriend, Patrick, broke up with her because he wasn’t ready to be “tied down.” Cassie would expect nothing less than to be there for me, too—whatever I needed.
I leaned back against the wall and sighed. I wished that there was someone who could tell me what I should do, but every time I tried to think of what Cassie or Ian or Aunt Jo would say, they told me this was one I had to figure out for myself.
Cassie and Dan were talking in my room in low tones, their voices floating out into the hall. I tried to give them privacy by saying I had a headache and needed to be by myself for a while. But I could hear them anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Dan said. “I’m just so worried about you. You’re Skye’s best friend in the whole world, her Achilles heel. You’re an easy target for them. She’d do anything for you, Cass.”
I felt my heart twist. Cassie whimpered, softly.
“Come here, babes,” he said. “I love you. Life was totally sucky until you fell for me, don’t you even know that?”
“It was?” She sniffled. “I never knew that. I thought we all had a pretty good life.”
“Maybe you did.” He laughed. “But dude, I was in love with my best friend. And I couldn’t say or do anything about it. And I had to watch you frolicking around, swooning over other boys—”
“I didn’t frolic—”
“And talking about how foxy they all were. And damn, Cass, you looked so hot up there onstage—”
“I did?”
“And it was like the whole universe was laughing at me, like, dream on, buddy, she’s so far out of your orbit you need a space shuttle to get to her. . . .”
“Babes?” she said. “Dan?”
“Yeah?”
“I only said those things to make you jealous. I didn’t think there was any way you were going to go out with a ditz like me. You’re so smart. You could have any girl—”
He snorted. “Right.”
“No, let me finish. Any girl in the math club, or the science club, or the comp sci club, or—”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” He laughed. “Come here.” There was some rustling as bodies were maneuvered. “You’re not a ditz.”
“I know.” She sighed.
“You’re a crazy talented musician.”
“I know.”
“Okay, maybe you act like a ditz sometimes.”
“Dan!”
“But you know what? You make me laugh. And you make me take myself less seriously. And I need that. And that’s why I love you.”
I heard a soft sound, almost like laughter.
“I’m so lucky.” No, not laughter. Cassie was crying. “I’ve almost died twice. I have you for a boyfriend. Skye hasn’t ditched me yet. One of these days, my luck is going to run out.”
“Well, if it does, it won’t be in the form of me dumping you,” said Dan. “Because I’m going to love you even after your luck runs out. You’ll be the most loved unlucky girl in the world.” I heard more rustling, and Cassie laughing through her tears. “You know, even if the world ends on prom night, I wouldn’t want to take anyone else as my date for the last dance of my life.”
“Shhh,” Cassie whispered. “Stop talking.”
And then it was quiet, except for the sound of them kissing. I got up and wandered down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Raven was on her way out, carrying a towel. We paused in the doorway, facing each other.