Her violet eyes narrowed on the girl in the bed—the one who wasn't moving. Pale against the tangle of bedsheets, Ariella looked like a ghost of herself, skin faintly glowing, streaks of white light flickering under her skin like lightning trapped beneath glass.
Ariella's breaths came shallow...too shallow.
Silas crouched near the foot of her bed, with fingers wrapped around a scanner pulsing with dim blue light. "The Kāäs is tearing through the rune and merging with the Inanis. It's ripping her cells apart."
Natalia's eyes flicked toward the faint shimmer over Ariella's chest—the rune carved by Silas on Enzo order to keep her powers dormant. But it was slowly disintegrating before her eyes.
Clark's breath hitched as he sat on the edge of the bed, gripping Ariella's limp hand like it was the only thing tethering her to the world. "There has to be a way to save her."
"We're working against time." Silas said. "If her cells collapse—"
"Don't," Clark warned, standing so fast the chair behind him scraped.
Natalia didn't flinch at the tension in his voice. Instead, she shifted slightly as Bruce stopped by her side, silent and still. His gaze locked on Ariella, unreadable except for the stiffness in his jaw and the way his fingers flexed, like he was trying not to shake.
She turned to him, her voice low. "Bruce..."
"She can't die." Bruce cut her off. "She's the only family I have left."
Family.
That word was foreign to her. She had a father and sisters, but she wouldn't call them a family, not in how Bruce said it where it held some much weight. Her father made sure that the League and its mission came first before anything else.
Natalia turned from him, her eyes landed on Enzo across the room knelt beside Ariella. He brushed a strand of her hair from her cheek. His eyes, normally sharp and cold, were soft.
