The Fault In Reality

Chapter Twenty-Six

There's a lot of things going on in my mind at the moment. Primarily is a kind of dazed mantra running through my thoughts, a this can't be happening, this can't be happening, oh why in the name of sanity is this happening?

The second is fear, blind and heavy in my head. I feel weighed down, clumsy. The calm Autumn sun flares across my vision, and a color that isn't exactly black tingles alongside. Chase is unmoving and unconscious on the ground, his face slowly draining of color. He looks faint, as though he might slip away at any moment. I take one glance at the wound at his side, a long ugly snarl of open flesh, and know immediately he needs the kind of medical help I can't give him. Despair jostles at the edges of my attention, like wolves just beyond the firelight. I don't want to believe it, but it's true. He's dying. His eyes are closed and his head is lolled back. Dirt is smeared over his chin and cut cleanly through with a thin set of scratches, which have welled up with blood.

But behind that, stuffed away in the back of my thoughts, is an amazement. Devany didn't run. Despite every natural instinct in him, he fought his fear and met the cougar. It's the kind of loyalty I know is almost exclusive to animals, and it in the midst of all the confusion and panic a warmth is growing, spreading up through my fingers and over my arms.

I tell myself that if Devany can be brave, so can I. He's come back to all fours, now, but his ears are pasted to his skull and his teeth are showing through his peeled lips. He's intent on the cougar's retreating figure. I reach up and run a hand down his sinewy neck. He quivers under my touch. His every muscle's stretched taut and alert, ready for action. He half lifts himself into the air, then throws his hooves at the ground in a deafening stomp.

I thread my fingers through his mane one last time and pass in front of him, where Chase is splayed over the ground. My hands are shaking as I kneel beside him and lift up his shirt. His chest is rising and falling slowly; his breathing is a labored wheezing. Blood is oozing steadily out of his wound, more than I'd have thought possible.

"Chase?" I say, and my voice is thin and wane in the quiet forest. His eyes stay firmly shut on the plains of his sallow face. My heart is beating so fast I'm scared it might burst. I edge his shirt all the way over the head and ball it up against his wound. Devany comes up behind me, calmer now, and breathes over my shoulder.

"It's alright," I tell him, because it's what I wish someone would say to me. "I'll apply some pressure, just like they taught me in sixth grade, and then..."

Then what? Even if by some miracle I do manage to stop the bleeding, Chase has lost a lot of blood - the evidence of which has muddied the dirt and is strewn over the leaves. I look to Devany. The cougar's claws have cut through the girth of the saddle, which now hangs askew. There's no way Chase is riding in his condition, and I'm not certain Devany could handle the blood and an unconscious rider anyway.

The reality of my situation flashes into perfect clarity. I kneel there, putting as much pressure as I dare on Chase's wound. The shirt has already been soaked through in red. I close my eyes. I understand. If get up on Devany now, and ride like the wind back to the house, then maybe there's a chance I can get help in time. In doing so I'm breaking my every vow to Eclipse, dishonoring her memory... and putting the lives of all future horses I might ride in jeopardy.

But if I don't, Chase is dead for certain.

Eclipse. Sweet Eclipse. I killed her. How can I risk Devany's life as well? Everything is in knots, my vision is teetering to the left. I'm trembling with shock and my own uncertainty. And just then Devany locks eyes with me, and something floods me.

Warm, it hollows out my insides. It steadies my erratic heartbeat. It solidifies something in my watery eyes. And for once, I don't fight it. Like a train picking up speed my mind begins to work, faster and faster, clicking everything together like pieces of a toy railroad. And I speed along it, my hands flashing out in front of me. I tear off the hem of my shirt, tie it over Chase's shirt and wound. My fingers, no longer shaking, slip the fabric into a knot. I prop up his head on a bit of moss. Leaving him here with the cougar lurking nearby is hardly a comforting concept. But I don't have any other choice.

I walk slowly over to Devany. Again he meets my gaze, and his ears flick forwards. A strand of his mane blows across his face. He nickers, stepping towards me. It's all I need to hear. I pull off the remains of the saddle and set it down next to Chase.

"Stay alive, do you understand? I'm doing this for you, so you better just stay alive," I tell him, knowing all the while he can't hear me.

I take Devany's reins and lead him to a stump. The rotting wood crumbles under my weight almost as soon as I step on, so there's no last moment of hesitation or remembrance. One second I'm the jumbled, shattered mess I've been for the past few years, and then I've settled into the crook of his back and I'm Era again. The girl I am when no one else is around, when it's just me and my horse.

It feels so right, so natural. Devany's neck arches out in front of me, his ears are swiveled to attention. I can feel his energy against mine, pushing and ready and limitless. I barely need to tell him, barely need to touch him. Just the faintest whisper of my heel and he plunges forward. First a trot, smooth as glass, then a canter, and it's like giving yourself over to the ocean and being rocked inits waves. His strides swallow the ground, enormous bounds, and when I ask for more he gives it.

We surge out into a gallop, the transition like an extension of the canter until we're soaring. His hooves launch off from the ground, his mane whips across my face, trees are yanked past by our sheer speed. I'm not even thinking anymore, just quietly glowing with the pleasure of doing what I'm best at again.

At some point I give up all control to Devany, lie the reins over his neck and let him go. The forest falls away from us, blue skies burst out overhead. A delicious wind sings in me ears. I feel perfectly melded to this powerful creature under me. We don't need words, we barely need cues. He seems to respond more to the tilt of my head or the thoughts in my head than my heels or hands. Grass whips past my ankles, the sun warms my back. This is exactly where I need to be.

There's a fence ahead, and though my mind is screaming with the memory of the fall my body responds automatically. I lift up, entwine my fingers in his mane, give him the smallest squeeze for assurance. He rises up to meet me, ears pricked ahead, neck arched. He's so big that it's barely a jump at all.

Then we're at the barn, and our flight is over. I sit deeply, tease the reins back. He fights our conclusion for only a moment before transiting to a walk. I slide off his back, feeling suddenly lost. I run a few steps towards the house, pause, then lunge a few steps towards the barn, but without Devany under me my uncertainty is swelling. It threatens to swallow me into the stomach of full blown panic.

Then Jack's face appears from around the corner.

"What's wrong?" he calls out.

"Call the ambulance!" is my only answer. My vision's going dark around the edges, my legs feel like jelly. I stay conscious just long enough to see Jack pull out his cellphone and dial 911.

A/N: Meh, I'm sorry for finishing the chapter with a cliche fainting thing. This one didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to, so I might come back and rewrite it. In the mean time, enjoy!