“Maybe you should let them.”
I growl at her, but she just blows me a kiss on her way to the door.
Reluctantly, I climb to my feet as well. Ignoring the pain in what I swear is every single muscle in my body, I walk into the family room, where Lily is letting two very nice-looking paramedics into the house. Hopefully, if I’m on my feet and lucid, they’ll be more likely to believe that I’m all right.
But I’ve barely said hello to them when a fire truck pulls up behind the ambulance, lights and sirens blaring. Shit. Our neighbors are going to kill us.
* * *
It takes the paramedics about ten minutes to check me over. They do their best to convince me to let them take me to Brackenridge, but I think that has more to do with the bruises on my face and the broken chair in the kitchen.
My vitals are fine, and except for a goose egg on the back of my head, the rest of me is also relatively fine. Still, they seemed very concerned about whether I’m safe in my home, and while I really do appreciate it, I’m going to lose my mind if they don’t get out of here ASAP. Because five minutes into their exam, it occurs to me why we might be having so much trouble reaching Declan. While I admit that I still don’t know how this soulbound thing works, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that if something happened to him, it would definitely affect me as well. Which means that all of that weird stuff that just happened could have been my own magic’s reaction to something going wrong—really wrong—with Declan.
The second I close the door behind the paramedics, I dive for the phone. But Declan’s cell just rings and rings. Where is he? Why isn’t he answering? I try not to panic, but it’s hard—especially when everything just feels off. Even my skin feels too tight.
Sitting here worrying isn’t doing me any good, though, so I might as well make myself useful. Lily is cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and I get up to give her a hand. I am the one who caused it, after all.
I’ve only taken two steps toward the kitchen when it hits me. I stumble into the wall, grab onto the door frame to keep from falling as my whole body starts to shake.
“Oh shit!” Lily yells, dropping the broom and rushing over to me. “Not again!”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, you look fine.” She reaches for her purse. “That’s it. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
I shake my head as fear wells up inside me. “I can’t go.”
“Bullshit. You’re going.”
“It’s too late.”
I stumble back to my bedroom, every step a battle against the energy raging inside me. Please don’t let it be Declan, I pray. Please, Isis, I beg of you, not Declan.
I reach for a pair of jeans, yank them on. Then slip my feet into the first shoes I find—the pair of purple cowboy boots my mother foisted on me the last time I was home. Then I’m grabbing a jacket from the coat rack in the hall and tearing down the hallway to the front door.
“Where are you going?” Lily demands, standing in the middle of the living room, her hands on her hips and an exasperated expression on her face.
“It’s happening,” I tell her.
“What’s happening?” Then her eyes grow wide. “Oh shit. No way!” She dashes down the hall to her room. “You’re not going out there alone. Let me get dressed and I’ll go with you.”
“Hurry,” I tell her, knowing it’s useless to argue. Besides, I don’t really want to do this on my own. If it is Declan’s body I find . . . If it is him, I don’t know how I’ll survive.
The sick feeling inside me is growing with every second that passes. It’s an itchiness, a low-grade vibration running through my veins. It’s not bad yet, but I know from experience that this is only the beginning. But if Lily doesn’t move it, I’m going to be in a world of hurt before I even step out of the house.
Seconds later, the electricity starts. Small, painful sparks that travel along my nerve endings—pop, pop, pop—one after the other. I can’t take it anymore. I throw the front door open and head down the steps to the driveway. Once there, I bend over, brace my hands on my knees and concentrate on pulling deep breaths into my lungs.
The nighttime air makes it a little bit better, but with every second that passes, the compulsion is getting worse. The need to move, to search, to find, is taking me over a little more with each electric jolt that sweeps through me.
Turning to the left, I start to walk. Even as I tell myself to wait for Lily—even as my brain orders me to stop—my body keeps moving. I’ve waited too long. I’m firmly in the grip of the compulsion now and nothing can stop it, stop me, short of finding the body that caused all this.