Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(62)

I hold her head in my arms. “Let me help with your evacuation. Tell me what to do.”

“No, you . . . have a more difficult task. You must . . . leave quickly.” Her words come out as hoarse croaks, and I wonder if the glass has punctured her lung. “I didn’t . . . know you at first. I have . . . long expected you.”

“Me?”

“You must go to Aries . . . and warn the . . . Planetary Plenum.”

Talking has worn her out. I gently lay her head on a chair cushion to cradle it, then stumble to the door and look for the doctor. The place seems deserted. Walls are ripped apart, furniture lies scattered, and broken glass litters the floors. There’s another loud crash, and ceramic tiles rain from the ceiling.

“Mathias?” I call. “Hysan?” Where are they?

I can’t desert Moira. My glass-riddled arm burns as I stagger back through the crunching glass. I sit beside her as a new bolt of lightning bangs into the needle somewhere below. Smoke from the burning grain rises in columns, and the air’s really heating up. Soon the atmosphere will be too hot to breathe.

Moira’s trying to talk again, so I lean close. “I’ll speak to the other Guardians . . . as soon as I . . .”

“Save your breath.”

At that moment, a young man and woman barrel in with a wheeled gurney. I back away so they can tend to Moira’s wounds, and then I run to find my friends.

Hysan is lying in the antechamber with a deep gash in his thigh, and Mathias is leaning over him, pressing down on the wound with both hands to staunch the blood flow.

When he sees me coming, his face brightens. “Rho! They said you were unhurt and tending to Moira. I would’ve come for you, but Hysan would have bled out.”

I hide my wounded arm. “Don’t worry about me. What happened to Hysan?”

“Piece of metal ripped through his leg. We need a tourniquet.”

Dark blood soaks Hysan’s trouser leg. I kneel and stroke his damp forehead. “Equinox has life support,” he groans.

“Lie still. This is arterial bleeding.” Mathias presses down harder. “You won’t make it back unless we stop it.”

Hysan grits his teeth, so I spring to my feet and call for help.

“There’s no one,” breathes Hysan. “They’ve gone.”

Mathias presses the wound with all his might. “Find something like a cord, a sash, anything we can tie around his leg.” I start to unclasp my belt, but Mathias says, “Our belts are too thick. We need something thin and flexible enough to twist.”

I look around for something better, but the antechamber’s almost bare. Only one thing comes to mind. I kneel and slip Hysan’s ceremonial dagger from its sheath. Neither of the guys notices.

The air is so sizzling hot, every breath burns my throat. I turn my back and strip off my uniform tunic, peeling the fabric from my bleeding right arm. I’m bare to the waist, but that can’t matter right now. I clamp one end of the undamaged left sleeve in my teeth, then stretch the fabric tight and slice it off at the shoulder.

Turning back around, I hold up the sleeve to Mathias with my good arm and try using my injured one to cover my bra. “Will this work?”

Pain spasms through me, and my injured arm falls. Mathias looks up and does a double take. Hysan stares, too, and I say, “Take the damn sleeve.”

Blushing, Mathias averts his gaze. “I-I can’t lift my hands. You’ll have to do it.”

I turn around and yank my one-sleeved tunic back on, scraping the fabric over my wounded arm, regardless of the sting. Part of my bra is still showing, but I can’t fix that.

I kneel on the baking-hot floor, and Mathias gives me step-by-step instructions. “Tie the sleeve around his leg, about two inches above the wound.” As I slip the sleeve under Hysan’s skin, he stares up at me, wincing but still trying to smile.

I cut another small square from the hem of my tunic to make a pad. Pulling the sleeve ends together over the pad, I tie half a knot, lay the jeweled hilt of Hysan’s dagger across it, then do the rest of the knot. I twist the dagger until the sleeve-tourniquet tightens around Hysan’s leg just enough to stop the bleeding. Finally, I secure the frayed ends of the sleeve so the tourniquet won’t come loose.

“Good job,” says Mathias. “You’d make a good field medic.”

Hysan’s skin looks ashy. “H-Healer Rho.”

“We’ll have to carry him,” says Mathias. “Can you manage the weight?”

“Yes.” Playing the drums works out my arms, so I’m strong for someone my size. I grab Hysan’s ankles and lift him up.

The parking port is so full of smoke, we have to hunker low to breathe, and the heavy gravity doesn’t help. By a miracle, our hover-car is still parked where we left it.

With a few awkward bumps, we manage to get Hysan inside and stretched out on the floor. Everything’s hot to the touch, but when we seal the door and activate the car’s cooling system, we can breathe a little easier. “How do we program this thing to take us back to the spaceport?” asks Mathias.

Hysan tries to push himself up on one elbow, but he falls back. “The panel.” He points to a small metal square inset in the wall. “Color coded. Works by touch.”

I jump up and tap the square, scorching my finger. A grid of diodes lights up, glowing in dozens of different colors. “What next?”