“I never asked for your help anyway.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to meet Brian’s concerned eyes. Brian lowered his voice. “Don’t listen to Karen right now. She gets upset and says things she doesn’t mean. But she’s like a mother bear. She would fight off Vindrake with her bare hands if he threatened you in front of her.”
Jireo pressed his mouth shut and returned to pacing. Wesley’s mother isn’t my concern anyway. Where is Kaevin? Why hasn’t he come back?
Brian sat beside Karen on the couch. “You married me when I was a soldier, Karen. It’s about honor. It’s in my blood, and Wesley’s too.”
“But he’s just a boy,” she objected.
“Like I said, he’ll be seventeen in a few months, and that’s how old I was when I joined up. That’s how old I was when we fell in love.”
She shut her eyes tight, squeezing them against a flood of tears.
“Mom,” said Wesley, “I just want to help—to fight for good. But you heard what Raelene said. Vindrake may have a way to come here. We can’t just run away from danger, when he could bring evil right here to Montana.”
Jireo’s heart pounded in his ears and his chest tightened. He felt an intense pain in his head. “There’s something wrong—something’s happened to Kaevin.” He’s dying. I can feel it. I can almost see it.
“What is it? How do you know?” Beth asked. “Can you hear him?”
“I—I can see him. No, I can see Alora, in the snow. There’s blood and…”
“Snow?” cried Beth. “They must be here—they’re out in the snow somewhere.”
Jireo was the first one through the door. Outside, the bitter cold assaulted him, taking his breath away.
“Fan out,” said Brian. “Whistle if you find them.”
Jireo lumbered through the deep snow. He’d seen the house through Kaevin’s eyes. The vision had been from this direction. The bright moonlight illuminated something dark in the snow about a hundred yards from the house. He turned around to whistle and found Beth on his heels. She put her fingers to her mouth and let out a piercing shrill before passing him up.
He caught up with her as she reached the bodies, lying prone in the snow. So still. So much blood. A dark stain covered Alora’s neck and soaked into Kaevin’s sleeves and spilled into the snow. Without a word, Beth knelt beside them, reaching a tentative hand to Kaevin’s neck.
“Are they... are they alive?” His voice cracked.
“Kaevin’s got a pulse. Barely. So that means Alora’s alive too—for now.”
Jireo nodded, his mouth too dry to speak. He could somehow feel Kaevin’s life hanging by a thread.
Janice was the first to reach the scene, followed closely by Brian and Karen. “What do we need to do?”
“Get them warm. Keep them together. And get them to a hospital.” Beth’s voice was level and calm.
How can she speak with such authority, having only sixteen years?
“I think we should call… Mr. Whitford’s doctor friend… Dr. Sanders.” Wesley, the last to arrive at the scene, huffed out between heaving breaths. “He’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll get the car keys.” Karen hurried back toward the ranch house, wobbling with unwieldy steps in the deep snow.
Wesley and Jireo scooped the pair up from one side while Brian, Janice, and Beth supported the other, endeavoring to keep the unconscious couple in contact. With laborious effort they trekked through the snow, depositing their burdens in the back seat of the Suburban. En route to the hospital, Wesley’s father called Dr. Sanders on his home phone number, taken from an ancient Rolodex on Charles Whitford’s desk. “Dr. Sanders?” he said. “I’m Brian, a friend of Charles Whitford. We have a bit of an emergency with Alora and her friend Kaevin.”
The groan emanating from the phone was so loud everyone in the Suburban could hear it. “Please don’t say another word. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Where’s Charles?”
“He’s uhmm... he’s out of town.”
“Never mind. Forget I asked.”
*****
Jireo’s chest constricted as if three warriors were sitting on it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kaevin was dying. When Dr. Sanders emerged into the waiting room, Jireo was the first to reach him.