Warwick chokes. I freeze and whip my head toward him. His eyes are open now, but they’re roving all around, unseeing. He’s choking on each breath, and his face is losing colour as I watch, scrabbling at his throat.
He can’t breathe.
“No, no,” I murmur, a cold feeling sweeping through me. “Warwick, stay with me, okay? Calm down and stay with me.”
But it didn’t matter. For some reason, he simply could not get the necessary air. Terror runs through me. Have I done this to him? Did my antidote make it worse, and start to kill him even quicker?
I throw myself over him and place my hand at the pulse on his neck. It’s fluttering frantically and abnormally, rather than settling as I had hoped. He’s going to die.
Desperate, I brace myself on his sternum and, before I can even consider the wisdom of it, I press down once, twice, three times. Then I draw back, tilt his head back, and breathe into his mouth.
Warwick needs air? Fine, he can take it from me. I’ve got plenty. I can spare him some.
“Come on, Warwick, we can do this,” I say through gritted teeth.
Over and over again, I pump his chest and then breathe for him, feeling the way that his struggles weaken beneath me. It seems to go on forever, but it can’t have been more than a few minutes, the seconds dragging on. It’s futile, a voice in the back of my mind tries to convince me. He’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, his heartbeat slowing with every breath.
It isn’t until he goes still that I stop. I reach up with a trembling hand and feel for his pulse. There’s nothing there.
The antidote didn’t work. He was gone.
I don’t know how long I sat there. The Supernaturals didn’t stir. Dane remained slumped on the ground some distance away. Warwick remained still beside me, even as the last bit of light disappears and washes the field in darkness, lit only by the half-moon overhead.
This is so much worse than David, I reflect dully. David might have disappeared without a trace, but at least I never had to see his body, at least I never had to face the fact that I failed to save him.
It takes me a moment, feeling blank and tired, wishing that I could just close my eyes and never wake up, before I realise. I’m oddly warm, despite the cool night air blowing around me. I frown slightly.
Not just warm. Hot. As though I’m sitting right next to a fire.
Wait… fire?
I scramble back before I’m consciously aware of doing so. Just in time, too; I’m only just out of range when Warwick’s body suddenly bursts into flame.
I stare, stunned. What was happening?
I watch as the fire burns for a moment, and then fades as quickly as it came, Warwick’s clothes still burning off him. Once the fire is out completely, Warwick gasps and surges upward, coughing harshly as ash falls from his mouth. The cut from Dane on his shoulder is completely gone.
“What the… what the hell?” Warwick finally wheezes out, looking at his own hands, as stunned to see himself apparently alive and well as I am.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to think about how it happened. Warwick had been gone, and my whole world had fallen apart without him. Now he’s sitting up, staring around him. He’s alive.
He’s back with me.
I throw myself forward and Warwick turns in time to catch me as I slump forward into his arms, my body shaking as the tears finally come. He’s here, he’s safe, he’s alive.
As I clutch his arms, being held close as we both come to terms with what just happened, I know that I never want to let him go. Warwick is it for me, now. Losing him had been the worst thing in the world, and I never want to go through that again.
I never want to be apart from him, ever.
Warwick
I don’t think any of us slept last night. The sun dawns, and finds the three of us sitting around our cramped, dining table, cooling cups of untouched coffee before us. I can see the dark shadows beneath Dane’s and Luciana’s eyes, and I doubt I look any better.
Not a word had been spoken between us for an hour, when Dane and I arrived back to find Luciana in the kitchen. She had asked us what had happened to the Supernaturals, and we simply told her that they had been dealt with. She didn’t ask for details, and we didn’t give them. Some things, after all, were better left unsaid.
As the first rays of sun sneak in through the window, Dane finally stirs.
“More coffee?” he asks, his voice startling loud in the silence.
“Yeah, thanks,” I say, pushing my cup away.
Luciana just nods silently. Dane carefully grips the handles of each mug and carries them to the kitchen. When he turns the tap in the sink on, the world somehow feels a little bit more normal, as though the strange atmosphere that had fallen over the house was starting to dissipate. It makes me rouse from my hunched over position in order to stretch.
No matter how many times I think about it, the events of the last few hours just don't seem entirely real. Between Dane being kidnapped, and waking up to Luciana weeping in my arms, nothing seemed to make sense anymore.
Over the last few hours of thought, however, I’ve managed to piece together a few pieces of information.
First, Luciana’s antidote seems to have worked. Rather than purging the poison instantly, however, it worked after I had already died, forcing me into regeneration. It wasn’t what Luciana had wanted but, honestly, it was better than I had ever expected.
Secondly, Dane seems to have forced himself into his own regeneration without me laying a hand on him, much to my relief. His was the scream that I had heard as I blacked out. We still don’t know how it happened.
And, thirdly, the Supernaturals had been taken out without a single weapon, they’re guns lying beside them. When we asked, Luciana had quietly told us that she had done it, but didn’t know how, just that she had pushed the air and thrown them back.
So many revelations and too little time to digest them. But the world was moving on, and it was time for us to do the same.
“How are you guys feeling?” I ask.
It’s a broad question that opens us up to a lot of discussion, something that I’m not sure we’re ready for. But ignoring this isn’t going to work.
“Tired,” Dane says from the sink, filling the kettle and setting it to boil. Then he sighs and leans against the table, eyeing us both. “A bit ashamed. I can’t believe I let them get me so easy.”
I grimace. Hearing Dane blame himself sounded as wrong as hearing it from Luciana yesterday.
“Don’t,” I say instantly. “We all know what happened. I was reckless and I led them right to our door. We didn’t even know they were coming.”
“It wasn’t just your fault, Warwick,” Dane says, a humourless smile curling at his lips. “I got complacent, too. We grew comfortable and we weren’t as careful as we should have been.”
“Does that mean you’ll have to leave?” Luciana asks, looking between us.
Dane and I glanced at one another. We hadn’t spoken about it, yet. Normally, the answer would be a straight yes. But we had spent the last several years building our lives here. It wouldn’t be that easy just to abandon it all.
“Not yet,” Dane finally answers for us. “The Supernaturals tend to work in isolated groups. Just because one lot found us, it doesn’t mean they all know. Actually, the fact that only four of them were here says a lot; if more of them knew, we would have been overwhelmed by them.”