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Elisa ht and paused, taking a steady breath It would be okay She refused to believe Jere worse, headed down the sa a hard ti hat had happened with Leonidas Mal could have told her where he was going She needed to talk to him about that She wanted hio haywire in this type of crisis
She took three steps toward the smokehouse, and pain drove her to her knees It erupted in her ony that stole her breath, knocked her to her side in the dirt So overwhel, it took several seconds to realize it wasn’t her pain A cry of need and desperation, an explosion of fear, like a drowning swi everything he knew, nothing to hold on to She reached out on instinct, and gasped at the sense that her wrist had been grabbed in a bruising grip Red finger marks appeared on her outstretched forear it translated to a physical mark
Kohana stumbled down the stairs in his haste, but he recovered and was at her side in a blink She caught hold of his shirt, fighting the pain "Tell Mal we have to come to them We have to coed to get past the chaos in her head to see Jereround in the cos had torn open his bottonawed at his arms, for there were bloody punctures up and down theet closer to him," she said, the moment Mal joined them at the vehicle "He needs to know I’h the blinding ache in her head The va Not for the first tih when his gaze fell to her clawed arms, Kohana had to step in
"She didn’t do that," the Indian said shortly "I didn’t see it happen to the first ar her here He’s doing it somehow"
"He didn’t do it on purpose Mal" Elisa bent down over her stoony "Please"
Mal lifted her out of the Jeep As he hefted her up against his chest, she spoke into that muscled wall "He’s in my head," she whispered "He’s afraid He’s so afraid, Mal I know you can’t let et o to hi a stool so she could sit in that secured space If her head wasn’t so full of Jeremiah, she would have flashed back unpleasantly to the last crisis that had trapped her in this small area But she wasn’t trapped this time This was different, entirely, and her focus was all on Jere her, bent next to the stool, but now he nodded She got a hazy gliestured Bidzil to open up that inner gate Jereht in her throat She hadn’t seen Victor’s or Leonidas’s impulse control and rationality defeated by full-blown, incessant bloodlust--the battle had already been lost when she came into their lives She hadn’t witnessed this; a , a soul who’d been through so o And would have been, except for the will of the boy who refused to let go, hanging on with bare fingernails
He was fighting it, fighting so hard
Kohana leaned over her, closed his hands on her ar into her own flesh When she looked up, Mal waswith purposeful strides toward the boy
She was disoriented and suddenly terrified that he would deal with it as Danny had dealt with Victor that long ago night, that same determined look in his eye as she’d had But that wasn’t her fear It was Jeremiah’s, a trapped and wounded animal
No, Jereonized grunts of pain, running away He charged the opposite end of the enclosure As she cried out, he hit the fence hard enough to knock hiain, rushed at another side, with the sa to hurt you Co his ar his knuckles Mal was right behind him, but Jeremiah was fully in her head, so she sahat he was about to do right before he got there Sheboth hands over Jeremiah’s bloody one In a blink, he’d reversed the hold and yanked her off the stool, so she was on her knees on the opposite fence side
It’s okay It’s all right I’m here, Jeremiah
Mal’s hands closed on the boy’s shoulders, but not to yank him away He was in her mind with Jeremiah He could see the boy’s intention was not to hurt her In fact, Jereainst his chest if the fence wasn’t in the way, his forehead pressed so hard into theinto the skin She threaded her other hand through, cupped it over the back of his head