Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(46)

I break through the icy water, gasping, and Jacob sputters beside me.

“Cass?” he gasps, blinking away the darkness, the dream. “What … I don’t … I was down there … and …”

“I’ve got you,” I say as we swim toward the riverbank. But the moment we climb out of the water and onto dry ground, the muddy earth vanishes beneath my fingers, replaced by smooth stone.

We’re back on the cold, dark bridge. The Bridge of Souls. Together, not quite alive, but out of that other river, and wherever it led.

Mist swirls around us, swallowing both ends of the bridge. My clothes are dry, but I’m still shivering as we get to our feet.

“We have to get out of here,” says Jacob.

“Not without Lara,” I snap, and he frowns at me and says, “Obviously. But how do we find her?”

I look around, but all I see is mist.

I grip Lara’s red backpack on my shoulder, and close my eyes, and breathe, and try to feel the thread that binds us together, the connection that runs between all in-betweeners. But right now, I can’t feel anything but the bridge. I open my eyes and squint, trying to figure out which way is back and which is forward. They both look the same, but one way feels like danger, and the other feels like home.

And that’s how I know which way to go.

I go against the current of my fear.

I go against the urge to flee.

Against the desire to live.

And toward the far side of the bridge.

At least I’m not alone. Jacob is with me, every step. But soon, I start to feel … tired. The cold I felt back in the river is still winding through my bones. My teeth begin to chatter. My legs start to ache. My head is swimming, the way it does when I stay in the Veil too long.

I want to lie down.

I want to close my eyes.

I stumble, but Jacob steadies me.

“Hey, Cass,” he says. “What’s the fifth rule of friendship?”

“Um,” I say, trying to focus. “Don’t let your friends get stolen by ghosts.”

“What about rule number eight?”

I exhale a cloud of pale white fog. “Don’t let your friend get hit by a car.”

“And number sixteen?”

I swallow, my voice getting stronger. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow.”

My head is starting to clear. And up ahead, the mist thins, just enough for me to see a girl with two dark braids in a pale gray shirt, a reddish light shining through her chest.

“Lara!” I call out, but my voice does the opposite of echoing. It drops away, inches from my face, swallowed up by the heavy quiet of this place.

Up ahead, Lara sways on her feet, stumbles, and falls.

“Lara,” I call as she pushes herself up and keeps walking.

“Lara!” I shout again, forcing myself forward. But she still can’t hear me. When I get close, I see her eyes are open, but glassy, unfocused, as if she’s in a dream.

“Lara, it’s me,” I say, but she doesn’t blink, doesn’t stop walking. “You have to wake up.”

“Um, Cass,” says Jacob, and I can tell by his voice that something else is wrong. I look at him, but he’s looking ahead, to the place where the mist swallows the bridge.

The space there is getting darker, the gray dissolving into black.

We’re almost to the end of the bridge. But Lara’s still walking, the red glow flickering inside her chest.

“Lara, stop,” I say, grabbing her arm.

But the moment my hand touches her skin, the world dissolves, the mist recoils, and all of a sudden I’m not on the bridge. I’m in a hospital room, surrounded by the slow beep of machines, the chemical-clean scent of sick places.

And there, lying in the middle of the narrow bed, is Lara.

She must be eight or nine, but she looks so small. Her tan skin is slick with sweat, her black hair matted to her face. Her breath comes out uneven, in little hitches and stutters, as if something is trapped inside her chest.

I open my mouth to say her name, but someone else says it instead.

“Lara.”

I look up.

A man and woman stand on the other side of the bed, holding on to each other, their faces hollow with fear. I’ve never met them, but they must be Lara’s parents. I see her written on their faces, her sharp eyes, her pointed chin.

A doctor stands at the foot of the bed, looking down at his sheet.

“We’re doing all we can,” he says. “Her heart is weak. Her fever isn’t breaking …”

Across the bed, the man and woman look so lost.

“Come outside,” says the doctor. “We need to talk.”

And in the bed, Lara’s eyelids flutter. Her mouth opens and closes, and she says, in little more than a whisper, “Please don’t go.”

But they don’t hear her.

The doctor leads her parents out into the hall. And Lara rolls over in her fevered sleep.

I can feel the heat wafting off her skin. A reddish glow in the air, just like the light inside her chest.

And I realize: This is her river.

This is the moment she almost died.

And that’s why we’re here. That’s what the Bridge of Souls is for. That’s what the Emissary wants. To change our fates. To set things right.