I climb the stairs as quickly as I can. As I climb, I can feel the air thinning out ever so slightly, and although I still can’t get enough air to stop the burning in my lungs, I am getting slightly more than before. Enough to keep me moving.
I glance down at Sailor and my heart skips a beat when I see her. Her eyes are rolled back in their sockets, showing only the white. She has a gash on her forehead and blood is running down her face. She must have taken one hell of a fall when she succumbed to unconsciousness. Looking at the dust coating her, I think she must have rolled down a good number of stairs after she passed out. It’s just lucky she came to a stop where she did, because another couple minutes down there and we’d both be dead.
I push on faster, and the air is getting easier to breathe. I can see Sailor’s chest heaving as she gasps in lungfuls of air. Thank God she’s not dead. The thought of her down here alone, unable to breathe, probably not able to see, makes me wince. I should have been here to protect her. I shouldn’t have wasted time at the gate calling her and texting Aziza.
“Dammit, Sailor, you’re going to be the fucking death of me. Why couldn’t you just wait for me to come to you?” I say, my voice angry.
I’m not really angry at her. I’m angry at myself. I should have paid more attention when she promised not to do this. I should have known she would. I should have found a way to stop her. Hell, I would have locked her in the cabin if I had to.
I feel a welcome cool breeze on my face and I look up. I can see light shining up ahead, and I breathe a sigh of relief. We’re almost out of this place. I push myself faster, just wanting to get Sailor out into the fresh air. It’s a mistake. I feel better than I did in the depths where I found Sailor, but I’m still not fully back to normal and my legs start to shake as I push myself too hard, too fast.
I feel one of my knees giving out, and I start to stumble backwards. I try to catch myself, concentrating on the light in front of me. As I regain my footing, the light goes out and there’s a loud bang. Someone has slammed the gate at the top of the staircase closed. The gate’s slamming echoes down to me, and I feel the ground shake slightly. It throws me off balance again, and I clutch Sailor tightly with one arm, reaching out to steady myself with the other. I find nothing to grip and before I can regain my footing, I am falling backwards into darkness.
CHAPTER TWO: SHE HAD TO
I can feel hands touching me, dragging at me. And I can breathe again. I take in a deep lungful of air and try to sit up, but the hands on me push me back down. Everything hurts and I think the wetness I can feel on the back of my head must be blood. I gulp in another breath and then something icy cold washes over my face and I splutter.
“Was the water really necessary, Jinx? You can see he’s conscious,” I hear Ya-Ya say.
“Probably not, but it was fun,” Jinx replies.
Oh thank God. Aziza must have brought the others here after getting my text. I guess we didn’t fall so far that they couldn’t get to us. I open my eyes a crack, and the sunlight blinds me. I’m being lifted and I see the portal shining in front of me.
“Sailor?” I whisper, my parched throat hurting as I talk.
A wave of dizziness washes over me again.
“She’s okay,” Ya-Ya reassures me, putting a cool cloth on my forehead.
I relax at her words and let unconsciousness take me.
***
My eyes open and the first thing I register is that all my pain is gone. Mel must have worked her magic while I was unconscious. I sit up. I’m on my bed, and Sunday is sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. Sailor is nowhere in sight.
“Where’s Sailor?” I say, standing up.
“Good to see you too, Rye,” Sunday says sarcastically. “And you’re welcome by the way.”
“Fucking hell, Sunday, where is she?” I demand.
He wouldn’t be joking around if she was seriously hurt, but I need to hear him say it.
“Relax. She’s fine,” he says. “She’s at home.”
I sit back down on the edge of the bed.
“Why isn’t she here?” I ask.
I feel like I’m missing something important.
“How long have I been unconscious?” I demand.
“Not long. An hour or two. But Sailor’s dad called and she answered the call before we had the chance to get her healed. Her dad could tell something was wrong, so she told him she’d slipped taking the trash out and cut her head. She said we would take care of her, but obviously her dad insisted on coming out here. He took her to the hospital, and she got seven stitches in that cut above her eye. She’s been calling to check up on you. Her dad won’t let her out because he wants to keep an eye on her just in case she has a concussion.”
“Dammit. I can’t believe she went off like that,” I say, shaking my head.
“Really?” Sunday grins.
“Alright, yeah, I can believe it. But if anything had happened to her…”
“It didn’t,” Sunday says quickly. “The cut wasn’t very deep; even the human doctor thought it was nothing to worry about.”
“What the hell happened down there, Sunday?” I ask.
“I’m not entirely sure. When we found you, you were both unconscious about halfway down the stairs. The air was weird, so we dragged
