Page 34 of Tangled Hearts

“There is a lot of blood,” Max said.

Fuck, this wasn’t good.

I looked around, seeing us on the empty road.

“How long do you need, for just a quick repair?” I asked.

“It’s not a quick repair,” she said softly.

“It has to be or if you do heal him, we might be caught and that makes everything we did for nothing,” I said, trying not to let her feel my anger.

We couldn’t lose Ryder; I don’t know if any of us would survive.

“So, what, we just let him die?” Oria snapped.

“Sol, we just have to be careful,” Max said.

“We don’t have time to be fucking careful,” she said, full of anguish.

“All you get is five minutes, Oria, and if we can, we’ll do another five,” Soren said, looking at me in the rear view.

“Fine, tell me when,” she said.

“Everyone keep a lookout,” I said, as we all looked around.

“Now, Blondie,” Soren said, throwing his shirt over her.

“Flos nitor et rutilans tua virtus luceat,” she whispered.

I hoped this wasn’t a giant mistake, but losing Ryder wasn’t an option.

11

SOREN

She healed him four times, but we got too close to a city and we couldn’t risk her healing him anymore. Ryder looked pale, his breathing was quick and he was sweating. We all had varying degrees of worry on our face, even Max.

We had to stop for gas but thankfully the gas station was empty and it was still dark. We moved Ryder to the back seat, laying his head on Oria’s lap after she and Max took a bathroom break. Max was in the back with Oria and I sat upfront with Gray.

“I don’t know where to go,” Gray admitted, as we left the gas station.

“We need some space between us and this bounty she’s put out. I think we should hit up the cabin in Utah or should we hit the coast? We are almost to Nevada.”

“The coast,” Max said. “The farther the better, but if we hit the coast it makes Taylin able to find us.”

“He’s not near the ocean. Laima ordered him to come to her,” Gray said. “I think we still have time, but it’s going to take us at least ten hours to get there.”

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Oria’s soft voice sounded tired. “But it's a risk and we have to get somewhere now. Ryder is very hot, he needs food and water.”

“Ok, let's head to the cabin in Utah,” I said, looking over at Ryder.

He looked in bad shape, the worst I had ever seen him. The drive was uneventful and it felt like the longest drive in the world, but it only took us an hour and half to get to the cabin.

The moment we parked, Gray got out and broke into the cabin and let us in. Max carried Ryder like he weighed nothing, and I was impressed. He set him down on the dusty sofa, it had been too long since we had been here. It wasn’t even a safe house, but at this point we just needed something so Oria could heal Ryder.

She immediately knelt next to him, but Max picked her up and set cushions down on the floor before he let her kneel back down. Oria looked up at him with a soft and hesitant expression.

She took off her necklace. “The blue ones are a shielding spell and the green ones should make people want to go away from the house. The incantation is?—”

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