Betrayed

'Stevie Rae, open your eyes, honey,' I said softly.

With a nasty, gurgling breath, Stevie Rae's eyelids fluttered open. The whites of her eyes were totally red and more pink tears leaked down her colorless cheeks, but her eyes caught on the can­dle, and they held.

'I call the element earth to us now.' My voice strengthened and got louder as I spoke. 'And I ask that earth be with this very special fledgling, Stevie Rae Johnson, who has been so newly gifted with an affinity for the element. Earth is our home—our provider—and earth is where we will all someday return. Tonight I ask that earth hold and comfort Stevie Rae, and make her jour­ney home a peaceful one.'

With a rush of fragrant air we were suddenly enveloped in the scents and sounds of an orchard. I smelled apples and hay, and heard birds chirping and bees buzzing.

Stevie Rae's reddened lips tilted up. Her eyes never left the green candle, but she whispered, 'I'm not scared anymore, Z.'

Then I heard the front door burst open and Neferet was there crouched beside me. She started to move Damien and the Twins out of the way and take Stevie Rae from my arms.

My voice blasted the room with its power, and I saw even Neferet jerk back with surprise. 'No! We stay with her. She needs her element and she needs us.'

'Very well,' Neferet said. 'It's very nearly over anyway. Help me get her to drink this so that her passing will be painless.'

I was going to take the vial filled with milky liquid from her when Stevie Rae spoke with surprising clearness. 'I don't need it. Since earth came there hasn't been any pain.'

'Of course there hasn't been, child.' Neferet touched Stevie Rae's blood-smeared cheek and I felt her body relax and stop trembling completely. Then the High Priestess looked up. 'Help Zoey lift her onto the stretcher. Keep them together. Let's get her to the infirmary.' Neferet told me.

I nodded. Strong hands gripped Stevie Rae and me, and in moments I was placed on the stretcher with Stevie Rae still in my arms. Surrounded by Damien, Shaunee, Erin, and Erik, we were carried swiftly out into the night. Later, I remembered so many weird things about the short trip from the rec hall to the infirmary—how it was snowing heavily, but that it seemed none of the flakes touched us. And it seemed abnormally quiet, as if the earth were holding itself still because it was already mourning. I kept whispering to Stevie Rae, telling her that everything was okay, and that there was nothing to be scared of. I remember her leaning forward and vomiting blood over the side of the stretcher and how the scarlet drops looked against the clean white of the new-fallen snow.

Then we were inside the infirmary, and lifted off the stretcher onto a bed. Neferet gestured for my friends to move close to us. Damien crawled up beside Stevie Rae. He was still holding the lit green candle, and he lifted it so that if she opened her eyes again, Stevie Rae would see it. I drew a deep breath. The air around us was still filled with apple blossoms and birdsong.

Then Stevie Rae opened her eyes. She blinked a couple times, looking confused, then she looked up at me and smiled.

'Would you tell my mamma and daddy that I love them?' I could understand her, but she sounded weak, and her voice was filled with a terrible wetness.

'Of course I will,' I said quickly.

'And do something else for me?'

'Anything.'

'You don't really have a mamma or a daddy, so would you tell my mamma that you're their daughter now? I think I'd worry about them less if I know y'all have each other.'

Tears were pouring down my cheeks and I had to take several sobbing breaths before I could answer her. 'Don't worry about anything. I'll tell them.'

Her eyes fluttered and she smiled again. 'Good. Mamma will make chocolate chip cookies for you.' With obvious effort, she opened her eyes again and looked around at Damien, Shaunee, and Erin. 'Y'all stick with Zoey. Don't let anything pull you apart.'

'Don't worry,' Damien whispered through his tears.

'We'll take care of her for you,' Shaunee managed to say. Erin was clutching Shaunee's hand and crying hard, but she nodded in agreement and smiled at Stevie Rae.

'Good,' Stevie Rae said. Then she closed her eyes. 'Z, I think I'm gonna sleep for a while now, 'kay?'

'Okay, honey,' I said.

Her eyelids lifted once more and she looked up at me. 'Will you stay with me?'

I hugged her closer. 'I'm not going anywhere. You just rest. We'll all be right here with you.'

''Kay ...' she said softly.

Stevie Rae shut her eyes. She took a few more gurgling breaths.

Then I felt her go completely limp in my arms and she didn't breathe again. Her lips opened just a little, as if she was smiling. Blood trickled from her mouth, her eyes, nose, and ears, but I couldn't smell it. All I could smell were the scents of the earth. Then, with an enormous rush of meadow-filled wind, the green candle went out, and my best friend died.

CHAPTER 23

'Zoey, sweetheart, you have to let her go.'

Damien's voice didn't really register in my mind. I mean, I could hear his words, but it was like he was speaking a weird for­eign language. I couldn't make any sense of them.

'Zoey, why don't you come with us, now?'

That was Shaunee. Shouldn't Erin chime in? I'd barely formed the thought when I heard, 'Yeah, Zoey, we need you to come with us.' Oh, there's Erin.

'She's in shock. Speak calmly to her and try to get her to re­lease Stevie Rae's body,' Neferet said.

Stevie Rae's body. The words echoed weirdly through my mind. I was holding on to something. I could tell that much. But my eyes were closed and I was really, really cold. I didn't want to open them, and I didn't think I'd ever get warm again.

'I have an idea.' Damien's voice bounced around inside my mind like a pinball machine. 'We don't have candles and we don't have a sacred circle, but it's not like Nyx isn't here. Let's use our elements to help her. I'll go first.'

I felt a hand grasp my upper arm, and then I heard Damien muttering something about calling air to blow about the scent of death and despair. A big wind whooshed around me, and I shiv­ered.

'I better go next. She looks cold.' That was Shaunee. Someone else touched my arm and after some words I didn't quite catch, I felt surrounded by warmth, like I was standing very close to an open fireplace.

'My turn,' Erin said. 'I call water and ask that you wash from my friend and future High Priestess the sadness and pain she's feeling. I know all of it can't go away, but could you please take just enough from her that she can bear to go on?' Her words reg­istered more clearly on my mind, but I still didn't want to open my eyes.

'There's still one more element in the circle.'

I was surprised to hear Erik. Part of me wanted to open my eyes so that I could look at him, but the rest of me, too much of me, refused to move.

'But Zoey always manifests spirit,' Damien said.

'Right now Zoey can't manifest anything by herself. Let's give her some help.' Two strong hands gripped my shoulders, along with the other hands that grasped places on my arms. 'I have no affinity for these things, but I do care about what happens to Zoey, and she has been gifted with an affinity for all five ele­ments,' Erik said. 'So I, along with all of her friends, ask that the element spirit help her wake up so that she can get over the death of her best friend.'

Like an electric shock, my body was suddenly zapped, filled with an incredible sense of awareness. Against my closed eyelids I saw Stevie Rae's smiling face. It wasn't bloodstained and pale, like it had been the last time