"Can you get up, Skyler?" Paul asked. "We've got a chair for you and the fire is warm."
"I don't know." That was dishonest. If she tried to stand, she'd fall on her face.
Paul scooped her up without asking, carrying her straight over to the fire and placing her in a chair facing it. "Josef remembered the marshmallows and chocolate," he added.
"Sounds fun," she replied.
Josef came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, putting his chin on the top of her head. "Do you think you're up for this tomorrow? Should we give it another day so that you can recoup?"
He was reluctant to wait, she heard it in his voice. She knew the chances of their plan succeeding went down the longer they waited. If a Lycan discovered their camp before she was "lost" their ploy wouldn't work. She doubted she could get close enough to plant a tracking device without their knowledge if she wasn't injured and needing help. They would have to find another way to track Dimitri back to his prison. She knew she could find him now, with the psychic trail becoming stronger, but it would take time and energy they clearly didn't have. And then there was Dimitri. Anything could happen on his end—and none of it was good.
"I'll be ready," she said. She took the mug of hot chocolate more to appease both of her friends than because she thought she'd drink it. "What I need is to let Mother Earth help heal me. Can you open the soil here for me to stretch out in?"
"Baby, you can't sleep in the ground," Josef said. "I can't cover you and you'd be vulnerable to any attack. Crazy woman, you aren't Carpathian yet."
She found herself laughing. "Crazy man, I meant just a few layers. I didn't plan to sleep there. The insect population alone would stop me."
"Worms," Paul added. "They crawl in and out of bodies . . ."
"The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out . . ." Josef quoted an old song children had sung to one another in play yards the world over.
"Stop," Skyler commanded. Just being in the company of her two best friends made her feel lighter. Safer. More grounded. "Eventually I'll be sleeping in the dirt, and I don't want to think about worms or any other bugs crawling over me."
She needed to feel her connection with Mother Earth if her fail-safe plan had any chance of success at all. She didn't want to talk about it yet, not until she was certain she could do it. Everything depended on what she learned there in that ancient forest soil.
Josef kissed the top of her head. "You really are a squeamish little baby sometimes, Sky. Dirt is not a dirty word. You said it with such distaste. Like a girl."
"I am a girl, you goof," Skyler pointed out. She looked down at the chocolate in the mug. Her stomach rebelled again. She was going to need Josef's aid again. "And no girl likes the idea of sleeping in the ground with insects. I am human, after all."
"You aren't exactly human," Josef said, letting go of her. "More like a trippy little alien. By the way, I forgot to tell you, I've really gotten far in that database of human psychics Dominic found in South America. I've gotten past the encryptions and I've figured out the code they were using for each person entered. I'm close to cracking the entire thing. If I do, I can give the names to Mikhail and those women can be protected from the human society trying to kill us, vampires, and anyone else hunting them."