Exhale (38 page)

“No,” was all he could say. He clutched the lounge back and faced the still figure on the floor. Blood stained the carpet and her beautiful blond hair. “No.”

His lungs fought for air but couldn’t find any. Choking sobs were all he could muster. Hands shook with fear. Legs turned to pudding. He tripped over his own feet and landed beside her. He clawed the bricks and wood away. Beneath the debris lay the woman he loved.

The woman he had
murdered
.

“No!” his hollow voice cried. He fell over Zoe’s body, kissed her cooling lips. Sanity left him. Terrible sounds tumbled from his mouth as his entire frame wracked with spastic jolts.

He’d killed his beautiful Zoe. Dear God, she was dead.

A car engine revved in the drive, giving his frontal lobe a prod. He shrugged off his mournful fever and whipped his head left, just as Scarlet raced past and blew him a kiss.

“No!” he screamed after her. Tears poured down his face, mingling with spit and snot and desperation. He summoned Water to his hands and threw a wild, unfocused stream of it, missing Scarlet by a meter. He struggled to his feet and stumbled down the front steps. Tears clouding his aim, he let fly everything he had left, dousing the car and the yard with Water, but it was too late. Sinnder’s tires sprayed him with loose rocks, and the two Fyres sped away from the scene. Scarlet’s hot, cruel laughter hung in the air behind them.

Gavin fell face-first into a heap on the dirt. He rolled on the ground in a fetal position, naked, chilled to his soul. “Zoe…”

After lying there a long moment, he opened his eyes. His Air came back online and slapped some sense into him.
See if you can help her, you fucking arsehole. See if she’s still alive!
He swallowed hard, willed himself up, and ran inside, wiping his eyes with filthy fingers. He dropped beside her and sniffled.

She was dead. He knew it.

“Zed, can you hear me?” His forehead tightened to the point of pain. What had he done? What had he fucking done! He staved off another round of debilitating sobs with a deep pull of Air.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. God, there was so much blood. Pressing his fingers to a slick patch of red on her neck, he waited for a pulse.

Seconds passed.

There. A heartbeat. But it was so faint, he could barely keep track of it. Adrenaline tugged him up another rollercoaster hill. Christ, he had to get her to a hospital.

“Stay with me, Zed. I’m calling for help.” He hated to leave her, but he darted to the bedroom, grabbed the cell out of his jeans pocket and started to dial emergency services. No. Jack. He should call Jack instead. He’d know what to do. He hit speed dial while pulling on his pants.

“What’s up, Gavin?” Jack said.

“I need your help, mate. Something’s happened to Zoe. Can you come to my house?” His voice cracked as more tears threatened.

A moment’s pause.

“What do you mean, something ‘happened’? Is she all right?” Jack’s voice tightened and rose in pitch.

Gavin lost it. “I think I might have fucking killed her, mate.” That horrible sounding voice that didn’t belong to him took over again. He furiously rubbed at his hair. A steady stream of droplets fell from his eyes, splattering on dirty bare feet. He stumbled back to Zoe.

Tires squealed on the other end of the line.

“Okay, chill out, and tell me exactly what happened, man. Is she dead?” Except for a little quiver, he spoke with funeral director calm.

Gavin groaned at the sight of her body lying in that puddle of red, arms and legs twisted in the wrong directions.
You did this to her, you pathetic, sex-crazed asshole
. “I don’t fucking know!”

“Watch her chest, and feel her neck or wrist for a pulse.” The car engine whined in the background.

Gavin peeled the hair away from her cheeks and took her limp body into his arms. The phone dropped to the bloody carpet, his hold on reality along with it.

“Zed, it’s me. I’m so sorry. I…” He swept fingers over her cool skin. “Please don’t leave me.” He hugged her to his neck, holding his breath several seconds so he could hear hers. “Sing your whale song to me, Zed. I’ll know you’re still with me if you sing. Please…”

“Gavin, pick up the phone,” Jack’s voice called out through the speaker.

He closed his eyes and rocked her. His love.

Scrambling for
something
he could do to help her, he sifted through the Sentinel lessons Jack had given him.

Earth had healing powers. Yes, he’d start there. He flexed his muscles, pulled Earth reserves to his hands, and pushed the Element into her skin. Her aura flared with a green glow, hope along with it. Maybe…

But the light faded.

He tried again. This time he couldn’t even produce a spark within her.

A fresh stream of tears slid down his cheeks and fell on to hers. He squeezed her.
Wake up, Zed. My soul will die without yours.

“Gavin? Come on, man, talk to me—” Jack’s voice shook.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He and Zoe were meant to be together. Yileen had said so. He had promised.

Gavin kissed her forehead and hugged her. The thick odor of metallic, coagulating blood coaxed his stomach into rebellion. With shaking hands, he tugged her against his shoulder to take a look at the back of her head. The flow had stopped and left a sticky red mess all over his skin. Did lack of flow mean her heart wasn’t pumping anymore?

Panicking, he snatched up her wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing.

Oh, God, she stopped breathing too.

“Zed?” He shook her.

The remains of her barely noticeable aura whispered into silence.

“I’m sending someone over to help. She’ll be there momentarily,” Jack shouted through the phone. The line clicked.

Unless Jack’s friend was a miracle worker, there was no point. Zoe was dead.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Ten minutes later, heavy footsteps crunched their way over the gravel drive to Gavin’s still-open front door. Rubbing his burning cheek against Zoe’s cold one, he ignored whoever it was and continued rocking her.

“You need some help?” a cool female voice said.

He gazed up. She was tall and muscular with dark hair, a muted brown tee shirt, and black pants. Vivid emerald eyes studied him from behind a pair of spectacles. Her aura was almost entirely green. The matching glow and sudden itch all over his upper left arm confirmed she was an Erthe Elemental.

“You’re Jack’s friend?”

She squatted down to one knee. “Yes, Jet Hawthorne. May I touch her?” She nodded to Zoe.

In his ethereal post-traumatic state, he’d wiped the blood from her face with a wet rag. He couldn’t stand looking at all the red, knowing his hand had inadvertently executed the woman he loved. Cleaning up the back of her head had proven more difficult, thanks to the huge flap of skin hanging open like a gaping, hungry maw. The kitchen towel he’d pressed to the hole was drenched.

“Are you a doctor?” Why did he even ask? No breath, no pulse, cold body. No coming back from that.

“Veterinarian.” Jet laid a palm on Zoe’s face. She turned her head to the side and shut her eyes as if listening for something hard to hear. A moment later, she fixed her gaze on Gavin and said, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do. She’s gone.”

Her hand moved to Gavin’s bloodied shoulder. She squeezed it with a firm grip. Then she stood up and went toward the door.

Self-hatred burned the life out of his heart, and he coughed over another upwelling of deep blue despair. He sloughed bitter tears with a hard blink, then turned back to Zoe. “She’s Jack’s daughter.” He stroked her cool cheek. “I love her.”

Jet nodded slowly. “I understand. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

She continued on her way out, but stopped when she reached the threshold. An odd look of consternation creased her forehead. She bent and picked up something black from the floor.

“What’s this?” She dangled the necklace Yileen had given him the day he left for Uluru—the last time Gavin had seen his friend. The necklace was missing two of its five original gemstone carvings.

Gavin had broken open the lapis lazuli whale during a battle with the Fyre Elementals in the Dreaming. Zoe helped him unleash the Wæter Elemental Yileen had hidden inside the carving. The Elemental destroyed nearly forty Fyres that night. It also saved Zoe’s life afterward.

The red salamander gem was now gone. Sinnder had stolen the necklace when he and Gavin tussled outside Zoe’s house. Gavin assumed Sinnder had discovered a way to let the Fyre Elemental inside of it out.

Only three gems remained: the moonstone footprint, fluorite raven, and hematite elephant.

“It was a gift from my previous mentor.”

Sinnder must have tossed the necklace inside while he waited for Scarlet earlier. Fucking bastard had got what he wanted. It was no surprise he’d throw the necklace aside when he was done with it. All Fyres were the same.

“And what’s inside the elephant?” Jet said, her eyes calm but wider.

“An Erthe Elemental, I suppose. What good will it do now?”

Jet’s gaze snapped to his. Urgency danced across her now-animated face. “Let’s get her outside on the ground.”

She stamped over, pulled Zoe up with one hand, and slung her over a shoulder as if she weighed less than a toddler. Gavin’s jaw dropped. He scrambled up and followed her out the door.

Jet kicked off her shoes, laid Zoe on the dirt, and spread her arms and legs out in a star-shaped pattern. Gavin grabbed the necklace. How to release the Elemental within the elephant charm? With the whale, he used Zoe’s Water energy…

He pulled Earth from the ground through his bare feet and thrust it through his hands.

Nothing happened.

He scoped around for something heavy he could use to smash it. He grabbed the biggest rock he could lift, channeled more Earth to his muscles, and crashed it onto the elephant stone.

Still nothing. The damn thing was unbreakable.

“Mind if I try?” Jet opened her palm to him.

Gavin dropped the elephant into her hand. She positioned it between her forefinger and thumb, then pressed down gently. A loud crack snapped the air, and the stone shattered to tiny particles.

Dust and pebbles on the ground flew together like magnets, clumping and building into the shape of a man. The larger rocks laid down the skeletal formation. Finer bits filled in and smoothed into layers of muscle, tendon, and flesh. The finished Erthe Elemental stood tall and thick. Heavy arms curved with muscle stretched the short sleeves of his tee shirt to the tearing point. Light-skinned with empty brown eyes, the creature stared vacantly at Jet.

She stepped toward him. “One of two things will happen. You will help me save this woman’s life, or you’ll forfeit your life to me. If you help, you go free when we’re done. If not, I’ll take your Earth by force, and you will die.”

Straightforward, honest, and efficient. You couldn’t beat that.

The mute Elemental seemed to consider her proposition for a moment, then nodded. Gavin’s heart rate spiked with a fresh injection of unexpected hope.

“Excellent.” She stepped away from Zoe’s oddly arranged form, studied the body from every angle, and stroked her chin before continuing. “I can start her heart and lungs, but you have to keep them going while I reassemble the back of her skull.”

The Erthe nodded again and dropped to his knees beside Zoe. His big, meaty hands could do all sorts of physical damage, but Zoe was already dead. What the fuck could be worse?

Jet joined the big man and glanced over her shoulder at Gavin. “It’ll be best if you stay back and don’t interfere.”

He held his hands up and moved away but remained close enough to watch.

Without a hint of emotion, Jet tore Zoe’s shirt down the middle, pushed the cotton aside, then removed her bra. Seeing her lying there, exposed and motionless as a rock, when she had filled him so full of life, brought more tears to Gavin’s eyes. Please, just bring her back long enough for him to tell her he was sorry…

Jet rubbed her hands together, then lowered them to Zoe’s body. Her fingers melted into Zoe’s skin and continued onward into her chest. Jet’s arm twisted as she felt around inside, then it stilled. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

“Give me your hands,” she said to the Erthe.

He obliged. Keeping one hand in the body, she used the other to guide his fingers inside and made some slight adjustments. Zoe’s still form rolled with the movements, but showed no signs of life. The male Elemental made gentle blowing sounds with his mouth, almost like those breathing exercises for women in labor, but softer.

Zoe’s chest rose. Then fell. Then rose again.

Pulse racing, Gavin leaned forward for a closer look. No coughing or twitching or any other sign of activity. Damn it. This was no different than a ventilator keeping a terminally ill loved one alive. It was forced, not natural. His heart tanked.

Jet’s hand slipped out of the body, blood-free. She crawled around to Zoe’s head and gently rolled it to the side to get a look at the back. Smoothing the gelatinized, red-stained hair, Jet squinted at the gaping wound. With an expression of intense concentration, she pulled the same routine as before—sticking fingers inside and shuffling things around.

Once again, there was nothing for Gavin to do but sit back and let shit happen in the wake of his monumental, murderous fuck-up.

* * * *

There was no bright light. No welcoming committee from loved ones who’d moved on before her. No heavenly choir. For Zoe, death was a familiar experience. It landed her square in the middle of the Dreaming.

The place was the same, but
she
was different. Sluggish. Unmotivated.

Sad.

She held up a hand. It glowed with silvery light. The rest of her did too.

She blinked in slow motion.

People wandered nearby, but she remained detached from them, separated by a thin, pulsing veil declaring, ‘None shall pass.’ A grim sense of finality suffocated her.

A wash of red painted the dreamscape on the other side of that delicate boundary. If she still had a heart, it would have pounded. If she felt emotion anymore, she’d have trembled with fear. If she had a solid body, she would have run.