Arcadia's Gift - By Jesi Lea Ryan Page 0,73

knees by his side.

“I slipped,” Cane explained through clenched teeth, “and he tried to grab me, but then we both came down.”

Bryan’s expression was one of sheer horror as he tore open his shirt to inspect the damage. The rip in his skin started just below his back shoulder, cut across his ribs and reached nearly down to his waistband. Even in the darkness, I knew it was deep enough to expose his ribs bones.

“What do I do?” I cried, pressing his coat to his side to hold in the freely flowing blood.

Bryan looked at me. We both had tears in our eyes. “I don’t think there’s time to do anything,” he whispered with finality.

An agonizing noise tore out of me as I realized there was no way he could ever survive an injury this huge. The terror between us was so strong that I couldn’t tell where mine ended and Bryan’s began.

“You can’t die! I won’t let you!”

Bryan’s face was already pale and the blood was leaking through the jacket onto the ground.

“He’s dying?” Cane asked confused.

“I have…hemophilia.” he tried to explain, breathing in sharp heaves. He leaned back on his elbow, getting weaker.

“Oh my god!” came a shriek from behind me.

Aaron and Monica stood a few feet behind us, having followed our voices to our location. Monica’s eyes were as large as moons at the sight of the blood. She understood the seriousness of the situation. She dropped to her knees and began sobbing into her hands.

Aaron took off his coat and handed it to me. I dropped Bryan’s soaked jacket and replaced it with fresh, soft cotton, still warm from my brother’s body heat.

“I’m calling 911,” Aaron said taking out his phone.

“There’s no time!” Over the wound, my hands vibrated wildly with icy stabs of pain. I recognized the feeling from when I had detected the tumor on Lucy, only this time it was a hundred times more intense.

“Cady…n-nothing you can do,” Bryan choked out, dropping to lie on his back. “Just h-happy you’re...with me.”

“Don’t do that! Don’t you say good bye to me!”

My hands burned from the freezing pain. Instinctively, I threw up my mental shields and began to press back. That’s when I noticed warmth flooding down my arms into my hands and radiating out from my fingertips. I let my heated hands hover directly over the wound, focusing all my energy on willing it away. The trickle of blood began to slow to a stop, and I feared it meant the end, but Bryan was still conscious and breathing thick wheezy breaths. Determination and love swelled in my chest, as I concentrated on that open wound. Bryan sucked in a sharp gasp.

“W-what are you doing?” he asked. “It tingles...warm.”

I flexed my mind and concentrated harder. Heat vibrated out from my hands and the flesh began to knit itself back together before my eyes.

“Holy shit!” Cane exclaimed, watching as the wound closed into a jagged raised scar.

I fell backward and rested my head hit the ground. My breath heaved as if I’d just run a marathon. My head pounded with every beat of my heart.

Bryan sat up and ran his hands along the seam in his skin. “It’s healed. Doesn’t even hurt.”

Monica looked up, mascara running down her cheeks. “Wha…?” She crawled close enough to get a look, managing to avoid the sticky puddle that I was now half-lying in.

“Cady?” my brother said in confusion. He snapped his phone closed, his eyes darting between me and the closed wound.

“What did she do to you, man?” Cane asked. He tried to lean in to get a better look, but winced and gripped his leg.

I drew myself back to my knees, head swimming, and scooted over to inspect Cane’s knee. His pant leg was already ripped, but I tore the hole further to get a better look. The skin was scraped and embedded with pebbles and dirt, but not bleeding too badly. The knee was twisted and bent about 45 degrees in an impossible direction. It had to be broken. No way could a normal leg form an angle like that.

“There goes my college scholarships,” he muttered.

I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a poor attempt at humor or not, but he spoke the truth. Not only did Cane play football, but he also ran track and was the school star pitcher on the baseball team. Everyone assumed he would end up going to a Big Ten school on a sports scholarship. Some people even had