Champion (Legend 3)

“Medics are on their way,” I tell him firmly, leaning close enough to press my lips against his cheek. “Hang on. Okay? Stay with me. Keep looking at me. You’ll be okay.”

“I don’t—think so,” Day stammers. He blinks rapidly, spilling tears down the sides of his face. They wet the tips of my fingers. “Eden—is he safe—?”

“He’s safe,” I whisper. “Your brother is safe and sound and you’ll get to see him very soon.”

Day starts to reply, but can’t. His skin looks so ashen. Please, no. I refuse to let myself think the worst, but it hangs over us like a black shadow. I feel the heaviness of death looming over my shoulder, his sightless eyes staring down into Day’s soul, waiting patiently to overwhelm his light.

“I don’t want—to go—” Day finally manages to say. “I don’t want—to leave you—Eden—”

I shush him by touching my lips to his trembling ones. “Nothing bad will ever happen to Eden,” I reply gently, desperate to keep him with me. “Stay focused, Day. You’re going to the hospital. They’re coming back for you; it won’t be long now.”

It won’t be long now.

Day just smiles at me, an expression so sad that it breaks through my numbness, and I begin to cry. Those bright blue eyes. Before me is the boy who has bandaged my wounds on the streets of Lake, who has guarded his family with every bone in his body, who has stayed by my side in spite of everything, the boy of light and laughter and life, of grief and fury and passion, the boy whose fate is intertwined with mine, forever and always.

“I love you,” he whispers. “Can you stay awhile?” He says something else, but his voice trails off so quietly that I can’t make out what it is. No. No. You can’t. His breathing grows shallower. I can tell that he is fighting to stay conscious, that with every passing second, his eyes have more and more trouble focusing on me. For a moment, Day tries to look at something behind me, but when I glance over my shoulder, there’s nothing there but open sky. I kiss him again and then lean my head against his.

“I love you,” I whisper over and over again. “Don’t go.” I close my eyes. My tears fall on his cheeks.

As I crouch there against him, feeling his life slowly ebb away, I’m consumed with grief and rage. I have never been a religious person. But right now, as I see medics in the distance hurrying toward us, I send a desperate prayer to some higher power. To what, I don’t know. But I hope that Someone, Anyone, hears me. That It’ll lift us both into Its arms and take pity on us. I throw this prayer into the sky with every shred of strength I have left.

Let him live.

Please don’t take him away from this world. Please don’t let him die here in my arms, not after everything we’ve been through together, not after You’ve taken so many others. Please, I beg You, let him live. I am willing to sacrifice anything to make this happen—I’m willing to do anything You ask. Maybe You’ll laugh at me for such a naïve promise, but I mean it in earnest, and I don’t care if it makes no sense or seems impossible. Let him live. Please. I can’t bear this a second time.

I look desperately around us, my vision blurred with tears, and everything is a smear of blood and smoke, light and ash, and all I can hear is screaming and gunfire and hatred, and I am so tired of the fighting, so frustrated, angry, helpless.

Tell me there is still good in the world. Tell me there is still hope for all of us.

Through an underwater veil, I feel hands on my arms pull me away from Day. I struggle stubbornly against them. Pain lances up my injured shoulder. Medics bend down over his body. His eyes are closed now, and I can’t see him breathing. Images of Metias’s body flash back to me. When the medics try again to pull me from Day, I shove them roughly away and scream. I scream for everything that has gone wrong. I scream for everything broken in our lives.

I THINK JUNE IS LEANING OVER ME, BUT I HAVE TROUBLE making out the details of her face. When I try too hard, the edges of my vision filter out into blinding white. The pain, at first excruciating, is nothing now. Memories fade in and out—memories of my first days frightened and alone on the streets, with my bleeding knee and hollow stomach; of young Tess, and then of John when he first learned that I was still alive; of my mother’s home, my father’s smile, of Eden as a baby. I remember the first time I met June on the streets. Her defiant stance, her fierce eyes. Then, gradually, I have trouble remembering anything.

I always knew, on some level, that I wouldn’t live long. It’s simply not written in my stars.

Something bright hovering behind June’s shoulder catches my attention. I turn my head as much as I can to see it. At first it looks like some glowing orb of light. As I keep staring, though, I realize that it’s my mother.

Mom, I whisper. I stand and take a step toward her. My feet feel so light.

My mother smiles at me. She looks young and healthy and whole, her hands no longer wrapped in bandages, her hair the color of wheat and snow. When I reach her, she gently cups my face between her smooth, uninjured palms. My heart stops beating; it fills with warmth and light and I want to stay here forever, locked in this moment. I falter in my steps. Mom catches me before I can fall, and we kneel there, together again. “My little lost boy,” she murmurs.

My voice comes out as a broken whisper. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hush, my baby.” I bow my head as she kneels over me. She kisses my forehead, and I am a child again, helpless and hopeful, bursting with love. Past the blurry, golden line of her arm, I can look down at my pale, broken body lying on the ground. There’s a girl crouched over me, her hands on my face, her long dark hair draped over her shoulder. She’s crying.