“We really have to stop meeting like this.”
I twisted around and found myself grinning. “Robert. You just couldn’t wait to hold my hand again, huh?”
His icy blue eyes glittered as he laughed at me. “Your friend is dying.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed.”
“The energy the others have given her is not enough. It will only keep her alive for a while—it will not revive her. But you can pull her out, like you did for yourself.” Robert slogged through the swamp, his black pants and shirt clinging to his frame. He stopped next to her feet. “You will need to give her more energy than the others did. I’ll keep Crash from pulling you off her.”
I looked at him and held out a hand. “You are a good friend, Robert. I don’t know why you chose to talk to me on the first night we met, but I’m glad for it.”
He looked down at my hand and then took it in his own, linking our fingers for just a moment before he released me. “One day I’ll tell you why. And to be clear, I don’t think either of them is good enough for you.”
I grinned as I stepped beside Suzy. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I took a breath. “So I just give her my energy?”
“Yes, and you have to pull her through this swamp to the land of the living. This swamp is a place of the dead.” Robert’s voice petered out as he faded from view. Well, that explained why he could stand here with me.
I felt a dip in my own energy, enough so that I wanted to lie down beside her and take a nap, but I took a deep breath, then said, “Okay, Suze, time to go.”
I grabbed her hand and tugged on her. She didn’t move. “Shit. Please don’t tell me I have to carry you.”
I tried pushing her off the lily pads, which didn’t work, and yanking her to the side, which was equally ineffective. “Suzy. You’re lucky I love you, girl.”
A pulse of energy blasted between us, and she opened her eyes, turned her head, and looked at me. “Hey.”
“Okay, that was weird, but let’s go.” I held my hand out to her and she took it. I locked my fingers around her hand and started to walk forward. Ahead of us was a doorway that looked suspiciously like the doorway to her bedroom. She staggered to a stop behind me, and it was like tugging on Artax in the middle of the swamps of sadness in The Neverending Story.
Not an analogy I appreciated in that moment. The horse died.
“I don’t think I can make it,” Suzy whispered. “My feet are stuck.”
I took both her hands and tugged harder. Nothing. “Let’s try piggyback. I can’t carry you in a fireman hold like Feish can.”
I sloshed toward her and turned. Her arms went around my neck and I was able to get her feet out of the water.
But the minute I did, the swamp changed, the water around my legs shifting from lukewarm to so cold that my skin felt as though it were being jammed with a million little needles. “Duck, that’s cold!”
Yup, still managing autocorrect.
Suzy clung to my back as I stumbled forward through the water. With each step, the door drew closer, yet it still seemed so far away. I was breathing hard, and I heard yelling in the distance on the other side of the closed door.
“She’s draining her!” Crash roared, and Robert yelled right back, “FRIENDS!”
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Hold him off, Robert, we’re almost there!” The idea of the skeleton fighting off a man of Crash’s size and power was too much for my quirky sense of humor.
The doorframe was within reach. I grabbed the knob, turned it and yanked the door open. I stumbled to my knees, throwing Suzy forward off my back and through the doorway.
“She did it,” Crash said in wonder.
Suzy groaned. “She’s still in there.”
I struggled to stand, using the doorframe to pull me to my feet as water sloshed over me. A big splash behind me. I dared to look over my shoulder to see something reptilian looking at me with unblinking, bright yellow eyes. Its mottled skin was a color that would have camouflaged it anywhere in the jungle. Ears that should not have been on a reptile stuck out the sides of its head, giving it a goofy look even though the rest of it was terrifyingly awful.
“Just leaving.” I took a step but was unable to look away from those canny eyes. “So you stay there, okay?” Because that’s the way to make monsters behave—you offer a rational argument and hope for the best.
Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
The reptile shot forward through the water, and I screamed as I fell through the doorway.
Something tangled around my arms. Eyes scrunched closed, I bucked and kicked, my body running on fumes but empowered by my fierce urge to live.
“You’re back, you’re back.” Crash’s voice rumbled through me, and I immediately eased off. I opened one eye and peeked around. Suzy was sitting against the far wall, Eric holding her carefully while Feish stood with one hand on Suzy’s shoulder, and they were all watching me with wide eyes.
“I didn’t die again, did I?” I whispered.
Crash’s arms tightened around me. “No, you did not.”
A sigh slid out of me. “Okay. Well, that’s a step up from last time. There was a giant yellow-eyed snake in there.”
Crash stiffened. “What?”
“A snake. Or at least it looked like one. It was huge with scales in all different greens and big buttery eyes,” I said. “He almost had me at the end.”
We all sat there on the sopping wet floor, the swamp from Suzy’s room leaking a little, but mostly self-contained. The swamp had not left. Minutes ticked by and no one said anything. Maybe it was here for good?
“Anyone else want tea?” I said, and Eric startled like I’d shot off a gun into his ass cheek. “I mean, it’s obvious no one’s going to sleep well after this.” Despite the bone-deep, aching fatigue that tugged at me, I didn’t think I could close my eyes any time soon.
“Tea would be good,” Feish said.
I pointed a finger at her. “Not that tea.”
Her wide mouth curled into a smile. “Oh fine. Regular tea then.”
There was no chance she’d have given us the tea that turned your bowels into liquid fire, but it was just the joke needed to break the quiet.
Eric and Suzy stood carefully and he helped her down the stairs, not taking a hand off her once. He was as wobbly as she appeared to be.
I didn’t try to move out of Crash’s arms. “Corb kissed me tonight.”
“Used his magic, did he?” Crash’s chuckle vibrated through his chest, against my back. “He’s pulling out the big guns. I’m not surprised.”
I tipped my head back and looked at him. “How did you know that?”
“You’ve never said anything about him kissing you before, and I know he has. Which tells me he’s amped up his game.” Crash let out a big breath, not a sigh so much as exhaustion flowing through him. “If Robert hadn’t stopped me, Suzy wouldn’t have survived.”
“Where is Robert?”
“I threw him out the window,” Crash said.
A cool breeze from across the landing shifted my attention to the upper windows. One of them had shattered. We’d have to fix that in the morning. “Damn it.”