Deacon relayed the information he had and held on while police and EMTs got updates. Minutes dragged by so slowly they felt like hours.
From above us, the rumble of a helicopter filtered through all the sounds around me. Distant but approaching. Did that mean help was on the way? We needed a medic. We needed…my fingers grew numb. My heart was a trip hammer.
We needed a medic. Where were they?
Seconds ticked by. Minutes. We needed a medic. We needed—
Morrigan licked my face and kept licking. Not only that, but she was nudging me hard. Giving me puppy punches with her less than ladylike monster paws.
“Ow.” I blinked against the light. “What happened?”
“You with us, Stone?” I opened my eyes and found Molly kneeling beside me. “You feel the dog’s tongue? What’s she smell like?”
“She smells gross. What are you—” I swallowed. “Where’s Sebastian?”
“We’re still waiting. Maybe you could come away from the edge there, so when EMS gets here, they can rappel down and get him.”
“He’s so still.” My last glimpse of Sebastian before they pulled me back and put a blanket around my shoulders was bloodless and utterly vulnerable in contrast to the vast ocean and the ancient rock face.
I buried my face in Morrigan’s neck, reminding myself to notice things like the texture of her fur, the pain of my scraped palms, the grit of dirt beneath my knees.
“Help will be here any minute,” Molly assured me.
“Morrigan found him.” I rubbed my face against the dog’s. “Probably someone would have found him anyway, but she headed straight for him.”
“Aw…” Molly squeezed in for some dog kisses. “I knew I loved this dog.”
“Did anyone see Sebastian move? How long has he been there? He could be fighting hypothermia.”
“He was gone before I got up this morning.” She started to cry. “I went to call him, but my phone was already blowing up from the video. He must have gone crazy when he saw it. Do you think he—”
“It was foggy last night. I’m sure he wandered off-course and crashed somehow.” I wasn’t ready to believe anything else. “He was dazed after the accident. He was probably looking for help when he fell.”
“Sure.” She grabbed my hand. “That could have happened here easily. There was no light.”
“The fog was thick. No visibility.”
“Right. It was bad even when you walked me back.”
“I walked Sebastian home too. We had to use a flashlight and stay on the gravel or we’d have ended up lost then.”
“So it could just be he was burning off steam.” While we’d been talking, Deacon had been nearby, listening. I couldn’t read his face. Did he think Sebastian had crashed on purpose? Jumped on purpose?
Deacon had been unhappy with Sebastian from the beginning.
Whatever he thought happened, this definitely confirmed his bias.
“Hang on,” I murmured as if Sebastian could hear me. “Hang on, hang on, help is on the way.”
But the ledge was so small. Four feet wide, maybe. What if Sebastian startled when he woke up, rolled over, and fell the rest of the way?
The person I’d put in charge of the hybrids came along the pathway and looked on, like practically everyone else on this misbegotten production.
Were they trying to make me crazy?
“Hey. You. Alan.” I shouted. “Where are my hybrids? You’re supposed to be watching them.”
“I put them in their crates in the van.”
“You’re not supposed to go near them.”
“Sue me.” The little fucker shrugged. “They’re better off in their crates with all the emergency vehicles rolling into the clearing. There are people everywhere.”
I was forced to admit he might have been right about that.
“They’re fine, man.” I made a mental note to kill the asshole at a more convenient time. “Chill. I get that they’re special.”
The weather would eventually warm up.
I wouldn’t leave them locked in a car, even for a few minutes with the sun out, but just then, my naked beating heart seemed to have fallen out of my body, and it was running between all the things and people I cared about—Taggart, Ariel, Hades and Persephone, Morrigan, Molly, and of course Sebastian.
Still, pale Sebastian, who looked too much like paintings of his tortured namesake saint for my liking, thank you very much.
I saw the helicopter was a network news aircraft. Between that and the thunder of booted feet as the rescue team deployed a basket stretcher for Sebastian, my triggers were getting a real workout.
A medic rappelled down to stabilize Sebastian’s neck and treat his immediate needs before they strapped him in the basket and winched him the twelve or fifteen feet to safety.
He hadn’t regained consciousness. That wasn’t a good sign.
Up close, his face was a mass of bruises. Both bones in his left forearm had obviously been broken. His hair was matted with blood.
Morrigan whined as they went past. She tried to push between the EMS personnel to check on her friend and then looked back at me as if to say, help me out here.
“Leash your dog, asshole,” one of the first responders said. “It’s the goddamn law.”
“Sorry.” I called Morrigan to me where I cuddled her and whispered, “Don’t listen to the bad man, Morrigan. You’re such a good girl. You found our friend, Sebastian, didn’t you? You went right to him.”
“You riding with him, Molly?” I rose as the professionals cleared out and followed them at Molly’s side.
“Yes.”
“Will you keep me in the loop? I have to know how he’s doing. I—”
“Of course.” She put her arm around me. “I’ll call you as soon as I know where we’ll be, all right?”
“Tell him I’m here for him, okay? Anything he needs.”
“You can tell him yourself as soon as he can have visitors.”
“Right.” I couldn’t. Who’d watch the dogs? I had a vest and documents for Morrigan, but the hybrids…I couldn’t just leave them in a car while I went inside the hospital.
I stood in the clearing, numb with shock, feeling the same sense of disorientation I’d experienced after I was injured, when physical pain capsized me, left me upside down under water, looking at the sky from beneath the surface of the sea.
This time, my pain was emotional.
I felt like I’d—somehow—let Sebastian down.
Ahead of me, the ambulance tires spit dirt and sand as they pulled away. I wondered if I would ever see Sebastian Keye again, or if our late-night confidences and that glancing brush with his celebrity—or notoriety—was all I’d have to remember him by.
Morrigan nudged me to remind me that if I didn’t move forward, I’d die. My phone chimed and I found a new picture of baby Artemis in Ariel’s arms in my messages. I made the call, needing the grounding warmth of her voice and the grating rasp of my brother’s default sarcasm.
“Hello, honey. We were just thinking about you. How are—”
“I need help, Ari.”
There was silence on her end, then she said, “Tell me.”