*Isla*
Ben isn’t breathing, and I don’t know what to do. He’s bleeding everywhere. I feel lost, hopeless, and alone.
“Maddox! Help me! It’s Ben!” I shout for the hundredth time using the mind-link. I don’t expect him to answer me this time either, but I hear his voice saying, “Isla? Where are you?”
I feel my heart begin to pound just from hearing his response. “We went in through the door closest to the stage, and some woman stabbed him! He’s not breathing. Where’s Mystica?”
“Are you safe, Isla? Where’s the woman?” he asks me.
I wish he wouldn’t always do that, answer my questions with his own questions. “She’s dead!” I shout at him, still unable to believe that I’ve killed someone. “Maddox, what do I do!”
“I’m coming,” he says, but that doesn’t help me any, and I know that if we don’t do something soon, there will be no getting Ben back.
My tears have soaked his shirt right above the wound, and he’s starting to turn blue because he hasn’t been breathing. I think about doing that thing where you blow into someone’s mouth and pound on their heart, but I don’t think I can do it.
I’ve never seen anyone die before….
Oh, yes, I have….
I’ve seen two people die recently. One of them, Sydney, even Mystica couldn’t save. She’d lost too much blood.
But the other one, Maddy, she had come back to life when I had held her in my arms… and cried.
I look down at Ben. I’ve already soaked him with my tears, but not right over the wound. Do I have to get my tears on his would for him to come back to life?
Even thinking about it sounds ridiculous, but it’s worth a chance. After all, he can’t be any more dead than he already is.
I grab hold of the knife and yank it out. It feels so gross sliding out, but the sound it makes, a wet, squishing sound, is even worse. It’s not hard for me to continue to cry. I just lean down close to his wound and let my tears roll onto his broken, bleeding flesh. The blood is only leaking out slowly now, and I imagine that’s probably because my brother’s heart is either no longer beating at all or the beats are so shallow, they aren’t doing anything to move the blood through his veins.
I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I let this happen. I should’ve kept him inside. I should’ve made him go home! Whenever I think of all of the things I could’ve done differently, my tears increase until the wound is completely soaked, and I am beginning to think that whatever happened with Maddy was just a coincidence, a miracle unrelated to me, or some kind of a fluke. Whatever it was, I’m not seeing any signs of life in Ben, and that just makes me cry harder.
The door beside us opens carefully, and I realize that it’s Maddox. How he got in, I don’t know. I don’t see a key, but maybe someone else let him in. He’s careful as he steps inside, not wanting to hit us with the door. He’s only wearing a pair of shorts so I think he must’ve just shifted. He’s coated with blood, but then, we are all coated in blood.
“Mystica is on her way. She’ll be here in a few minutes,” he says as he gets down on his knees across from me. He glances around and sees the woman’s body. “Klara?” he whispers. “What the hell?”
I don’t know her, so I don’t know why she’s made this decision, but it’s not important to me right now. What’s important is figuring out what to do with my brother.
Maddox leans down and listens to his heart and then shakes his head. “I don’t think he’s got a heartbeat, baby,” he says.
My tears fall faster. “Fix him!” I demand, knowing that Maddox can’t just do that.
“I’ll do what I can.” He begins to press on Ben’s heart, trying to pump it for him, I think.
“Should I breathe for him?” I ask him.
“No, unless his heart is beating, it won’t matter.” Maddox seems to know what he’s talking about, probably because of all of the battles he’s been in.
He continues to work on his heart while I cry and beg and plead, and then Mystica comes in. She’s got her medical bag, but I know there’s not much she can do.
Ben’s already been dead for almost ten minutes.
“Let’s get out of the way and let her work,” Maddox suggests as other healers show up from inside of the castle.
“No, leave her here,” Mystica says as she listens to Ben’s heart with a stethoscope. “He’s not dead.”
“What?” Maddox and I both ask at the same time.
“I can hear his heartbeat. It’s faint, but it’s there,” she explains. “You remember, don’t you?” she asks me. “With the baby?”
I nod. “Yeah, I remember. But… it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Of course, it’s working,” she says. “It’s just… he’s a lot bigger than Maddy. And… I think it might take something more powerful than tears.”
I raise an eyebrow. “More powerful?”
Her head rocks back and forth. At the moment, another healer is attempting to sew up the bleeding veins inside of Ben while he’s lying on the floor, something they would usually do in a surgery, and it’s so gross, I almost think I would be happy to supply them with a different kind of bodily flood–vomit–but I’m not going to throw up on my brother’s body.
“Blood, honey,” she explains. “Take the knife. Slice your hand, and squeeze it over the wound. I think… I think the healing powers you have will be even stronger in your blood than in your tears.”
I reach for the knife, but Maddox grabs it before I can. “Wait a minute!” he says. “I don’t know why you think that will work, Mystica, but I’m not going to have Isla hurting herself for no reason.”
I don’t have time to explain to my beloved that I will try anything to try and save my brother’s life. Since he has the knife I yanked from my brother’s body, I slide my hand across the stone floor to grab the knife Seth gave me, the one I used to slash the woman’s neck, and while Maddox and Mystica are still arguing about it, I do exactly what she said.
My hand screams in pain as I slice across it, but the pain in my heart is worse than the one in my hand as I move my hand over to drip blood into the wound.
“Just let her try!” Mystica is shouting, and Maddox is ready to argue when he sees that I’m already doing it.
“Damn it, Isla!” he says, trying to pull my hand away. “Bandage her up!”
“No!” I yell at him. “Let me try!”
Maddox leans back slightly, his eyes widening, and I realize there’s something strange going on with me when I say those words, but I don’t have enough time at the moment to think about it.
My hand is dripping blood into the wound, mingling with Ben’s, and as I continue to squeeze, I can feel something happening. I can feel some sort of power surging through me. I close my eyes and pray to the Moon Goddess begging her to help my brother.
The more I pray, the more I squeeze, the more I bleed, the dizzier I become until I feel the world swaying around me, and I am falling backward into Maddox’s arms.
“All right, that’s enough,” he says. “We can’t take a chance on hurting the baby!”
I know he’s right, but I want to help my brother.
Sitting back, I stare at Ben’s face as Mystica and the others continue to work on him, but I don’t know what to think. Is his face a little less pale? Can I hear his heartbeat, faintly, or is that someone else’s?
“Ben, please, come back to me,” I repeat over and over again. “Please!”
It seems like forever passes before I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for. Ben gasps deeply, like he’s just come up from being underwater, and he even tries to sit up. Mystica won’t let him, though. “What happened?” he asks, looking around. He sees my face, and I see a bit of relief wash over him that I'm here.
“You died,” she tells him.
“What?” I see the confusion on his face. “What do you mean I died?”
“You died, and your sister brought you back to life with her magical powers.” Mystica speaks as if it is all matter-of-fact.
His forehead crinkles, but he nods in acceptance before he says, “Thank you for saving me, Isla.”
“I love you, Ben,” I say, and I don’t even have to look at Maddox’s face to know that he doesn’t believe what he’s hearing, that I did anything magical.
Mystica and the other healers finish patching Ben up and give him some medicine for the pain. Some guards come and move the dead woman. I don’t know where they’re taking her, and I don’t care. I’ve never killed before, but I’m glad that that woman is dead.
After a few minutes, they get Ben up and put him on a stretcher so they can move him to a bedroom nearby. I go along with him, a bandage on my hand, which isn’t bleeding any more.
When we get into the bedroom, Mystica does her best to make him comfortable, and then everyone leaves except for a nurse who is stationed outside of the door and Maddox and me.
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” I tell him. “I should’ve made you leave.”
“Don’t be sorry, sis,” he says. “You didn’t know. It could’ve happened anywhere.”
“Still… I almost lost you. And Mom and Dad probably will kill you.” That makes him laugh.
“Probably,” he says. “But… if I’m honest… I’m not sure I was ready to come back, Isla.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him. “You wanted to die?”
He shakes his head. “No, no. Not that. I just… I wanted to stay there. It was so beautiful and peaceful.”
“Where were you?” Maddox asks him directly.
Ben shifts his eyes to look at Maddox and says, “On the island. On Maatua.”