A/N: I'm back! Again sorry for the long wait, I've been working on another fic and I have also been very run down. I hope this clears up any confusion or worries from the last chapter, enjoy!
A small red light shone in the far outskirts of the darkness in Kendra's mind, curious she stepped towards it and immediatly the scene rushed to her. She found herself in a room full of high angry red flames. Fire burned around Kendra, making her skin uncomfortably warm. She saw Seth again, he wasn't calm and collected now, he was shouting at her but she couldn't hear him over the roar of the flames. Suddenly the fire flared up between them, causing a huge wall of flames to rise, obscuring Seth from her vision. Kendra scrambled back from the wall in fear, but she was surronded by flames and couldn't go far. Just when Kendra was sure she was going to be swollowed by the flames, they froze. No longer dancing around her or flickering. Even the glow they cast seemed to dim.
Then the scene seemed to flicker and then it changed, Kendra was back in the room of mirrors, standing in front of Warren who was staring at her in horror before he too froze and faded from her sight. Bewilered, Kendra reached out a hand in the space Warren previously occupied, not knowing what she was expecting to feel. There was no trace the Warren had ever occupied the space, looking around Kendra wondered why she was back here. This part of her vision had already happened, perhaps that's why Warren faded. Something about the room seemed slightly different, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She turned around, trying to get a better sense of her surrondings when she saw him. A few feet away from where she was standing, was Bracken, laying on the ground in a pool of silver blood, glowing softly.
"Bracken!" She exclaimed. Kendra quickly moved to go over to him but the second she took a step intense pain erupted in her abdomen, causing her to cry out and press her hands to her stomach, she felt blood flow onto her hands from the wound.
"Heal yourself." A clear voice came. Gasping in pain and clutching her stomach, Kendra tried to take another step before falling to the ground. "Focus, Kendra. See through the mirrors, stop it all."
Kendra felt her stomach growing warmer, and the pain subsided. 'See through the mirrors, stop it all.' There was that message again, but she thought she had seen through the mirrors. She had seen through the fake Bracken to realize the real Bracken was...was dead.
'And soon I will be too.' She thought as the pain in her abdomen continued to decrease.
"No Kendra, you need to continue to fight. You only have this opportunity to heal yourself for as long Warren continues to keep your heart beating." Heal herself? She was healing herself? "Yes, you are. Now hurry, you don't have much time."
Flashes of her family appeared before her eyes, pie baking contests with Warren, her and Seth making pillow forts when they were younger, her mother taking her on long drives when going got tough, more and more of happy memories with her loved ones ran through her head and she realized she had to survive.
Kendra took a deep breath and focused, she had to do this, she would not make her family bury her again. With no one to guide her she pictured her wounds healing, she pictured herself happy and healthy with her family, and slowly she felt it working. The room around her started to fade and her grip on her trance went along with it. Without knowing if what she had done had worked or not, she felt the familiar sensation of falling into darkness. This time, she prayed to wake up.
Seth couldn't watch this again, he couldn't stand to see Warren doing CPR on his sister's lifeless body. He couldn't stand to watch Vanessa try and stop the bleeding with her jacket. He just couldn't. So, he turned around and quickly walked away. Not far enough to be in any danger but far enough that he wouldn't have to hear whispered curses from Warren or instructions from Tanu. Seth turned and hit the near wall with his fist. Not too hard, but hard enough. How could this have happened?
"Hey man, they sent me to make sure you're all good." A voice came. Turning, Seth saw Luca standing there sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
"If I'm all good? All good? Really? My sister is in there dying and you ask me if I'm all good?" Seth said, gesturing wildly in his frustration. Luca held up his hands in surrender.
"Okay, bad choice of words, sorry." Luca stood there for a second, like if he was unsure to leave or not. "You know, when I was fourteen my older brother died. I was really angry too." He said quietly.
Seth stared at the young man, waiting to see where this was going. "Sorry to hear." He said after Luca said nothing.
"Yeah, it sucks. You don't really know the feeling until you know the feeling."
"I know the feeling, I've already buried Kendra before." Seth said, causing Luca to look at him like he had three heads. "Stingbulbs, kidnapping, long story."
"Oh...well, for what it's worth, I hope you don't have to know the feeling...again." Luca said, shuffling his feet. Seth found himself warming up to the awkward Icelandic man.
Seth opened his mouth to say a thank you when they heard commotion coming from the where the group had been huddled around Kendra. Fearing the worst, Seth and Luca started running back.
"Warren, maybe it's time to stop." Warren recognized Vanessa's voice, but did not acknowledge she spoke. After Kendra had lost conciousness, Warren discovered she wasn't breathing and her heart had stopped. Tanu had said something about losing too much blood but Warren was determined to get her back. Seth had run away some time after Warren started CPR, and Warren couldn't blame him. They had sent Luca after him to make sure he didn't go too far. Warren had continued CPR, but as minutes ticked by, Tanu seemed to step back and began putting potions away.
"Warren, it's been ten minutes." Tanu said, voice heavy with implications.
"And? It has been proven that you can do CPR for thirty minutes before considering stopping. So I am not stopping until those thirty minutes are long gone! Do you understand me? She deserves a fighting chance!" Warren snapped, before focusing on counting out the compressions he was acting out on his younger cousin.
He could practically feel the others sad looks and he felt angry at them. How dare they give up on her so fast? This was Kendra they were talking about, the girl that killed the freaking demon king! The girl that survived every damn unfair obstacle that had ever been thrown at her, there was no way she could die now. Warren refused to believe it. He refused to believe the possibility that he had killed his own cousin. If that meant he had to kneel here, pumping her heart and breathing for her for thirty plus minutes then so be it.
Many more minutes passed, Warren heard Elin complain once but she stopped after Vanessa told her to shut the hell up. Warren felt his tight grip on hope start to loosen. What if she couldn't come back? What if he was too late? What if-
All of a sudden Kendra gave out a choked gasp and started coughing lightly, her eyelids fluttering. Immediately, Warren stopped compressions as the rest of the group crowded closer. Warren took Kendra's head in his hands and gently placing it on his lap as Tanu started injecting something into Kendra's arm. The coughing stopped and Kendra was still again.
"That should help her wake up even more." Tanu explained, throwing the empty vial back in his potion bag.
"Kendra? Can you hear me?" He said, searching her face for a sign that she was awake. "K, we need you to open your eyes, can you do that?" He glanced up at Tanu, who was watching Kendra's face just as intently. Suddenly Tanu smiled.
"There she is." He said. Looking back down, Warren saw a bright pair of shocking green eyes blinking back up at him.
"Hey, you." He said, grinning and brushing loose hair off her warm forehead.
"Hi." Kendra practically whispered, obviously still very weak. Hey eyes looked around slowly, grasping her surrondings. Seth and Luca rounded the corner, running up to them. "Was wondering where they went." Kendra said, eyes on her brother.
"She's alive?!" Luca all but yelled, a big grin plastered on his face. Seth moved over to stand next to Warren.
"How is she?" He asked eyes flying over his sister for any immediate threat.
"She can hear you." Kendra said, voice still small and weak, before trying to sit up.
"Woah, woah. Slow down, chica, you still have a stab wound." Vanessa said.
"No, I don't." Kendra said.
"What do you mean you don't, Kendra stop trying to sit up, you are going to hurt yourself more, please, just lay down." Warren said, placing his hands on Kendra's shoulders to keep her from sitting up. Changing her objective, Kendra instead pushed Vanessa's hands off of her stomach and threw the jacket off.
"See? No stab wound." The others stared in confusion at her stomach where they could see through the hole in her shirt that there was in fact, no wound.
"But, how? And why are you so weak still?" Tanu asked, scratching his head.
"I healed myself. In my head or whatever. I'm still weak because it took a lot out of me, you have no idea how hard it is to heal a stab wound." Kendra said, a small smile appearing on her face.
"You healed yourself? When did that power come in?" Warren said, trying to wrap his head around her words.
"I don't know, maybe I needed to be near death to activate it. I don't even know if I can still do it." Kendra said, sitting up now that everyone was too busy staring at her in wonder to protest. "Guys, staring is rude."
"You find out you have healing powers and automatically heal a stab wound...on yourself...unconscious." Seth said slowly. "Meanwhile I can't even do the simple tasks the Sphinx hands me!"
"Relax, it wasn't the easiest thing for me to do either." Kendra sighed, rubbing her head.
"Trust me Seth, there is nothing simple about what he is telling you to do." Vanessa said, standing. Everyone but Kendra followed.
"You coming Kendra?" Trask asked.
"I might need someone to carry me. Like I said, healing yourself takes a lot out of you." Kendra said apologetically. Warren grinned.
"No problem." He said, leaning down and pulling her to her feet. "Hop on my back."
And once again Warren was carrying Kendra through the passageways of the vault. Only this time he wasn't frantic and there was no fear of her dying in his arms gnawing at him. Even so, the air was still heavy with loss as he, and he was sure everyone else, thought of Bracken. It didn't seem real that he was gone, the fairy prince had always seemed so invinsible. It was hard to believe Vanessa could have killed him. Speaking of which, Warren briefly worried about the blix, he wondered if she was handling the implications that she had killed Bracken. He also wondered if this would put a dent in Vanessa and Kendra's still healing relationship. But maybe there was a chance that he was still alive. Warren hoped so for Kendra's sake, she didn't need to lose anyone else.
Kendra sighed after explaining her vision of some sorts to the others for the third time. She told them about the voice and the fire, she told them about everything but her vision of Bracken, laying in a pool of blood and glowing.
She wasn't sure what that vision meant. Was there a chance Bracken was alive? Was he in some magical state of death? Was it just there to torment her? She didn't know, but it weighed heavily on her mind as she walked through the vault. Well,carried via piggy back by Warren. She adjusted her grip around Warren's neck and laid her head on his shoulder. Trying to solve the mystery of her vision on Bracken.
"Okay, one more time Kendra, you woke up in a room of fire right?" Trask said. Kendra sighed heavily again, getting ready to tell the story yet another time, thankfully Warren stepped in.
"Trask, she has told you everything three times, she probably doesn't fully understand it either. She's tired, let her rest." Warren said, not rudely but firm enough that it left no room to be argued.
"Thank you." She whispered to him.
"No problem, kiddo." He said, "By the way, I'm really sorry about stabbing you. I don't know how to make it up to you just yet but I will."
"I don't blame you, Warren. I didn't exactly help you figure out who was real." Kendra said, shaking her head. "I don't know what happened, I just froze."
"Wasn't your fault, you aren't the one who did the stabbing."
"Yeah, but-"
"Darling, I could argue this all day. Thank you for not blaming me, but I know that I messed up." Warren said, chuckling a little. He turned his head around as far as he could to look at her. "You can't stop me from blaming myself."
"No but I wish I could." Kendra said, frowning at her older cousin. He met her gaze for a moment before turning his head back around and sighing.
"Let's just be glad you have badass powers and are okay." He said, obviously trying to change the subject. Just this once, she let him.
"Sounds like a plan."
Kendra raised her head from Warren's shoulder as she sensed they were stopping. Up ahead, she saw that a giant double door stood in their way.
"It doesn't seemed to be locked." Vanessa said, testing the knob on one of the doors.
"Alright, back up the rest of you, Tanu you cover the right side I got the left. Elin, help Vanessa with the doors." Trask ordered.
Kendra watched as Tanu and Trask readied their weapons before Elin and Vanessa pulled the two parts of the door open. She felt Warren tense as Tanu and Trask aimed their weapons at the opening but nothing happened. Kendra craned her neck to try and see into the room.
"Huh." Tanu said. "An empty room. I'm sensing a pattern." Slowly they made their way in, Kendra tapped Warren on the shoulder.
"You should let me down now."
"You sure? You aren't going to faint on us?" He said, compiling with her request after she gave him a look. "You remind me of your grandmother with that face."
Ignoring him, she stepped into the room, searching for something to stick out.
"Hey guys, there's a button here, I'm gonna press it and see what happens." Luca called.
"No!" Trask said, rushing over to him, but it was too late, Luca had already pushed it. Trask got there just in time to tackle Luca to the ground before a ball of fire flew out of the wall over where Luca's head had just been.
The ball of fire seemed to grow as it ran along the walls, causing them to catch on fire as well, wherever it trailed, more bright red flames grew in it's wake. The group gathered at the middle of the room, watching as the ball of fire circled them before running right through the tight knit group. They all scattered in different directions as to not get burned, but then the ball quickly swirled through them, leaving them isolated from other members of the group with high flames in the way no matter where you turned.
Kendra's hands were shaking as she turned around herself, trying to find a way to one of her companions. She caught a glimpse of Trask's bald head, and then another of Warren's chestnut hair, but she locked eyes with her brother. She saw him yell at her, but couldn't hear over the…
Oh. She had been so concerned on not getting burned she hadn't realized that the very scene she was living was from her vision. She had seen this before, but never knew how it ended. As the flames grew higher and her brother disappeared from sight she guessed she was about to find out.
A/N: See, I wouldn't kill Kendra! Still unsure about Bracken...kidding, I know what happens to our fairy prince. You guys just gotta stick around to find out yourselves! Yeah I know I'm evil. Make sure too check out another fic I'm co writing called We Thought It Was Over especially if you want to see the fablehaven crew as high school teachers and students! Until next time xoxo