Page 87 of Body of Echoes

It was hunched and hobbled forward like it was greatly wounded.

I took a measured step back, afraid it might lurch at me.

And upon breaking through the smoke, I recognized his dark hair, his broad shoulders, his tapered waist, and those long legs.

Fletcher.

And I stared at him in stark horror. He was limping—dragging his feet. His clothes were tattered and soaked in dark crimson liquid. He had a handpressed to his mid-torso, streams of blood leaking between his fingertips.

“R-R-Rip…”

CHAPTER

THIRTY

I looked closer, heard the rasp in Fletcher’s voice as he staggered toward me. Like he held his own gravity, my feet fled to him. “Fletch—” I wrapped him between my arms, desperate to find where he was hurting.

“Get us out of here,” he uttered in a broken croak, sweat pouring down his temples.

At his command, I put my hands on his face and let my magic race through my vines, but nothing was releasing from my fingers.

He was bleeding—dying. Panic filled my thoughts and my magic kept getting stuck at my nails.

“Hurry,” he spluttered, blood spilling off his lips.

“I’m trying!” I screeched.

Pulling everything from the depths of me forward, even my split, to just get a little scribble of something to help was futile. The pressure and blinding agony of seeing him like this was shoving it all back down.

“Please.” In the next strained breath, he collapsed.

“Fletcher!” I followed him down. I moved my hands on his body, trying over and over again to subdue my panic to unleash my magic.

Running over his back was more blood. Like something had gone straight through him.

“Go! Go without me. Go, Fletcher!”

“I can’t.” He coughed. “He took my magic.” After a wince, he said, “You can do this.”

I rolled him over, aqua-filled hand, pressing down on his wound. It was the only thing I could think of to save him. The only thing that calmed me enough to let my magic fly. If I knew Fletcher was going to be all right, then I could do this.

“Don’t,” he strained, enunciating the “T” to be sure I heard him clearly.

“I have to! I won’t let you die.”

“You’re too small.” He attempted to shove my hands away but failed. “It might open in your heart.”

Fright didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling. It was danger and terror and everything I’d ever been petrified of. “I’m too scared right now. I can’t figure out how to use my magic! This is all I can do, Fletcher!”

“Then run,” he urged, getting to knees then collapsing again.

“No!”

“Run,” Fletcher urged in the midst of a hard gulp.

A boom went off behind me, and Fletcher let out a yelp of anguish as his body jerked. His blood splattered on my cheek.

“Say goodbye to him, Ripley,” a deep voice bellowed.

---