“Jenny wasn't screaming or crying anymore, just . . . hiccuping,” I said miserably. “Mark had Johnny by the throat, but his hands were as slack as his face, and Johnny just looked glazed and stupid, like he'd finally found a situation he wasn't smart enough to understand,” I added so softly I'm surprised she could hear me. “We were all looking at Tyr and he looked so . . . sad, that, like I said, we all just knew. I remember reaching out to him like that one stupid gesture would make it all better, but I knew we were all about to die.”

Before I could retreat too deeply into myself to stop the memory from hurting, the doc's voice pulled me back. “But obviously you didn't die,” she observed.

For a moment I hated her for that.

“Obviously!” I snapped. “I felt Tyr grab my hand, and it felt like my arm was being wrenched out of its socket as he pulled me to him and jumped up on his horse at almost the same time.” I rotated my shoulder just to see if it was still stiff. “I did sprain it pretty bad, and before the Douglas Institute offered to take over my . . . care, my mother kept trying to get me to sue for my injury, but that . . . that just didn't seem right.”

The doc nodded her agreement.

“It gets . . . confusing, after that,” I admitted. “You know how they say 'It all happened so fast?'”

She nodded again.

“'They' have no idea!” I swore. “You hear stories about how fast Tyr's horse is, but . . . it's just unbelievable; there was a moment when I couldn't breathe again because we were going that fast!”

Knowing I wasn't doing a good job of explaining this, I tried again. “Not a 'take your breath away' fast, but 'moving through the air too fast to breathe it' fast. Everything was a blur of gray, green, brown, and blue, but after a heartbeat I was in sunlight again, real sunlight, the most beautiful and pure sunlight I've ever seen.” I reminded myself I was being brave before adding, “and then a different kind of light took that, and everything else, away from me.”

Page 10

Previous ~ Index ~ Next