he can’t see me. I’m not here to talk to him. I hope he thinks I’m a demon rising from the dead.
Without pause, I’m dragged to the top of the building. I pass through a large carved-stone threshold into a high-ceilinged room with dormers that lead to the rooftop outside. Unoccupied, hovering cots line the walls in rows. The lighting is so dim that anyone could hide in the crevices of the room undetected. A low hum of a distant machine captures my attention. In the last hoverbed in the corner I find Trey. My nonexistent stone heart squeezes tight like a phantom limb.
Unconscious on a hovering cot, Trey is surrounded by odds and ends of wires and tubes. They appear to be some sort of monitoring system, checking his vital signs. A thick metal band clamps his brow and wraps around the circumference of his head. The band has readouts made of flashing lights.
I eliminate the space between us, if not the time, by crawling in bed beside him, cuddling my phantom form up to his real one. “I’m here,” I say the words, but I don’t know if he can hear me. Maybe they’re just thoughts.
From around the corner comes the thump of running feet. Astrid skitters into the room with a startled expression on her face. She reaches out and grasps the back of a chair to steady her tall frame. She bends a bit at the waist, trying to catch her breath. She clearly ran up the stairs outside to get here. Tossing her long black hair back over her shoulder, she straightens and glances behind her as Raspin tumbles into view. His large form fills the doorway. He sweeps the bangs of his copper-colored hair away from his face as he watches Astrid.
Giffen taps Raspin on the shoulder, getting his attention so that he can squeeze by his friend and enter the room. Giffen looks around in confusion and says, “I thought I felt—”
“Shh!” Astrid shushes him. She looks away from her two companions. “Kricket,” she whispers breathlessly, and as she says my name, it’s as if the sound emanates from within me even as she speaks. Her blue eyes—so like our mother’s—scan the room. Giffen watches her. He isn’t breathing heavily at all, even though I know he must’ve run up a ton of stairs to be here.
Astrid takes tentative steps to the middle of the room. “Kricket,” she says again as she turns in a circle. It’s a vibration in my mind—a thought. Her special talent of communicating nonverbally works even without my body being present.
Raspin extends his hand to Astrid protectively. “Astrid—”
“Hush!” she admonishes him with her finger to her lips. “She’s here! I know it.”
“How do you know?” Raspin asks while moving closer to Astrid. He peers warily into the dark corners of the room.
Astrid raises her hand and turns around again slowly, holding it out in front of her. She stops turning when she faces me again. She takes a step in my direction. “I feel her.”
From behind her, Giffen says, “I feel her too.”
I ignore them. “Trey,” I try to speak to him. I see him breathing, but his normally vibrant skin is pale and drawn.
Astrid’s head snaps in our direction. “It is you! I knew I felt you!” She turns to Raspin and says, “It’s her! She’s here!” Raspin’s tall Frankenstein-like frame inches closer to Astrid. He hovers indecisively, as if I pose a threat to her in my astral state. He clearly can’t hear me. Scratching his long, copper-colored head, he adopts a vacant stare, trying to puzzle out why he can’t see or hear me.
Astrid nears Trey and me. “He’s responding well,” she says gently. “He woke for a few moments earlier. He asked for you.”
“He did?” I hate the way that sounds—weak.
“Yes,” Astrid says, nodding.
“What’s wrong with him?” I demand.
“His brain swelled. We were able to decrease the inflammation, though.”
Fear infects me. “Will he be okay?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Does he know I’m . . . gone?”
“That you’ve been handed over to the Alameeda?”
“Yes.”
“That was never supposed to happen!” The words tumble out of her in a rush. “When I figured out what they did—”
“Does he know?”
She raises her hand in a helpless gesture toward Trey. “No. We haven’t told him yet. There hasn’t been time. He only just woke up and it was brief—I’m so sorry, Kricket! I didn’t—”
“Don’t! Don’t talk to me! Just go away. Leave us alone!” I warn.