cookies and strode into the emergency room to the
nearest nurse’s station.
The staff paged Doctor Bridges over the
overhead speakers, and Beck waited.
Five minutes later, a petite, slender woman
with dark hair appeared. “Beck Turner?” she asked and held out her
hand.
“Yep. Nice to meet you, Doctor Bridges.”
Beck shook.
“You look familiar.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever been
here before.”
“Never mind. Come with me.” The doctor began
walking towards the interior of the hospital and an elevator. “The
girl’s condition is … well … we don’t even know.”
Beck’s gaze slid to her. As much as he
didn’t want to get involved, he was also curious what could baffle
a sharp, no-nonsense woman like Doctor Bridges. “Want to start from
the beginning?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I work night shift. Should be
home sleeping.” Doctor Bridges offered a tired smile. “A nearby
apartment building burned down. They found her there. At first, it
looked like she’d drowned but –”
“Wait, drowned in a fire?”
“Strange I know,” Doctor Bridges said. “It
only gets stranger. We thought she was dead because her temperature
is oh, twenty degrees below average. She shouldn’t be alive. But
her vitals are strong. Nothing wrong with her heart, organs, brain
or body that we can find. She’s just really, really cold – and
healthy. It’s a medical impossibility.”
He listened, unable to place any known human
or witchling capability with what the physician described.
“She was unconscious when they found her. We
have her in an induced coma for now until we can be certain she’s
healthy or at least, not in danger. We’re running every test known
to man as well. If you can identify her, that’d help us out a
lot.”
“Not sure I can help,” Beck said.
They reached the fifth floor of the
hospital, and the elevator’s doors opened. The first thing he
sensed: Decker. He knew his brother wasn’t the one in danger, but
if he was here, it had something to do with a witchling. Beck was
able to sense Summer but no other Light witchling. Whoever it was,
she was probably one of Decker’s Dark sheep.
“Doctor Bridges,” someone called as soon as
they stepped foot on the floor.
“Second door from the end on the right,” the
doctor said before turning on her heel to address the nurse
approaching.
Beck walked down the corridor. The odd
instinct grew more insistent without revealing what exactly it
meant. It was on days like this he wished he had a mentor like
Decker had to ask about the Master of Light instincts that went
above and beyond those of a normal witchling.
Before he reached the doorway, a familiar
form emerged.
“Summer,” he said with a smile. “What’re you
doing here?”
His brother’s counterbalance and girlfriend,
the air-earth witchling with dark hair and eyes smiled at him but
cast a worried look into the room. “I wanted to warn you.”
“About what? What’s wrong?”
“Your brother has been hiding something from
us both.” The disapproval in her tone was clear. “It has to do with
Morgan.”
“Morgan.” Even saying the name aloud hurt.
Beck shook off the sensation. “What about her?”
“Well, apparently, she’s alive. Sorta.”
Beck’s heart leapt in his chest. For a
moment, he didn’t think he’d heard right.
And then it clicked.
Decker had been much nicer
to him the past three months than usual. He figured it was out of a
shared sense of loss, since his twin had lost Summer for a few
months, too. It never occurred to him that it was guilt, but it definitely
fit the Master of Dark, who tended to act out of regret rather than
think about his actions ahead of time.
“You can’t touch her, Beck,” Summer said
urgently as he stepped forward. She blocked his path once more.
“She swallowed the soul stone. At least, that’s what Decker thinks.
You can’t touch her without Decker’s fire to balance the
Darkness.”
Beck barely registered
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