alive until they could get to a field hospital or the doctors could reach them.
If her heart had stopped, he could pull apart the wires on one of the machines, somehow get a safe-enough current going, and maybe—
The door blew open, and Luke whirled, hand going to his remaining batarang. But it was Ivy. Panting, bloody, but—alive. No sign of Rictus.
Her attention went right to Selina. Then she noticed Maggie, who lifted her head, still unfazed by the company she now kept.
But Luke watched the realization dawn on Ivy as she behld Maggie’s emerald eyes, her now-healthy limbs.
As she understood who Maggie was. What all of this had been for.
Ivy stalked forward as if in a daze. “A Lazarus Pit,” she whispered, scanning the machinery, the pool, and the few feet of liquid remaining at its bottom.
Ivy stopped at his side. Luke breathed, the only explanation he could muster against the panic crushing his chest, “Maggie was dying. If we can get the wires on the machines exposed, we could restart her heart—”
Maggie faced them. The machines and the pool. “Use it to save her.”
Luke studied the pool at the same time Ivy did. Ivy said, “There’s not enough liquid in there.”
“Try it,” Luke said roughly.
“Please,” Maggie begged.
The same word her sister had uttered. Her broken plea for mercy—to save the person Selina loved more than her life. Her very soul, it seemed.
Ivy glanced to the pool again, to the machines. With the lingering chemicals and toxins, the natural charge of the ley line…Ivy’s eyes were darting, as if calculating it, too.
“It’s a slim chance,” Ivy said, but already strode to the machines.
“Take it,” Luke said, Maggie backing away on her hands and knees as he scooped Selina’s lifeless body into his arms. He’d have tried it himself, but his mind was spinning, his body barking in pain, every movement an effort—
Picking her up, the blood on her…He’d done this before. That day. He’d carried a dead friend—
He breathed and breathed, working through the memories, the way his body clammed up against him. Ivy flicked a few switches, studying and assessing.
“Hurry,” Maggie whispered, rising to her feet and standing between two machines.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Ivy said through her teeth, hands flying over the machines. “Right,” she declared. “Put her on the platform.”
Clenching his jaw against the pain, forcing himself to take deep, soothing breaths, Luke did so. Selina’s hair spilled over the edge, her too-pale face still staring up at the ceiling. Lips white as death.
As death—because she was dead.
The thought clanged through him. He barely noticed Ivy flying through the network of machines, flipping switches and pumping levers. “A manual charge for the depleted ley line,” Ivy muttered. “Clever kitty.”
Because, as Ivy hauled herself into the lever in the machine, pumping it once, twice…those were white sparks beginning to flicker in the liquid pool below.
Ivy finished, darting to the next machine. “Red or green?”
“Green,” Luke said, struggling to remember words over the roaring in his head. “Green means go.”
Ivy cut him a look that said, Duh, and hit the green button.
The pool shuddered and groaned. Maggie let out a low whimper.
“Is she secure?” Ivy asked him, jerking her chin toward Selina and the platform as she gripped a toggle stick that no doubt controlled the levers to move it into the pool.
Luke peered down at the lifeless face, gently closing Selina’s eyes as a panel slid up to reveal the lower half of his face. He leaned in, brushing a kiss over her mouth before he murmured into her ear, “Please.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ivy said, and the platform swung away, Selina’s body jostling with it. Her body—her body—
In and out, deep and calming, he breathed through the panic, the feeling of the walls pushing in.
Ivy shifted the lever, and the platform lowered. Farther and farther into the depleted tank, the rusty sides encompassing her. Heading for the too-shallow sliver of liquid at the bottom.
Dark liquid seemed to rise up to meet her. Swallow her whole.
It covered her—barely.
“Now what?” Maggie breathed, coming to Ivy’s side as she hovered over the machine. Light flared, bright and blinding, from the water.
“I don’t know,” Ivy admitted.
But the liquid was dissolving, as if Selina had absorbed it, as if its usage, the charge of the ley line, evaporated it—
Bit by bit, her body appeared. The blood had been washed away, revealing the hole in the shoulder of her suit.