Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(7)
The kiss feels like a thousand years, but it’s been seconds. I pull back to catch my breath, and he leans forward, like he can’t be apart from me. He kisses my cheek. My forehead. The tip of my nose.
“I said sit!” Coach shouts at a group of guys dancing in the aisles.
Maks starts to wrap his arms around my waist, but every part of me turns cold. Maks looks down at me, worry riddling his features. Our breath comes out in icy clouds.
There’s the crackle of static as the music cuts out. I stand to look around at what’s going on. Then the bus swerves, and my feet are no longer on the ground. I don’t have time to scream as I struggle to find something to hold on to. Maks’s hands grip me hard and pull me back.
“Are you—”
The screech of tires is followed by the warped crush of metal. Then, down is up. Windows shatter. Something hard breaks inside me, at first a dull, pulsing ache. The pain shoots from my belly button right to my heart, and I scream and scream as the bus spins in a fury of broken glass and bodies.
I shut my eyes, and warm liquid splatters across my face. When I open them, blood blurs my vision. I hear my name, distant as a memory, called out until there is nothing but piercing static.
There’s a final slam. My body so numb I can’t move. Can’t stay awake. But I know I’m alive because of my thundering heart. Maks and I lie face-to-face on our sides. I can’t feel a thing but see his hand resting on my arm, giving me a tiny shake.
“Stay awake,” he tells me, choking on the blood that bubbles from his mouth.
“Maks.” Pain slams into me all at once, concentrating on my abdomen, where a metal pole stabs straight through my torso and into his chest.
3
La Mama was lonely up in the sky, chasing after El Papa, night into day.
Her light so great it left him in shadow.
—The Creation of the Deos, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz “Look at me,” Maks tells me. His mouth is full of blood. “Lula.”
Maks’s ragged voice falls away amid the screams for help and the crackle of fire nearby. I try to reach for him, but a sharp pain stabs at my rotator cuff. Every part of me fights to hurt more than the rest, so I stay as still as possible. There is one thing I can do. I search for my power, burrowed within me protectively, and picture my sister’s face. Alex. I shout her name in the dark corners of my mind and hope that, wherever she is, she can sense me. She has to know I’m alive. She has to know I’m still here.
I move my arm again, screaming through the ache that follows. If I can’t heal myself, then I can at least heal Maks. But my arm won’t go any farther, and the edges of my vision darken with shadow. My throat burns, liquid choking my windpipe, the taste of a thousand coins in my mouth.
“Look at me,” Maks repeats.
When I do, it isn’t his face I see. It’s my own.
? ? ?
Voices. Familiar and strange. Angry and hopeful. Near and far.
“We can’t save them both.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. How are they both still alive?”
“He won’t be for much longer.”
“If we remove the boy, she might have a chance.”
“Get them on the gurney. Clear it out!”
“God dammit! I’m losing her.”
“What’s the count?”
“Forty-five dead.”
“Forty-six now.”
“Get me a crash cart!”
“Come on, Lula.”
“Lula, baby? It’s Mom. We’re all here.”
“Can you hear me? It’s Alex. I felt you. I felt you right here.”
“I’m here with you too.”
“You have to live, you hear me? You have to fight—I swear to gods, I will summon your spirit and kill you myself.”
“Miss, please, you need to leave.”
“Nurse, get them out of here.”
“I can’t. Let go of me! She’s my baby girl—”
“Maksim! Where is he? Where is my son?”
“Get them all out of here!”
“Stay alive.”
“Scalpel.”
“It’s not time yet, nena. I’m watching over you. I’ll always watch over you girls. You have a great destiny. All three of you.”
“She’s tachycardic.”
“Lula Mortiz. The Deos blessed you. The Deos will always bless you. Do not betray us.”
“She’s crashing.”
“Baby, it’s cold here.”
“Pressure’s rising! She’s back.”
“Stay with us, Lula. You’re stronger than this.”
“Would you like to do the honors and close?”
“Her eyelids are fluttering. She shouldn’t be awake yet.”
“Pushing one milligram of Midazolam.”
“Lula Mortiz. Do not betray the Deos.”
4
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
Sana sana, the body endures.
—Healing Canto, Book of Cantos
When I dream, I relive every moment of the crash. Maks is throwing himself around me like a shield as shattered glass rains down around us. The bus keeps spinning until there is silence. But when I stand over my own body lying on the bus ceiling, I know this is a more than a dream.