Star Gods, стр. 24
I pull my hand from my stomach and she looks between it and me in alarm. I try to sit up and she pushes me back down.
“Stay put,” she orders. “I’ll be right back.”
I grab her arm and I cry out, the pain excruciating when it pulls me upward.
“Zeke, lay back, I got to get your brothers.” She pushes on my shoulder to keep me in place.
My breathing comes in choking sobs, and increases when I hear my brothers running in the hall, if they can’t heal me, I silently pray I’ll just burst into flames to end my misery.
Sage places one hand on my forehead and the other gently on my stomach. “They’re coming. You’re going to be okay.” Warmth suddenly spreads and I lift a hand popping a barrier when my brothers charge in through my door.
“What the hell?” Sage exclaims.
Something moves inside me and I cry out.
“What’re you doing to him?” Ashe shouts, roughly pushing on my barrier. “Zeke! Take down your barrier! Let us in!”
“I don’t know what’s happening!” Sage exclaims, looking over her shoulder at my brothers. “Help me!”
“Zeke, drop your barrier!” my brothers yell in unison. They both look between Sage and me; Ashe’s face turning an angry shade of red.
“Get away from him!” Ashe yells through gritted teeth. “You lied to us!” He shoves at my barrier with his shoulder and swears when he can’t get through.
“I didn’t lie!” Sage screeches back. “I don’t know what’s happening! I think Zeke is doing it.”
“It’s you,” I answer, fighting a wave of nausea as the burning pain in my stomach increases. “Whatever is in there, get it out!”
“Get it out?” Sage responds in panic. “What’re you talking about?”
“There’s no way you didn’t do that before,” Tyce responds. “You brought Zeke to that alley and you’re responsible for almost getting him killed!” Tyce pounds on my barrier making it vibrate to my hand. “Drop it, Zeke. She’s going to kill you!”
“No!” Sage yells back. “I’m not killing him, or at least I don’t think I’m killing him, and I’m not lying! I’ve never done anything like this before! I didn’t bring Zeke to that alley, he brought himself.” She looks pleadingly to my brothers, her face terrified. “I don’t know what to do. Help me! What do I do?”
Ashe’s eyes widen with concern. “C’mon, Zeke, drop it before something bad happens!”
Sage shifts her hand over my stomach. She swallows hard and panic sets in her eyes. “I think there is something in here. I can feel it.”
“Get. It. Out,” I stammer. My body shakes, my head throbs as I struggle to keep my barrier in place.
Sage shakes her head. “I…I can’t, Zeke.”
My barrier vibrates and I ignore my brothers. “Yes, you can.”
“Drop your barrier!” Ashe yells, shouldering it. “Now, Zeke!”
“Sage…you can do this. I think you’re meant to. Please, I don’t want to die.”
My brothers are now threatening her life in words I won’t repeat. Sage puts more pressure onto my stomach, whatever it is moves, and tears. I cry out, my eyesight wavering.
“I’m so sorry,” Sage cries, tears streaming down her face.
I grit my teeth. “Keep…going.”
“But your brothers, they can help.”
“Aren’t you listening? They think…you’re killing me. Keep going...”
My brothers finally stop pounding, leaving their hands on my barrier as they watch Sage intently. She’s trying to wipe her tears with her shoulder as she keeps her hands on my stomach.
Whatever is in me jerks and seems to latch onto something and Sage’s eyes go wide. Suddenly, I feel a connection, a merging of our abilities, and I know who she is. Our eyes lock in surprise and I know she knows too. It feels like a bond formed, or maybe completed, one that can never be broken. Pain shoots through me, the worse I’ve ever experienced, and I scream.
Sage lets up.
“Don’t…” I manage to say through the pain. “Get it out! If you don’t, I die.”
“Zeke, you’re bleeding, and it won’t stop.” Sage sobs. I can feel her emotions and her fear through our connection.
“That’s too much blood.” Tyce’s face is etched with fear. “Zeke let us in. Let us help. We won’t hurt Sage.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ashe warns.
I can feel my blood crawling across my stomach and running down my sides. “Sage, please, you can do this.”
She closes her eyes. “Take as big a breath as you can, Zeke,” she commands. A determined look comes across her face and I feel her ability grasp onto whatever is inside me and I scream again.
“I got it!” Sage holds up her blood soaked hand with a tip of the blade from the assailant’s weapon in her grasp.
My eyesight goes fuzzy.
“Zeke!” Ashe yells. “Sage, don’t let him pass out, he has to drop his barrier first, or we can’t heal him!”
If I don’t drop it, my barrier will stay in place and I’ll bleed out. I release my hold from my mind, but instead of taking it back into me, I throw it around Sage blocking my brothers from getting to her. Ashe and Tyce run to me, taking a spot across from each other and placing their hands onto me, I instantly feel their healing.
“You and me, Sage,” Ashe snarls. “We’re going to have a discussion, a very long one, and you’re going to tell me who you really are.”
“I told you who I am.” Sage runs her fingers across my shield and smiles at me.
“There’s only one species that can do what you did,” Ashe snaps back. “You’re the same as us. Who sent you?”
Sage looks between the two of them. “No one sent me. Zeke brought me here.” Ashe scoffs in reply. “I didn’t lie. I had no idea I could do that.”
“You’re born with it,” Tyce says. “Whatever kind of ability that was, you’re born with it.”
“She’s an extractor,” Ashe spits out. “They’re very rare, according to