Simultaneously, I look up at Cassidy. Her face is twisted and terrified. She starts forward toward me, her arms reaching out, and I shout to warn her off. That is when the pain hits. It’s like something has exploded into the side of my chest. My legs lose their purpose and I fall to the floor. Waves of tingling rush through me and the world suddenly goes into super-slow motion.
Cassidy’s mouth is screaming, “Get away from her!”
The mummy raises his gun again, and this time it’s Cassidy who blindside tackles him. The gun flies through the air. I don’t know where it goes. I can’t see it land. Instead I’m focused on the waves of tingling, the bomblike pain centered inside of me. Some random man with a wicked Maine accent yells, “I’ve got the gun. Get on the floor. Now! On the floor!”
But instead the pixie girl snarls, wraps her arm around the mummy, lifts him from the ground, and leaps out the window. Glass shatters as snow and cold burst inside, but it’s like a whole separate me is noticing even that. The main me is focused on breathing, because my right lung suddenly feels deflated. My breaths are short and sharp and hard. Another part of me is floating above it all, just watching.
I come to. Cassidy’s face is over mine. Her eyes are insistent and watery. “You are not allowed to die! Do not die!”
My vision starts to go. It’s like a giant white board is shifting in front of my eyes.
“Nick,” I gasp, but Nick is still gone. That’s why I’m here in the first place, right? Nick. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I just know he was taken to Valhalla… Valhalla? Wait, what is that? Okay… okay… Right… Nick’s face swims in front of me and the whiteness fades away. There are laugh crinkles by his dark brown eyes. He starts to smile his boyish smile, the one where it starts really slow and-
“Zara! Stay with us!” Issie grabs my hand and yells, “We have to stop the bleeding.”
Then someone presses something into my side.
“You hang on, Zare Bear,” she insists. “Call Betty! Get her cell, Cassidy. It’ll be on speed dial.”
Someone starts rummaging in my pocket. Calling Betty is a good idea. She’s an emergency medical technician… technologist?… No, a paramedic… No, an EMT… Are those the same? She’s going to be so mad I’m shot and that I went in a bar and that I… that I still want to find him. She will kill me if I die. Oh, that doesn’t make sense! I start to giggle. It’s more like a gurgle.
“She’s losing it!” some guy yells.
“The phone’s all bloody,” Cassidy says.
I try to focus, find her face in all the whiteness.
“Astley,” I manage. “Find Astley.”
“Who is Astley?” some guy asks. “Rick Astley? The singer? Is he listed? I’ve called 9-1-1.”
“He’s-he’s-” Issie doesn’t know how to answer, I guess.
I rasp in a breath. My chest squeezes tighter.
“Her boyfriend,” Cassidy lies.
He’s not, though. He’s not my boyfriend. That is Nick- was Nick. He is not my boyfriend because he’s dead. I’m going to be dead… Focus, Zara… Focus… Who is Astley? My brain struggles to remember. The apple. The queen I replace is in the apple.
I lift up my head as much as I can and say, “Issie… Valkyries?”
“None.” She shakes her head.
I am not enough of a warrior, I guess. That’s why the Valkyrie took Nick. He was a warrior and a werewolf who was dying. Me? I don’t make the cut, I guess. They’d take Astley. Astley. I want him here. I wheeze again. I think I groan. The world has gone completely light.
“She’s lost so much blood,” Issie whines. “Where the hell is the ambulance?”
“The queen I replace is in the apple,” I manage. I clutch at someone’s wrist. I think it’s Cassidy’s. “The queen I replace is in the apple.”
“What’s she talking about?” Issie shrieks.
Cassidy’s eyes meet mine. Oh, she looks so sad. She looks like she thinks I’m going to…
“Can’t die.” My lips move. “Astley needs me.”
But a hand presses into my face and his voice is there, right there, as he says, “Hush, Zara. I am already here.”
When consciousness finds me again I am sideways in the backseat of some really fast car. Issie is driving and I’m lying across Astley’s lap. Cassidy is murmuring something in the passenger seat and there’s a funky goldish glow everywhere that’s not coming from the interior lights. Astley’s got his hand pressed against my side and he’s kind of rocking me back and forth.
“Betty! We have pressure on it!” Issie’s yelling into the phone. “Where are you?”
Astley notices I’m conscious, I guess, because he leans closer. His blond hair is caked with blood. I have to assume that’s mine. There’s a smudge on his cheek. He has nice cheeks.
“Zara…” His voice trails off.
“Hard. To. Breathe,” I tell him, which is a total understatement, because my lungs are fragments of fire.
“I know. We think it collapsed your lung,” he explains. His lips turn in toward his mouth.
“Blood. Your. Car.”
“That is the least of our worries. I can dispose of the car, but not you.” His eyes narrow and he holds a free finger to my lips. “Cassidy is attempting some magic to slow your blood loss, but she is not full blooded and she has never attempted this previously. She says that she has read about it online.”
I would nod but I can’t muster up the energy. Whiteness threatens to take over again. I try to hold on. “I’m going to die.”
“No, you will not.” Astley keeps talking. “Issie has connected with your grandmother, who is on some other call halfway across the county, it appears. Why this godforsaken place has only one ambulance is absolutely beyond me. We will either meet the ambulance or we will get you to the hospital. Either way, you should have medical attention in ten minutes or less.”
That’s a long time and I don’t think I’ll make it. I lose my vision again. The whiteness descends down on me. Struggling, I try to focus on his voice and I manage to whisper out, “He said… in the apple. Like a worm. Your mother is… No sense… You… save him. Bring him back… The apple…”
He murmurs a swear and Issie shouts, “She’s unconscious again! What do we do? What do we do?”
“Issie, breathe,” he commands. “Relay to the grandmother what is occurring and drive faster. This is a Koenigsegg. She can handle it, but she’s full of power. Do not spin out. Cassidy? Are you praying? Focus on your crystals. The elves I have seen connect with them.”
He is almost as bossy as Nick. I manage to lift up my hand. He grabs it with his own free hand. Fingers touch warm fingers. The world smells suddenly like the forest in spring, new wet moss, pine needles.
“How… did… you… know?” I wheeze out. It is a hoarse whisper. It is all I can manage.
“Where you were or that you were injured?” he asks.
The car hits a pothole. We bump up and down. I scream. At least I think it’s me screaming. The pain spirals through my whole body, even my brain. Cassidy chants more loudly and Issie murmurs a stream of worries and pleas and a lot of swearing. The goldish glowing light is incredibly bright, filling the car.
Astley’s fingers let go of my hand and join his other hand, fixing something on my side, adding more pressure. That’s when I notice how pale he is-like he is injured too. His voice whispers out, “I knew because you are my queen, Zara. We are connected and it is my duty to know when you are hurt, where you are, all of those things. It is my sacred duty and I swear upon all that I am that I will not let you die. Do you believe me?”
I think about how we’re bonded together now, how our lives are interwoven like the branches he showed me in the hotel room after I changed.