There's a sharp pain in my side as I'm tackled, and then my shoulder slams into the ground. All I register is the smell of grass. The heat of the sun. Someone is yelling. For a moment, I don't even know which way is up. Then, all at once, I remember and bring my hands up to my midsection.

Oh my God. He actually shot me. I've been shot.

I pull my hands away, but there isn't any blood. As I desperately probe my chest and stomach and sides, a nervous laugh bursts out of me. He missed. I'm not shot. Oh, thank God. I'm not shot.

Sloppy, sucking sounds pop and crinkle out of the woman lying next to me. Blood pumps from her chest as she grasps at both her wound and the air with a confused frown.

"Liv?" I push up onto my knees and assess the damage, as if I have any idea what to do.

"What happened?" I hear Jane before I see her. "Why are you all just standing around? Where the hell is Ethan?"

"No, no, no, no. . ." Gail kneels down beside me and brushes Liv's hair out of her face, evidently just as shocked and useless as I am. Suddenly, her head jerks up, as if she's just realized I'm here. "Were you shot, Cora?"

"No," I whisper.

"What happened?" Jane roars furiously. "Would somebody tell me what the hell happened?"

I look at all the blood and whisper, "What do I do? Gail, help me. What do I do?"

"I don't. . ." Gail shakes her head and fixes me with watery eyes. "I don't know. I don't know how it works. I've never actually seen you do it."

I try to hold my hands steady as I press them over Liv's sopping leather chest-piece, but nothing happens. Closing my eyes, I breathe in deep and think about how much I don't want her to die. No changes in my temperature. No nausea. No headache. No discernible difference at all. She's dying, and I can't figure out how this works.

Jane is screaming in mostly incoherent swears. All I understand is, "Do I have to do everything around here?"

Ethan appears, but Jane has already hefted Liv up into her arms. Liv's being carried away, and I don't do anything but sit in the grass and watch her struggle to breathe. Jin's been knocked unconscious, but I think he's still alive. I can't tell from here.

My hands—coated in Liv's blood—grow sticky as they dry in the sun.

I can't tell if it's actually freezing in Jane's house or if my body is just in shock.

This is all my fault. I'm walking around with the attitude "nothing can kill me" without realizing that puts a target on all those around me. I can't die until I time travel back to the 70's, but everyone else on this island can die at any second, including in an attempt to save me from danger. I'm not being careful, and now Liv is bleeding out because Jin was pointing a gun at me and I didn't take him seriously.

I sit on Jane's sofa as Ben gives an update on Liv's condition. Ethan has removed the bullet, and even Jack stepped in to help operate, but no matter what Ben says, I know what isn't being said: she's not fixed. There's something wrong. Why else is he choosing his words so carefully? If she was patched up and expected to make a full recovery, he'd just say so.

"This is all your fault," Jane hisses, stabbing Ben's chest with a finger. "I told you we should have sent them all back to Hydra by now. What are we supposed to tell her family?"

Ben doesn't look particularly bothered. "That Liv died doing her job." Now he looks a little worried.

Jane leans in close to his face and whispers through her teeth, "Get out of my house."

Gail escorts him out, and the house is quiet.

I look down at my clammy hands. Even after scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, there's still a tiny fleck of Liv's blood between my fingers. Gail was right about how terrible I am at acting, but I'm only half-faking my exhaustion when I ask, "Jane, would you mind if I took a shower?"

I'm surprised when she nods and waves me away towards the back of the house without a snarky comment or protest or warning as to what she'll do to me if I use all her shampoo. She just sits slightly slumped at the kitchen table. It's evident she's even more upset about this than Gail is.

As I stand up from the sofa and walk towards the long hallway leading to Jane's combined bedroom and bathroom, I watch Jane worry a thumb furiously between her eyebrows, and I know I'm doing the right thing.

I wait until the water in the shower has been running for about a minute, and then I carefully pull up Jane's bedroom window and climb out.

"Hi!" I rear back in surprise at the figure waiting for me just around the corner. "Gail! Hi. I was. . . I was just—"

"You don't think I know what you're doing?" She arches an eyebrow. "I know you better than you probably know yourself."

I open my mouth, but I cannot think up a lie. It wouldn't do me any good anyway. What else could I possibly be trying to do out here? "Gail, I'm sorry, but you can't stop me." Liv has a daughter. A daughter whose seer abilities have already traumatized her on my behalf. And now, also because of me, Aiko's mother is holed up somewhere, apparently dying. If I were ever going to push myself to figure out how these healing powers work, it would be now. I'm completely useless otherwise. "If I can't help Liv, what's the point?"

"The point of helping her?"

"The point of me?"

Gail opens her mouth, closes it, regards me. A few different emotions quickly flash through her eyes, and then her face settles into a small wrinkled smile. "You can quit worrying, Cora. I'm not here to stop you. I'm here to tell you she's not being kept in the infirmary."

"What?" I ask incredulously. "Why not?"

"Because a certain someone knew you wouldn't listen to reason and would try to do what you're doing right now. If you wait four more minutes, Juliet will take over for Ethan's shift. She'll be much more inclined to keep this between the two of you."

Sweet relief flows through me at this news. I follow behind Gail like a gosling, realizing I couldn't have saved Liv without her help anyway because I didn't even know where the infirmary is. If Ben had her moved somewhere else because he didn't want me helping, what's going to happen when he finds out Gail led me right to her? "I can go on my own if you tell me where she is. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Trouble? With who? Benjamin?" This gets a soft but audible laugh out of her. "Dear, I don't answer to him," she says, waving me forward. "No self-respecting woman answers to anyone but you."

"Are you sure you don't mind if I watch?" Juliet stands off to the side, cloaked somewhat in the shadows of what looks like a library. She offers a timid smile, as if worried I need more convincing. "I won't bother you."

"Yes, please, stay," I beg. "It might be helpful for your research." Honestly, I could not care less about the research. I want Juliet here because she can offer her medical expertise if something goes wrong. Although, if something goes wrong, we're screwed anyway because—by her own admission—Juliet's not a surgeon, and neither is Gail. We'd have to call for help. Word would get out and everyone would know that Gail and Juliet were involved. Gail might not get in trouble, but maybe Juliet would. I should have told her to leave. I should tell both of them to leave so I—

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Gail's voice cuts through my panicked thoughts. "I don't know how it works, but you did tell me one thing. It's different than healing yourself. You said it's excruciatingly painful."

Liv is asleep. Or maybe she's just unconscious. Aren't those technically the same thing? I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I at least have the time to calm down and try. "Aiko's been through enough," I whisper. "I'm not sending her mother home with a hole in her lungs."

I first start by trying to slow my thumping heartbeat. Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Close your eyes. Think about how relaxing it'll be beneath a palm tree tomorrow when you go back to Hydra. It'll be a permanent vacation. Most people would kill for a permanent vacation.

Okay. Now, focus. Please, don't die, Liv. Please don't die. Heal. Whatever it is that needs healing, heal it. All of it. Is it working? Just. . . I can't move my hand.

Pins and needles rush up through where my palm makes contact with Liv's exposed skin. It branches off into microscopic veins of ice that burn a network of complicated trails up my arm. I gasp—partly from the pain but mostly out of fear—as the icy burn passes through my shoulder and settles on my chest.

"Agh," I exhale and bring a hand up between my breasts. "Ow."

"What happened?" Juliet walks closer from out of the shadows, sounding worried. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," I lie. "It feels like heartburn. Bad heartburn."

Liv's eyes flicker open. She coughs, notices me, smiles. I watch her brows knit in confusion. A wandering hand probs where Ethan or Jack stitched the bullet wound closed, but the stitches are no longer needed. Even from here I can see it's healed.

Liv sucks in a few clear breaths, her eyes wide. "My lady, what did you do?"

"You can't die." I press my hand harder against my chest and cough a laugh. "You're my first pick for Jarl."

Gail flits around Liv in a flurry of gentle hands, brushing back hair and soothing against her arm. "Oh, blessed child. I'm so happy you're alright." Gail's wavering voice gives away just how serious Liv's injuries must have been. The two begin talking in Norse.

Every inch of my skin is unpleasantly damp. A pressure builds up between my spinal vertebrae, so I bend forward and snap back until I feel a nice crackle of relief. I wonder if Ben's x-rays have developed yet. Maybe in this reality he doesn't have a tumor? Oh, wow, this hurts. Holy Mother of God, I need to sit down.

"I'm so sorry to press the issue," Juliet says from right in front of me. When did she get so close? "Can you tell me about what you're experiencing? Maybe start with what it feels like. Is the heartburn sensation getting better or worse?"

"I don't know. Better? Agh! No, worse. Definitely worse." It feels like I've eaten an entire plate of ghost chili peppers and choked on one of them. Now a pressure is painfully building between my femur and hip bone. I swivel around to try and crack it. A familiar dramatic thumping forces me to jerk a hand over my heart, but the pain is only getting sharper. Now it feels like every joint in my body needs to crack. It feels like my actual bones are grinding against each other until they crack. Are my bones breaking? I want to explain this to Juliet, but when I try to, all I get out is a pitiful whimper.

Gail's hands are cool against my feverish face. She's saying something because her mouth is moving, but I can't hear what it is. Pain coils in my lungs like fire, burning up my throat until I have no choice but to try and cough it out of my system.

A spray of blood splatters across Gail's dress. For a second, I refuse to believe it belongs to me, then I take in a breath only to gurgle and choke. I don't even have the air to tell them I can't breathe.

"Freyja?"

I'm floating on air—only, I'm not. Once I get a good look around, I realize I'm standing at the bow of a ship gliding through a dense fog. Wooden boards creak and groan as we slowly bob across the waves.

"Frejya?"

A woman sitting near me smiles when I look over at her. There's a small child a few seats away, waving at me. Heavy booted steps thump across the ship as a red-headed man approaches, kneeling when he reaches me.

"Thank you for speaking with me, Freyja," he booms in a jovial tone. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you. My name is Ragnar. I have something important I'd like you to tell my daughter."

I wake to the fresh feeling that can only come with recovering from illness. Despite my pounding headache, general lethargy, painful need to crack my neck, and blurry vision, I feel amazing in comparison to what I went through last night. I force my eyes open and watch a woman drop the bowl of water she was carrying to my bedside.

She screams, dashing away with a flurry of excited Norse words.

Gail practically slams into the bedpost. I feel her fingers brush against my face. I feel her press her forehead down against my shoulder. My eyes swivel uselessly around in my head. I'm too weak to conjure the air needed to ask her to please stop rubbing her face all over me. I'm okay. You can stop crying.

"I'm so sorry," Gail sobs hoarsely into the bedsheets. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know it would take so much out of you. I never would have encouraged it."

When I'm able to move, I push up into a sitting position—in part to finally get Gail off me. I'm on a bed in the infirmary, and from the looks of it, Gail, Liv, Juliet, and Jack have all been in here long enough to have nodded off while they waited for me to wake up. Juliet's still blinking her way out of a dream.

Ethan walks into the room and yawns. "Oh, good. You decided not to die."

I'm the most surprised to see Jack. He smiles, but it looks like he hasn't quite figured out what he thinks of me yet. Jack gives a small nod. "Cora."

I nod in return. "Jack."

"Glad to see you're finally awake," he says, and there's a comfort in talking to him without him glaring at me. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine. I'm fine." Judging from the state of my headache, I imagine I've been unconscious all night. Possibly all day as well. "How long was I out?"

Jack listens to my lungs with a stethoscope and Ethan sticks a thermometer in my mouth. "You've been in a coma for almost four days."

I almost open my mouth and drop the thermometer. Four days?

"Follow my finger with just your eyes, please." Jack waves a finger from one side of my face to the other. "Good. At least until we can run some tests, it sounds like your lungs are clear."

"My lungs? I didn't—"

"They were ripped up," he says and points to his own chest. "Filled with blood. We had to drain them, and by then you were already healing."

Jack is in doctor mode at this point, and there's no stopping him. Even though I only understand a fraction of what he's saying, I furrow my eyebrows and nod like everything makes sense. He explains how he and Juliet and Ethan have come up with a theory about my power. Something to do with my white blood cell count dropping? They took blood samples while I was dying? Cool. Thanks.

I don't know what to say when he finishes. I simply settle on, "Thank you."

"It was touch and go there for a second," Ethan notes grimly. "When Juliet brought us here, you were already gone."

I understand him. I understand him perfectly clear, but I still need to hear him say it. "What do you mean?"

Jack blinks, presses his lips together, and nods. "He means for the three and a half minutes it took us to get here, you were legally dead."

Snapping the book shut, I fight the urge to fling it across the room. Tom has terrible taste in literature.

I have a suspicion the reason no one has visited me in the infirmary yet is because Gail won't allow it. For the first day, it was nice. Quiet. Peaceful. Easy to nap, eat, nap some more. Fenrir and Pumba have thankfully stopped fighting and find ways to entertain themselves while I read. But one day turned into two, and now that I feel mostly recovered, I'm getting a little stir-crazy.

I try to tell Gail this when she checks in on me, but all she does is offer another book to help me pass the time. She's convinced I need a few more days of doing absolutely nothing before we sail back to Hydra, while the rest of my people prepare for the wedding. It's supposedly such an undertaking, it'll be at least a week before I'll need to return for the ceremony.

I'm not even sure how many days it's been when I see Alex army crawling across the floor towards my bed.

I'm laughing before I can stop myself. "What are you doing?"

"Shh! Gail won't let any of us in," she whispers conspiratorially. "She says you need absolute silence to recuperate. Got the whole place on lockdown."

"How'd you get in?"

Alex crawls up to the side of my bed and sits on the floor. "Back window. Had to unscrew like 7 bolts, but I heard you wanted to try our cheese. Here." She hefts up a backpack, checking to make sure Gail isn't storming into the room. "It's as fresh as you can get."

I marvel at the delicious looking spread. "You made all this?"

"Dad and I did. I was milking animals for hours. I never want to make cheese again. Oh, here." Alex pulls out The Hobbit from her backpack and places on my bedside table. "Dad wanted me to give this to you. I hope I didn't get cheese on it."

"Is that my notebook?" I frown, pointing. "Did you read it? Is that how you knew I wanted to try the mainland's famous cheese?"

"Sorry." Alex smiles and shrugs with embarrassment. "I was just keeping it safe for you. I liked the sketches of Fenrir. They're funny."

They're not supposed to be funny. "Thanks."

We nibble at various homemade cheeses while Alex gives me the latest island news. She explains Jin's still alive because apparently my people will no longer kill anyone without my permission. I'm about to ask her for more info when suddenly she's gone—swiftly rolling under my bed, taking her backpack with her in one fluid motion.

"Do you need anything?"

I look up at Gail and smile despite myself. "Nope." Don't laugh. "I'm good." Stop smiling so hard. "Thanks, Gail."

"I brought you some lunch and another book." I watch her mouth curl upwards into a small amused smile of her own as she nods down towards the bed and soundlessly words, "Is she bothering you?"

I finally let myself laugh and shake my head. "No, I'm good, Gail. Thanks for the food."

"You're welcome." Looking especially amused, Gail nods, turns, and walks back towards the entrance, disappearing with a click.

"Whoo, that was close," Alex says as she rolls out from under the bed. "No offense, but Gail scares me."

"Why?"

"Liv is technically your body guard, but Gail's just. . . she's like, your number one follower. I mean, she went kinda ballistic when she found out you were poisoned."

That's right. That's a list item I haven't checked off yet. "Do you know what's going to happen to her? The woman who poisoned me?"

"Far as I know, she's going to rot in prison."

All at once I remember what Jane told me before I wandered off and got Liv shot: I killed this woman's parents. What was her name? Daisy? Daphne? "Do you know who she is?"

"Oh, I never met her," says Alex. "But Hazel has."

"Who's Hazel?"

"One of my friends on Hydra." Alex's demeanor saddens a little. "I haven't seen her in a while."

"She doesn't come visit?"

"She used to, but. . ." Alex takes a small nibble and shrugs with one shoulder. "I haven't seen her since her dad died."

That's why Alex wants to go to Hydra so badly. Wait, are there even any children here at the barracks? The only child I've see so far is Indiana, and she's years younger than Alex. "Are there any girls your age here at the barracks?"

Alex's sadness slowly sours into annoyance. "No. I mean, Indiana's nice and all, but she's six. I can only play pretend ponies so many times a day before I want to scream."

What about Karl? "Are you saying you and Indiana are the only kids in all the barracks?"

Alex folds her arms over her chest. "I'm not a kid. I'm sixteen."

"Sorry. I meant are you and Indiana the only young people here?"

Alex shrugs again. "Yeah."

I know better than most what it's like not to have friends. Even when I did have friends it was like I didn't. One of the girls I regularly hung out with in college once invited me to a party, and when I showed up with the food she requested, she and the other girls in attendance made it abundantly clear I wasn't welcome. Bitch never even gave me my baking dish back. Why did I leave it there? Should have stormed out with the food when they—

"I'm legally allowed to go to Hydra if I wanted to," Alex grumbles. "It's totally unfair. I haven't been able to practice with the band in months."

I almost choke on cheese. "You're in a band? My brother was in a band! What do you play?"

"Electric guitar."

"You're in a rock band? That's so cool!" Alex looks surprised at my enthusiasm. "And that's so lame your dad won't let you hang out with your friends. What's his deal?"

Relaxing completely at the opportunity to complain, Alex says, "I don't know. He never gives me an answer. It's always I'll let you go next year. He's been saying that since I was fourteen."

I hate seeing Alex like this. "Maybe I can ask him for you. Come on, I'm sick of being in this stupid room." I take an excited bite of mozzarella and confirm this is quality enough cheese to constitute as famous. "He can't say no to a god."

Ben doesn't even look up from his desk. "No."

"That's it? You're not even going to listen to my pitch?"

Ben's still hard at work rummaging through stacks of paperwork for the new treaty draft. He flips a page to reveal a mixture of English, runes, and something else. There's a pause as he reads, then he circles one of the runes. "I apologize that Alex put you up to this, especially so soon after your recovery. I'll have a talk to her about it later."

"She didn't put me up to anything," I explain. "I just think it would be good for her to visit her friends."

He takes off his glasses and finally looks up at me. "If I wanted your opinion, I'd have asked you for it."

I feel my body go through all the physiological reactions to being chastised, but although my face is burning, my thoughts remain surprisingly clear. Granted, he's not yelling at me, so that helps. "Does Alex have any friends here at the barracks?"

"Yes," he snaps, "of course she does. Everyone adores her." He's still not yelling, but his tone suggests he might as well be, and it makes my palms sweaty.

Still, what he's doing isn't fair. Alex is a good kid. Too good. I mean, honestly, he has no idea how easy he has it. Take my younger twin sisters, for example. They took any excuse they could get to cause trouble. If anything, our incredibly sheltered hell-hole of a household only perfected their art of never getting caught because the consequences were so high. Alex may argue with Ben every once in a while, but she still listens. If what she says is true about being legally allowed to visit Hydra, Alex could technically hop in a boat and visit whenever she wants. But she doesn't. Because Ben told her not to, and she listened.

"I meant does she have friends her own age. And no," I add, "Indiana does not count. They're ten years apart."

Ben leans back a little in his chair until it squeaks. According to the ticking clock in the distance, fifteen seconds pass before he leans forward and clasps his hands on the desk. "Are you at all interested in feudal Japan? I have a historic scroll you are more than welcome to have."

"Huh?"

"No? How about James Bond? I have a signed first edition of Casino Royale. You want it?"

"Not particularly, no. Why?"

Ben leans forward more, shadowing his face from the desk lamp so he looks even more annoyed than usual. "I'm trying to figure out what I can offer you to leave me in peace. You want a greek salad?"

What I want to say is Wow, you're an asshole. What's your plan here? Keep her away from Hydra. . . because? What are you worried about? Why don't you seem to have a problem keeping her here on the mainland where the men and older male teens live? Wouldn't you want her as far away from them as possible? Again, what's the plan here? She's eventually going to snap and do whatever she wants anyway. That's always how this ends. Can't you see being this inflexible is only widening the rift between you two? Don't you care that you're driving her away?

What I say is, "You're very unpleasant." Before he has a chance to respond, I'm speed-walking out the front door.

Oh no! I forgot to thank him for making me all that cheese! Grandma would have a fit right now if she knew someone had made me food—especially something as complicated and time consuming as homemade cheese—and I didn't thank them. Oops. I didn't even ask him about his x-rays.

"Sorry," I tell Alex when I find her sitting on a bench not far from the house. "It's a firm no."

"Yeah, I figured. Thanks anyway." Alex hops up and throws her arms around me in a tight hug. "Promise you'll come and visit soon? It's so boring here."

Stop it, stop it, please. I grit my teeth so hard I'm surprised I don't crack a molar. "Yeah," I say and shake her off. "Of course. Or," I suggest in a joking whisper, "you can always come visit me."

"I for one am glad to be going home." Gail puffs up and takes a seat next to me. "Sit up straight, Cora. Don't slouch."

I straighten my spine.

The last of the crew climb aboard. Ropes are unfastened from the shore. The plank we used to walk into the ship is pulled up. A man standing near the sails complains about the weak winds and the need for oars.

"Wait," I say. "Stop!" The crew immediately stops talking. I point at the trees in the distance. Someone is running full sprint towards us, their voice so faint I can barely hear it. It's a while before I recognize Alex.

A man lowers the plank for her, and she climbs aboard, gasping and choking on air. "Dad changed his mind," she huffs when I ask what's wrong. "He said I can stay with you for the week before the wedding." I watch her eyes dart to the trees in the distance before darting back to me. She smiles, seemingly unable to stop coughing. "We can shove off now."

"Alex." She tenses at the sound of her name, and I smile at her, knowing full well Ben didn't change his mind. It's only going to be a matter of time before he comes to bring her back home. Oh well. "You better get a weeks worth of fun out of the next few hours."