My Drake and I were one now, as we always were in the air. We dived for her but Kaitlyn screamed and dived as well—under the murky water. The limited visibility was no problem for my Drake’s eyes. He had the gift of discernment and we both knew exactly where Kaitlyn was, even down under the black depths.
But even as we reached for her and gripped her gently in one talon to deposit her into the waiting arms of her friends, I thought with dismay how much more frightened she would be of me—of us—after this incident.
How would she ever overcome her fear and dislike of me now? What could I possibly do to bring her to me after my Drake had frightened her half to death?
I had no idea—I only knew I couldn’t have done anything other than what I had. I couldn’t have stopped myself from saving her, even if it meant losing her forever.
28
Kaitlyn
I woke up in the Healer’s office, lying on the narrow cot in her back room and shivering so hard I could barely breathe. It was the shivering that woke me up, I think. Or maybe the sounds I was making—my teeth were chattering loudly and the sheets around me were rustling with my own involuntary movements.
“Oh dear—what’s wrong with her, Healer? Can you tell? Is it just that she’s cold?” I heard Megan asking.
The Healer, a middle-aged woman with iron gray hair and serious eyes, had a grim look on her face.
“She’s more than cold—she’s hypothermic. How long did you say she was in the lake?”
“Not more than two or three minutes,” Avery answered.
“But she’s been cold all week,” Emma added. “She’s been complaining that she can’t get warm and that she felt like she was getting sick.”
“She’s sick all right,” the Healer said. “She’s so anemic it’s a wonder she’s walking around at all. Her hemoglobin count is down to four!”
“Is that bad?” Megan asked anxiously.
“Human females ought to have a hemoglobin count of twelve or above,” Griffin’s cool voice informed her. “So yes—this is bad.”
“Darkheart is right,” the Healer snapped, frowning at my friends as she wrapped me in thermal blankets. “This girl is in critical condition! Why wasn’t she brought to me sooner? It’s clear there’s a lot more wrong with her than just getting dunked in the lake.”
“We didn’t know,” Emma pleaded. “I mean, we knew she wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to eat much but Kaitlyn thought she was just getting a cold.”
“Can you tell what’s wrong with her?” Avery asked the Healer. “I mean, besides being extremely anemic?”
“She’s been complaining about being thirsty all the time,” Megan added helpfully. “Maybe she’s diabetic?”
“Not according to the tests I ran,” the Healer remarked and I wondered how long I had been under for her to do all these tests on me. I must have fainted from fear and exhaustion out on the bridge and been out of it for some time.
At least the thermal blankets she was putting on me were doing some good. My teeth were chattering much less and I was beginning to be able to feel my fingers and toes again. True, they felt like lumps of ice, but at least they weren’t completely numb.
“Please—it’s not their fault.” I spoke up for the first time. “I’ve been feeling bad all week but I just kept telling myself I was getting a cold.”
“So you really think all you have is a cold?” the Healer demanded, frowning down at me.
“I…I don’t know.” I shrugged weakly. “I mean, my throat has been terrible—so sore all the time. And I’ve been so thirsty. I mean, I know I’m not running a fever—”
“That you certainly are not,” she said crisply. “In fact, your temperature is nearly thirteen degrees below normal. Some of that may be attributable to being in the cold lake, but I don’t see how just being in the water for two or three minutes, as your friends say you were, could lower your body temperature that fast. Maybe if you fell into the Arctic Ocean or someplace like that but we’re in Florida, for the Goddess’s sake! No…” She shook her head. “Something else is definitely going on here and I need to find out what it is.”
“I think I can help with that.”
Griffin’s cool, quiet voice broke through the noise of my other friends talking and I looked up to see that he was standing over me, holding a tall paper cup with a bendy straw in one hand.
The cup looked like something you’d get at any fast food restaurant in town and though it was covered, I could smell something good coming from it. Something rich and mouth-watering and delicious. Even though I’d had almost no appetite all week, my stomach suddenly woke up and growled loudly at the scent of the stuff in that cup.