Chapter 13: Fifteen Minutes

I did not take the vial.

I dropped to my knees on the boards beside my sister and put my hands on her shoulders.

"Cora. Look at me."

Her eyes rolled to mine, blue and wild, with a thin ring of gold that came and went.

"It hurts," she said through her teeth. "It's stopping, Ivy, it keeps stopping."

"I know. Breathe out. Long, like you're fogging a window."

She tried.

Her ribs jerked, and the fur on her forearm shivered and sank back into skin.

"Ivy!" my mother cried, and the case slammed down beside us. "Move. She needs it now."

"She needs air," I said.

I rolled Cora onto her side with one hand under her head, the way Dr. Lowry's class had drilled it into me.

I pulled the white robe loose at her throat.

I felt her pulse against my fingers, fast but strong.

"Somebody get me a blanket," I called out. "And water. Nothing from the clinic."

A stagehand ran.

Two of the sponsors' people ran after him.

My mother caught my wrist, and her nails dug in.

"Do you want your sister to die on camera?"

"Take your hand off me," I said again. "I'm treating a patient."

It was the same voice I had used on the track.

I had not known I could use it on her.

Rafe's hand closed over my mother's, firm, and lifted it away.

"Ma'am," he said. "Step back."

"I'm her mother!"

"Then you'll want to be where she can see you without a needle in your fist."

My mother's face went through three expressions in a second, and none of them were warm.

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