lever, raising the platform up as the last of the liquid vanished. Closer and closer, Selina came.
The skin beneath that hole in her suit…healed. Smooth.
The color had returned to her face.
But her heartbeat, her chest…
His helmet scanned her.
No life signs.
None.
The platform swung toward them, groaning as it stopped. Luke moved, hauling her off it, setting her down on the floor, his body numb and distant.
He couldn’t endure this again. He wouldn’t endure this again—
“Selina,” Maggie pleaded. “Selina.”
She did not move. Her eyes did not open.
Ivy reached for her wrist. “No pulse.”
The wounds had healed, but nothing else. His stomach churned and rose up his throat. Not again, not again, not again—
“She’s not breathing,” Maggie said, pushing past Ivy, kneeling at her sister’s side. “She needs help!”
Without waiting, Maggie rose up on her knees, interlaced her hands, and set them over Selina’s chest. Pumping once, twice—Luke lost count before she tipped back her sister’s head, blew a breath into her mouth, waited. Went back to pumping her chest. Her heart.
Nothing.
Ivy was pale. Unblinking as she stared down at Selina. At Maggie, performing CPR. Giving her new, unfaltering breaths to her sister.
It hadn’t worked. The pool—it hadn’t worked. And Selina…
Maggie sobbed through her teeth. “Wake up.” Her curls bounced with every frantic push of her hands on Selina’s chest. “Wake up.”
Luke didn’t quite feel his arms, his hands, as he reached for Maggie. “She’s g—”
“Don’t you say it!” Maggie shouted, knocking his hand away. She breathed again into Selina’s mouth.
Nothing.
And at Maggie’s shouted words, something snapped into place. Settled and cleared in his head. Luke said to the girl, “Keep going. Don’t stop.”
He scanned for the nearest cord to split open, to expose the wires and get a charge. He could restart her heart, risk the electrocution—
Maggie went back to pumping, weeping as she spoke. “You fought for me every day, every hour.” Over and over, her hands slammed into Selina’s chest. “You came home with those bruises, you stole and you fought, for me. And when they brought me to Peter and Hiroki’s house, when I saw how nice it was, how nice they were, when you never came back…I knew you’d done that for me, too. The police said you went to prison, but I didn’t believe them. And I knew—I knew when the money came in last month, the bills all paid…I knew it was you. Somehow. I knew it was you.”
Maggie blew another breath into Selina’s lifeless lungs.
Across from her, tears slid down Ivy’s face as she silently watched. Luke lunged for the nearest power cord, opening up a panel on his suit arm to grab the small pair of wire-splicers.
Maggie’s shoulders shook as she resumed pumping. “You fought for me, even when no one else would. You fought, and I love you.” Maggie sucked in a shuddering breath, sitting back on her heels. “Fight back,” she whispered. “One last time.”
Selina’s chest did not move.
Luke sliced down the plastic coating on the wires, revealing the tangle of metal beneath. A hollow, aching void filled him, silence pealing through his head.
Maggie lunged, slamming a hand down onto Selina’s heart as she screamed, “FIGHT BACK.” Another slam of her hand, right over that silent heart. “FIGHT—”
Selina’s body arced off the floor, eyes flaring wide.
His helmet glowed with assessments and data that he ignored. Ignored as she gasped for breath, then coughed, curling on her side—
Maggie threw her arms around her, shaking with the force of her sobbing. For a heartbeat, Selina just lay there, and Luke looked then—at his helmet’s monitors.
To make sure the sudden stillness didn’t mean anything amiss.
But there was her heartbeat, hammering steadily. The wire tumbled from his hands.
Slowly, Selina’s arm rose, gently resting on Maggie’s back.
Her younger sister pulled away, and Selina stared up silently into Maggie’s face.
Those green eyes scanned over every curve and freckle, along every wild curl and plane of healthy, glowing skin.
Tears began sliding out of the corners of Selina’s eyes.
Maggie surged forward, hugging her again.
This time, both of Selina’s arms came around her sister—and held tightly.
Ivy asked, voice thick but clear, “Does this mean you have eight lives left?”
The oak-lined street was awash with reds and golds and oranges, the sky a crisp blue above the fall splendor.
Luke and Selina lingered in the shadows beneath one of the trees, monitoring the lovely white house across the way, the mums lining the path to the red-painted front door, the flower beds bursting with color beneath the wide windows and black