Chapter 27
Silence settles over the boss room. Two lies lifeless, and the last vibrations in the stone fade away. Dust hangs in the air like smoke.
For a moment, Bull and Jess can only stare. Thomas’s body is on the floor between them, eyes open and lifeless. Sonny is crumpled against the far wall.
Bull’s legs finally move. When he arrives at Sonny’s body, he doesn’t know if it actually him. Ether Cast has faded and Sonny’s face looks completely different, in a hideous way. His skin is scarred and rough, like it is rebuilt too many times. His lips are pale. Hair is gone. His right arm is severely burned and stiff.
Bull crouches and presses two fingers to Sonny’s neck. "There is a pulse. He’s alive," Bull says, voice shaking.
Jess’s head snaps up. "Can you help him?"
Bull looks at Sonny’s hands and the shredded bandages. "I don’t know how."
Sonny’s chest rises once, then stalls. He takes a shallow breath like his body forgets how to inhale.
Bull swallows hard. "We need to get him out. Now."
Jess looks down at Thomas again. Her mouth trembles. "And Thomas?"
Bull’s jaw locks. "We take him too."
With Two being defeated the barrier sealing off the final portal falls and is now available. Jess wipes her face with her sleeve. "If we go through that portal, the crypt closes."
Bull nods. "Then it closes. We don’t have time to haul them across the floor. Sonny could die by then."
Jess hesitates, then reaches for Thomas’s arms. Bull takes Thomas first, lifting him onto his back as carefully as he can. Then Bull turns and picks Sonny up. Bull’s ability to use energy is crucial to carry the weight of two extra bodies.
Sonny is heavier than Bull expects, not because of muscle, but because his body is limp and broken. Bull shifts his grip until Sonny’s head rests against his shoulder.
Jess stays close, hands ready to catch either of them if Bull stumbles. "Don’t drop him," Jess whispers.
"I won’t," Bull says.
They move through the portal. The world snaps. They land back at the crypt entrance, and the air outside feels warm and wrong after the chill of the floors.
For one heartbeat, Bull thinks they made it. Then he looks up. The crypt mouth is gone. It closes behind them like it never exists.
Jess’s breath catches. "No one is going to believe us."
Bull sets Thomas down gently, then lowers Sonny onto the ground beside him.
Jess stares, horrified as she now sees Sonny’s real body in the sunlight. "That’s… that’s Sonny?"
Bull equally horrified, eyes fixed on Sonny’s chest. "I don’t know how or why, but it’s him."
Jess squeezes her eyes shut. "What do we do?"
Bull looks down the path toward campus. "I’ll run to AM for help. You stay here. Don’t let anyone touch them."
Jess nods quickly. "Go."
Bull takes off at a sprint. Jess kneels between the bodies, shaking. She wipes dirt from Thomas’s face, then reaches toward Sonny’s wrist and feels for a pulse again. It is weak, but it is there.
"Stay with us," she whispers, not sure who she is talking to.
After what feels like forever, Bull returns with Academy of Magic staff and their professor.
The professor’s expression breaks when he sees Thomas. "What happened?" the professor demands.
Jess swallows. "We reached the boss room. The door was already open. Thomas got hit. Sonny… fought someone. We don’t know who."
Bull points at Sonny. "That’s Sonny. He needs a hospital now. We can figure the rest out later."
Staff move into action. Stretchers appear. Hands lift bodies. The professor calls for emergency transport.
Dean is informed. He arrives at the hospital not long after them, hat tilted, face unusually serious.
Dean addresses Bull and Jess. “We will talk about what happened later. For now, let’s just be here for Sonny.”
Doctors rush Sonny into surgery. Bull and Jess sit in the waiting area, both covered in dust and dried blood. Neither of them speaks for a long time.
A doctor finally comes out hours later, looking exhausted. "We’ve never seen a body like his," the doctor says. "His bones are unusually dense from extreme calcification and there is so much scar tissue under his skin. It made surgery very difficult, but it also kept him alive."
Bull stands quickly. "Is he going to live?"
The doctor hesitates. "It’s fifty-fifty right now. He’s in a coma. We stabilized his spine and repaired significant damage to his rib cage and skull. He’ll need more work."
Jess’s voice is small. "Can we see him?"
"Not in the room," the doctor says. "But you can see him through the glass."
They follow the doctor to a windowed room. Sonny lies on a bed hooked to machines. Tubes run from his mouth, nose, and arms. A ventilator breathes for him. His right arm is charred and swollen.
Jess presses a hand to the glass and starts crying. Even Bull sheds a tear seeing his companion in such a state.
The doctor points gently. "We may need to amputate that arm. It’s severely damaged."
Bull’s face tightens. "Don’t."
The doctor looks startled. "Excuse me"
Bull swallows and forces the words out. "Don’t amputate yet. Wait until he wakes up. It will be his choice."
The doctor studies Bull’s expression and nods slowly. "The dean said the same."
They return to the waiting area. Dean tells them they should go home, clean up, and get some rest. There is nothing they can do now but wait.
Later that evening, Ellie finishes classes and finds Jess waiting for her on campus. Jess looks like she crawls out of a war. Her clothes are dirty, her eyes red.
Ellie blinks. "Did you just finish the crypt. Did you pass?" She figures this is a normal appearance of someone who just finished a multiday crypt dive.
Jess looks down, nods once, and speaks softly. "Yeah." Ellie starts to smile, then sees Jess’s face. Jess’s voice breaks. "Sonny is in the hospital. He’s badly hurt. They don’t know if he’s going to make it."
Ellie’s world tilts. "What?" she whispers.
Jess tries to explain, but Ellie is already moving. She runs to the apartment first, heart hammering. She drops her bag and yanks her sock off. The familiar mark is still there. Ellie exhales, half sob and half relief. "He’s alive."
Then she remembers Sonny telling her about spare bandages infused with his ether. Ellie runs to the bathroom cabinet, tears in her eyes, hands shaking as she rips it open. She finds the spare bandages and grabs them like they are a lifeline.
She sprints for the hospital. Bull is in the waiting area when she arrives. He stands as soon as he sees her.
Ellie grabs his shirt, voice breaking. "What happened? Who did this? Where is he?"
Bull catches her wrists gently and forces her to breathe. "He’s in surgery. It’s going to take a while before we know much of anything."
Ellie’s knees threaten to buckle. She sits.
Bull’s voice drops. "He’s in a coma. They said it’s fifty fifty." Ellie goes quiet.
After a long moment, she looks up. "Tell me everything."
Bull exhales and starts from the beginning. Floor four. No monsters. The boss room door ajar. Thomas running in. The beam. He hesitates when he reaches the part that matters. "The guy called Sonny ‘Three’," Bull says. "Sonny called him Two."
Ellie’s blood runs cold.
Bull continues, voice shaking with the memory. "I’ve never seen anything like it. The fight was insane. Sonny killed him, but Sonny… Sonny got destroyed doing it."
Bull looks at Ellie. "Did you know?"
Ellie blinks. "Know what?"
"The depth of his power," Bull says.
Ellie looks down. "Yes. He made me promise not to tell anyone."
Bull nods. "He made Jess and me promise too."
Ellie’s fingers tighten around the spare bandages. "Then keep the promise."
They sit together in silence until the doctor returns. "He’s through the worst of the surgery," the doctor says.
"But he’s still critical and comatose. Survival odds are slightly better, but largely the same."
Ellie stands. "Can I see him?"
The doctor nods. "Through the window."
Ellie follows him and stares at Sonny through the glass. The machines. The tubes. The pale skin. The burned arm. Ellie covers her mouth, sobbing. She cannot stand to see him like this.
The doctor repeats, gentler now. "We may need to amputate the arm."
Ellie turns and holds out the spare bandages. "Please. Keep these with him. They heal him better than anything you guys can do. I’ve seen them heal things that shouldn’t heal. If he wakes up, he can use them."
The doctor raises a skeptical eyebrow, but nods to comfort her. "We’ll keep them with him."
Ellie stays at the window until her legs shake. When she finally steps away from the window, the hospital feels too bright, too normal, like the world doesn’t understand what just happens. Bull walks beside her, quiet. Inside that room, Sonny’s heart keeps beating. Barely. But it keeps beating.
