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Being shot with a bullet packed full of cinder was something that I wanted to avoid for my entire life.
Unfortunately, on the day that I decided to rescue Lou, that record was broken.
Cinder made me want to die. It turned everything to ice cold fire and for someone who ran warm always, it was the worst way to die.
I didn’t know how it could tear my body apart. I heard Lou tell me no a few times before I told him to run and then blacked out and I prayed that he was smart enough to run and hide.
The forest would take care of him, I knew it. He just had to ask for help.
But instead of following a long, black tunnel, I felt like I was floating, waiting for something to happen. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath and when I exhaled, it did too.
“What was that?” I asked. I was staring above him, straight up to the branches of the trees. I could smell the blood, sticky and turning tacky on my shirt, and knew that the ground below me was soaked with it as well.
Lou was sitting upright, staring down at me, his eyes wide. “You got shot.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
As though to prove his point, another bullet tore a hole in the tree that was right behind him. His eyes widened and he turned around, not to the sound of the bullet, but to something else.
I felt her before I saw her and put my hands over Lou’s ears and pulled him down next to me, curled around him, and then she roared.
I had never heard my sister like that before. Anything within a hundred-mile radius must have pissed themselves because that sound only promised death and pain. The ground beneath us shook and if I were anyone else but who I was, I would have cowered.
As it was, I heard Lou whimper beneath me.
“Don’t move,” I whispered to him. “Don’t look.”
I don’t know why I was trying to shield him from the damage that Celia was doing to the Ascendancy that were closing in around us. He would have to see it one day. Maybe one day he would do even worse.
I couldn't stop the screams from reaching his ears or the wet sounds of her tearing them open and leaving them to die. Sometimes that was the worse part. I held him close, covering him with as much as my body as I could. If she was blood drunk, she could lose control and hurt him before she recognized him.
The sounds faded, as the people around us died.
“Eli?” She said.
I looked up at her and she looked like the hunter goddess our father would tell us about. Her long dark hair was in a braid that fell casually over her shoulder and her light blue tank top was soaked in blood. Her jeans were a loss, torn and soaked in more blood and dirt. Her boots were probably the only thing that could be salvaged from the entire outfit.
Blood was smeared across her face and dripped down her fingertips.
“Dude. Is she okay?” Lou asked and his voice cracked. I looked down at him and he was staring over my shoulder at Celia. His hands gripped my shirt so hard, his knuckles were white. I wondered if it was fear or the magic that was still singing around us.
“I’m fine,” Celia said easily.
“Did you just kill the guy that was shooting at us?" Lou asked and she reached down to help me to my feet. I expected there to be an ache where I was shot, but it was nothing like it had never been there.
“Guys,” she corrected and helped Lou up.
I watched as her face registered the blood on my shirt and the panic and desperation that filled her made me feel instantly guilty.
“Are you shot?” She demanded and pulled at what was left of my shirt. Underneath her hands, there was nothing but smooth skin where the bullet tore through my shoulder.
“That’s the thing-” I said and looked to Lou. I didn’t know how much he wanted to share.
Celia turned to Lou. “Did you call me?”
“I-” he paused and seemed to think about it. “I didn’t mean to?” He finally settled on.
Celia shook her head and for the first time since this whole debacle began, she looked confused. “No. You did the right thing.”
“No, I really didn’t mean to. I just remembered what Artie was saying, that the forest would protect me. And I was hoping that if it protected me, that it would protect Eli too. So I asked it, them, whatever, if it would protect us,” Lou explained.
I looked over to Celia and she met my gaze. “Well, you are a guardian. It kind of makes sense.”
“Did you get shot?” She asked again.
“Yes,” Lou said without hesitation. “But it must have been a regular bullet because look at him. Perfectly fine.”
He waved his hands at me and Celia and I looked down at my shoulder like there was proof that he was wrong and I was still bleeding.
“Those aren’t regular bullets,” I said.
Lou looked over to Celia and she shook her head. “They aren’t. They’re packed with cinder. Armor piercing. Those are designed to mutilate us.”
“How do you know? They might just look like the cinder bullets-” Lou started and his face drained of blood. If this guy fainted one more time, I would have to start making fun of him.
“We can smell it. They smell like dying roses and burnt paper,” I said.
“Are you going to faint?” Celia asked.
“But you said- you said that it killed you,” Lou said and looked from me to Celia and back again.
“That’s my question,” Celia said slowly.
Lou’s eyes bounced from my sister to me and I could feel the panic rising in him. “I just knew that it wasn’t time for him to die. And I know you guys are better at healing and I just...” Lou sucked in a deep breath. “I knew that he wasn’t going to die here. And I imagined his body healing, getting rid of the crap that was killing him, and the rattling in his chest wasn’t bad and it was just-”
Lou bowed his head.
“That’s called intent,” Azolata said and the three of us jumped.
“Well, I intended for him to live beyond today, so I guess that makes sense,” Lou mumbled.
“Intent is the first thing you have to understand about magic," Artie said, picking his way around the scattered bodies and pausing to shake off something bloody and thick that got stuck on his shoe. "Without intent, the magic is scattered and chaotic. There is no direction. You focused your intent on Eli and his body healing and your magic found the natural direction. It did as you asked."
“Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” Celia asked.
“I don’t have that power. I don’t think Azolata has that kind of power,” Artie said.
We all stared at Lou. He couldn’t seem to meet our eyes.
“I will take Luz home. You three should try to get home unseen as well. Especially you, Alpha Ortega. With the Ascendancy so close now, we have to be careful about what and who is seen,” Azolata said.
Lou nodded but he didn’t look like he was processing what Azolata said.
Celia stepped closer to Lou and cupped his face. He didn’t seem grossed out by the blood on her palms. I’m not sure that he was even aware of it.
“You saved my baby brother,” she whispered. “I owe you my life.”
Lou blinked and it seemed like he was focusing once more. “Just keep the donuts coming and we’ll call it even.”
She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Not even close, Lou.”