Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(93)

“Hurry,” Maggie whispered, rising to her feet and standing between two machines.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Ivy said through her teeth, hands flying over the machines. “Right,” she declared. “Put her on the platform.”

Clenching his jaw against the pain, forcing himself to take deep, soothing breaths, Luke did so. Selina’s hair spilled over the edge, her too-pale face still staring up at the ceiling. Lips white as death.

As death—because she was dead.

The thought clanged through him. He barely noticed Ivy flying through the network of machines, flipping switches and pumping levers. “A manual charge for the depleted ley line,” Ivy muttered. “Clever kitty.”

Because, as Ivy hauled herself into the lever in the machine, pumping it once, twice…those were white sparks beginning to flicker in the liquid pool below.

Ivy finished, darting to the next machine. “Red or green?”

“Green,” Luke said, struggling to remember words over the roaring in his head. “Green means go.”

Ivy cut him a look that said, Duh, and hit the green button.

The pool shuddered and groaned. Maggie let out a low whimper.

“Is she secure?” Ivy asked him, jerking her chin toward Selina and the platform as she gripped a toggle stick that no doubt controlled the levers to move it into the pool.

Luke peered down at the lifeless face, gently closing Selina’s eyes as a panel slid up to reveal the lower half of his face. He leaned in, brushing a kiss over her mouth before he murmured into her ear, “Please.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ivy said, and the platform swung away, Selina’s body jostling with it. Her body—her body—

In and out, deep and calming, he breathed through the panic, the feeling of the walls pushing in.

Ivy shifted the lever, and the platform lowered. Farther and farther into the depleted tank, the rusty sides encompassing her. Heading for the too-shallow sliver of liquid at the bottom.

Dark liquid seemed to rise up to meet her. Swallow her whole.

It covered her—barely.

“Now what?” Maggie breathed, coming to Ivy’s side as she hovered over the machine. Light flared, bright and blinding, from the water.

“I don’t know,” Ivy admitted.

But the liquid was dissolving, as if Selina had absorbed it, as if its usage, the charge of the ley line, evaporated it—

Bit by bit, her body appeared. The blood had been washed away, revealing the hole in the shoulder of her suit.

Ivy slammed a hand into the lever, raising the platform up as the last of the liquid vanished. Closer and closer, Selina came.

The skin beneath that hole in her suit…healed. Smooth.

The color had returned to her face.

But her heartbeat, her chest…

His helmet scanned her.

No life signs.

None.

The platform swung toward them, groaning as it stopped. Luke moved, hauling her off it, setting her down on the floor, his body numb and distant.

He couldn’t endure this again. He wouldn’t endure this again—

“Selina,” Maggie pleaded. “Selina.”

She did not move. Her eyes did not open.

Ivy reached for her wrist. “No pulse.”

The wounds had healed, but nothing else. His stomach churned and rose up his throat. Not again, not again, not again—

“She’s not breathing,” Maggie said, pushing past Ivy, kneeling at her sister’s side. “She needs help!”

Without waiting, Maggie rose up on her knees, interlaced her hands, and set them over Selina’s chest. Pumping once, twice—Luke lost count before she tipped back her sister’s head, blew a breath into her mouth, waited. Went back to pumping her chest. Her heart.

Nothing.

Ivy was pale. Unblinking as she stared down at Selina. At Maggie, performing CPR. Giving her new, unfaltering breaths to her sister.

It hadn’t worked. The pool—it hadn’t worked. And Selina…

Maggie sobbed through her teeth. “Wake up.” Her curls bounced with every frantic push of her hands on Selina’s chest. “Wake up.”

Luke didn’t quite feel his arms, his hands, as he reached for Maggie. “She’s g—”

“Don’t you say it!” Maggie shouted, knocking his hand away. She breathed again into Selina’s mouth.

Nothing.

And at Maggie’s shouted words, something snapped into place. Settled and cleared in his head. Luke said to the girl, “Keep going. Don’t stop.”

He scanned for the nearest cord to split open, to expose the wires and get a charge. He could restart her heart, risk the electrocution—

Maggie went back to pumping, weeping as she spoke. “You fought for me every day, every hour.” Over and over, her hands slammed into Selina’s chest. “You came home with those bruises, you stole and you fought, for me. And when they brought me to Peter and Hiroki’s house, when I saw how nice it was, how nice they were, when you never came back…I knew you’d done that for me, too. The police said you went to prison, but I didn’t believe them. And I knew—I knew when the money came in last month, the bills all paid…I knew it was you. Somehow. I knew it was you.”

Maggie blew another breath into Selina’s lifeless lungs.