Page 46 of Abducting Sarah

I shook her by her shoulders. “Are you hurt?” I demanded, my heart slamming against my ribcage at the thought of anything happening to her.

She shook her head, her panic filled eyes on Jac. “No, I’m fine, but Jac—”

I shouted, “Get the door,” before I hoisted Jac up in my arms.

His eyes were lifeless, and his sheen was gone. Gram held the door open for us. I muttered to Jac, “Stay with me,” and ran ontoSovereign. “Ode!” I yelled for the doctor.

But the infirmary was empty. I laid Jac onto the examination table and Sarah ran in, as I rifled through Ode’s equipment on the hunt for anything to save my best friend.

Tears filled her eyes. “What do we do?”

“Go get Wave!” I ordered. “She should be onAllegiant!”

Father’s voice shouted outside for Ode, but it was Treg who came in. “Ode went into town for supplies.” Then he saw Jac’s prone body on the table, along with the bone knife still protruding from his chest. “Hells, who did this?”

“Predict, she stabbed him. I’m afraid to remove the—”

Treg pulled the bone knife out and a spurt of blood followed it.

“The fuck!” I shouted at him.

Treg’s eyes grew round with horror. “I don’t know—I panicked—I don’t know Ladrian anatomy—hells!”

Blood poured from Jac’s chest and onto the floor.

“Put pressure on the wound,” I said as I hunted for anything that could help stave off the flow of Jac’s life source.

I was relieved to see Sarah return with Wave, but as soon as the historian saw his blood, she fainted.

I told Sarah, “Help my father find Ode!”

She whirled back around and almost ran into the doctor on her way out of the infirmary.

Ode came barging in and yelled, “Out of the way, Treg!” as she pushed past him and replaced his gelatinous hands with her own to maintain pressure on the wound. Jac’s chest made a sucking sound during the exchange, as he breathed his own blood.

“Deacon, you stay, everyone else,out!” Ode ordered.

But Sarah wanted to stay. I saw desperation and worry in her eyes. Instead, she and Treg dragged Wave’s unconscious body from the doorway, allowing it to close.

I turned to Ode, my jaw clenched as I tried to maintain my own composure. “How can I help?”

“Keep pressure here,” she said, indicating where her own hands were. “I have a lot of work to do to save Jac.”

I held my hands exactly where hers had been and the seconds ticked by like days. My hands were covered in his blood up to my wrists. “If you die on me, I am never talking to you again.”

In response, Jac coughed blood before his body went completely slack. I felt no heartbeat and his blood stopped pouring.

“Ode!” I shouted in a panic.

“There is no need to yell, Deacon.” She turned around with a jet injector and pressed it to Jac’s temple. “I am right here, and my infirmary is not that big. All it will do is rattle me, and I am rattled enough right now.”

I nodded in understanding, then I felt a heartbeat beneath my hand again and the blood flowed freely once more. A good sign and a bad one. “How do we stop the bleeding?”

“That depends. Who stabbed him?”

“Predict. She meant to stab Sarah. I don’t know what’s going on, but why does that matter?”

Ode frowned as she searched her cabinets. “Because if it was some street fight, I wouldn’t be worried about poison on the blade. But conduits are educated and if we stop his body from purging a poison, that might be what kills him.”

---