flat.
But there was nowhere to go. The blue tendril slithered through her hair towards the back of her head, singing the blonde strands in its path.
Aaron flung himself to her side.
Her eyes lit up. “Aaron—” she moaned.
“Buff,” he yelled, “turn it off!”
Five seconds.
The movement of Aaron’s hands was flawless, precise. The blade cut true. One strap, then another. He was the best setter in the league, after all.
Buff grabbed the giant switch on the machine, and he screamed. He yanked his hand back as putrid smoke poured from its socket.
Fourseconds.
“It’s all melted—” yelled Buff.
“Help me get her out!”
Three seconds.
Aaron stole a glance at her. She was staring into his eyes, calming herself by it. Biting her lip.
Then her head was free and she skirted away from the blue snake. It followed her.
Two seconds.
Buff appeared at his side, wheezing, and grabbed the straps around her waist. His knuckles whitened.
But he couldn’t possibly tear them with his bare hands, not a chance—yet the fabric splayed. His arms flexed, blood dripped from his palms onto her stomach, and then the strap tore completely. He’d done it.
One second.
That left one more strap to cut, and then she could slip free. Aaron had the tip of the knife at its edge. She was going to make it out—
Then Aaron felt Clive’s hot breath on the back of his neck, his cold finger on the back of his scalp. And Aaron’s limbs turned to mush.
Just one more strap. But he didn’t have it in him.
Clive reached around him, calmly took the knife from Aaron’s hand, and plunged it into his stomach. Slippery blood gushed over his hands.
Clive’s voice rasped in his ear. “She’s mine, Harper!”
Zero.
Amber was still strapped in.
The machine ground to a sickening halt, and they were plunged into silence. Then there was only the ringing in Aaron’s ears, like the gentle beat of an insect’s wings.
The electric arc coiled, flickered neon blue, then sank into the back of Amber’s head.
***
Aaron tried to block it, but there was nothing to block. The electricity slipped through his fingers and stung her.
He watched her eyes widen with panic, then confusion. She writhed, twisted against the strap as the arc of electricity groped inside her for the opening.
Then pierced it.
The tendril pulled out of her head slowly like a long, thin fang. A single drop of blood sizzled at the tip and then evaporated.
Her channel had a hole now.
Like Aaron’s. She grabbed his hand, and their gazes locked. Her insides were being drawn toward the back of her head. But unlike Aaron, she wouldn’t be allowed to die completely. They would reseal her . . . half empty.
She struggled to hold his gaze.
Buff grabbed his shoulder; he hadn’t seen Clive. “You’re bleeding!”
Aaron ignored him. Amber’s grip slackened, and her eyeballs rolled to the side, unfocused.
“Amber—” he croaked.
“Buddy, you can’t save her,” said Buff. “I’m taking you out of here!”
Then Aaron collapsed, and his cheek struck frozen stone. And Amber’s limp fingers slipped from his hand.
Before he lost consciousness, he saw Clive out of the corner of his eye, his arm inside the machine.
Clive pulled out a quartz vial, four inches long and rounded on both ends. The red fluid dimmed before their eyes—the clairvoyance from Amber, from his own half.
Clive’s hands trembled, and the vial tumbled from his fingers. He fell to his knees, clutching his stomach.
The machine had cut out too much.
***
There was a moment Aaron would remember afterwards when he was taken over by a feeling that had no self-consciousness. Five days ago, in her bedroom, dust floated between orange shafts of sunlight, blazing like flecks of magnesium. Amber slid closer to him. Their faces were inches apart. Up close, her eyes were layered, freckled like jade crystals.
She was right.
In five days, something would be missing. In five days, his connection to his half would be uncertain, unlikely even. In five days, his channel to his half might not even exist.
But Amber was real now.
***
A white room.
Aaron yanked aside a bed sheet and sat up into a beam of sunlight, and he felt the knife wound twist in his stomach.
He was in a hospital bed closed in by white curtains. Buff was wedged in a tiny chair by the window, watching him carefully.
He raised his eyebrows. “Buddy?”
“What the hell is that look?” said Aaron.
He sighed relief. “I thought you were toast.”
Aaron touched the back of his head. Not even a scab. How was he still alive? Later. “Where’s Amber?”
“Buddy, uh—” Buff lowered his eyes, “listen—”
“She’s okay,