Page 78 of Abducting Sarah

I looked up to see if assistance was on the way and was shocked by what I saw. My android, Lanai Dea, had returned, and she was with Mock—the short Ladrian was atop her pink shining metal shoulders and swinging two bone maces on chains. Lanai Dea used a bone sword and skewered conduits as she outran them with mechanical speed. The pair tore through enemy troops.

Ode appeared next to me and immediately went to work on Sarah. She applied injection after injection, and the wound at her neck began to reknit and close. It was then that my hearing came back all at once.

“…don’t know where to get blood for her,” the doctor was saying.

“I don’t—Silence.” Seemingly out of nowhere, the idea came to me. “You said family is the best bet?”

Ode nodded. “Yes, but—”

I ran through the dwindling battlefield as fast as I could and shouted, “Silence!”

“Yes?” She came from the back.

“Come with me!” I grabbed her hand, and we ran together. Narrowly missing another one of Treg’s chases, we made it back to Sarah. “Use Silence for blood.”

Ode was confused. “But she’s not—”

“Sarah needs your blood, Silence,” I said, interrupting Ode. There was no time to discuss Silence’s complicated family connection to Sarah. “Can you—”

Without question, Silence lifted her sleeve up for Ode and offered her arm. “Whatever you need to save her. Do it.”

“What is going on?” the doctor asked me.

“No time to explain, just do it!” I demanded.

She pulled her tube out and set Sarah up for the transfusion. “Watch for conduits, Deacon. I’ve got this.”

But the rest of our side had the conduits on the run. Our enemies did not come for us—now, they were too busy trying to escape. I did not know what had turned the tide. I assumed it was the big explosion that had sent conduits flying into the air.

It was a miracle, but I could not celebrate until I knew my own miracle was going to survive.

CHAPTER 21

Sarah

Bright light.Should I go to it? They always say to go to the bright light, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave Jac and Deacon and my new friends. Can I haunt Halla, or will I have to haunt Earth? Please let me stay—

With a gasp of breath, my eyes fluttered open, and I needed a minute for them to adjust to the brightness overhead. Nothing I saw made any sense—the afterlife has machinery?

“She’s awake!” Deacon shouted joyously.

“Are you alright? How are you feeling? Don’t sit up!” Jac said at the other side of the exam table when I tried to move.

Suddenly, I remembered everything all at once. The screams. Rage shooting through me. The sight of Jac and Tiger on their knees by Mother Portend. The scent of so much blood and sweat. My own warmth, gushing down my body from my throat…

I lifted a hand to touch my neck, but Deacon gently grabbed my wrist before I could make contact. “No, stop, it’s healing.”

“I’m healing?” I rasped, hearing the awe in my own voice when I thought I’d died. “I’m alive?”

The pair smiled at each other in relief. Then, Jac nodded at me. “Yes, Sarah. You’re alive.”

“Oh.”

Deacon laughed. “Oh? Is that all?”

“Tiger and Drift?” I asked, more recollections flooding me of the battle as I tried to account for everyone. “What—who—died?”

“They’re both injured, but they’ll heal. Actually, we didn’t take any losses, outside of Kapok,” Deacon said sadly. “We managed to win this battle.”

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