In shock, I drop her hand. It lands with a soft thud on the bed. The severed connection halts all activity. Her eyes are vaulted shut now, the monitor beside her reading regularly.

That was…anticlimactic, Supermom clips.

“Problematic.”

Should I have another go at it? Third time’s the charm, so what’s the second? For starters, it’s a free pass from trouble if I mess around and experiment unsupervised. I’ll save my third strike for a rainy day. There are plenty in Ceobhránach Cove. Is this really an experiment, though? It’s more of a temperature check. Everyone’s all about those bad boys lately. What harm can come from trying again? What they don’t know can’t hurt me, right?

I wipe my sweaty palms on my favorite Tally-token denims, scanning my mother for any notable change. Nope, still comatose. The lack of movement in her face enhances her corpse presentation. She looks dead, the same as she always did…or sleeping peacefully if you want to throw a positive spin on it.

I take a deep breath, letting it out in time with the forced rise and fall of her chest. What exactly am I hoping to accomplish here? Too much, whatever it is. At the very least, I want to see if she’ll have a similar reaction when I make deliberate contact. Or any reaction. Maybe it was a fluke system malfunction.

Hmm. Where to start? I rub circles with my thumbs and index fingers, my fire sparking in my heart and spreading out from there. Okay, so my power source is my heart. If the same is true for her, I somehow need to guide my flame to her heart. Not the literal fire part. That would be the epitome of a flame-induced misfortune. My energy. She needs my would-be-Solathair energy.

Tentatively, I place my hands just above her breastbone. My fuel gauge is running on empty, so mercifully, I don’t have to wait long for a response. Without any added push, I feel the pull in my palm. There’s no pressure, only a tingling sensation similar to a limb waking up that was lacking in circulation.

When her hands clench the sheets underneath us, I’m unsure whether to bear down or ease up. Am I hurting her? Am I somehow worsening her condition? There’s no visible damage where I’m touching her. I think we’re good, and if we aren’t, hey, we’re in a hospital. Lucky break, that.

Tears pool in my eyes, trailing down my nose. Each droplet sizzles as it hits her face. Beads of sweat mix with my tears, making it difficult to see very far in front of me. I struggle to focus, but it’s worth the effort. Through a sauna fog, I see the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. My mother’s topaz eyes.

My heart decelerates while the monitor beside the bed bellows a war cry. Opposite reactions. A life for a life. I’ve nothing left to give, yet I’m content to give her everything I have if it means she finally regains her life, a life I stole from her in the instant of my birth. My body relaxes completely, and I slide in slow motion onto the floor, unable to maintain the connection between us.

The nurse tasked with external monitoring barges into the room, yelling for someone to page Dr. Keane. In hindsight, I should’ve anticipated how the palpitation would send the professionals sniffing. Another hard lesson, or it will be when said doctor arrives.

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Her voice sounds like it’s coming from the other end of a tunnel. I’m weightless and disoriented until a set of strong arms lifts me to my feet. Ryan’s Echinacea and Aloe scent washes me in a warm, healing current.

“You can leave us now, Melissa,” Ryan instructs calmly. “Everything’s fine.”

“The cardiac monitor was reading off the charts,” the young nurse argues, “and there was a significant spike in her temperature.”

“Sheyla must’ve pulled the cups loose,” he explains. “Her temperature seems fine now. The disruption would’ve altered the output.”

“Sheyla, what happened? Are you unwell? Why were you on the floor?” she probes.

Bright side: I fell off Mom before she entered, or I’d be answering to the security team for tampering with the hospital’s longest staying resident. She’s been here for longer than most the furniture.

“I’m cool,” I lie.

“Dr. Keane, are you confident you don’t want me to do some checks?”

“We’re fine. I’ll find out what happened.”

She grumbles as she leaves the room.

In the few short moments he’s been supporting my weight, I’ve felt myself growing increasingly stronger, but I keep my lids locked tight. I don’t want to see how rough the waters are. If Declan’s anywhere nearby, we’re looking at a hurricane of cataclysmic proportions with my idiocy at the eye of the storm.

“Explain,” Ryan demands once the door clicks closed.

He isn’t buying my attempt to play faint. In fact, he’s so certain of my regained stability he lets go of my arms. I confirm his suspicions by catching myself before falling to the floor. Stupid reflexes.

Something I don’t enjoy, even remotely, is conflict. I stand up straight but still don’t look him in the eye. How can I explain my actions in a way he’d understand? I promised him not to conduct any more unsupervised experiments.

He taps his foot impatiently while I blow out a dramatic breath. “It was an accident. I was holding her hand. The monitor started reading strange, so I let go.”

He walks over to the machine and presses some buttons, causing a line of paper to shoot out the end. After reviewing the results, he makes his way back over.

He scowls the most disapproving scowl. Has he been training with Dad? “And the second time?”

“I just wanted to connect with her.” I smile sheepishly. “I probably bumped the electrodes.”

“You more than bumped them.”

“I woke her up,” I whisper.

“What did you just say?”

Scolding earned or not, I’m due an emotional episode as the reality of what happened starts to kick in. I. Woke. Her. Up. I saw her eyes. Open. Looking at me.

“I woke her up, Ryan,” I repeat.

He opens his arms to me. “You’ve had all the energy transfer you can handle for one day.”

“Did I imagine it?” I sob into his chest.

“I don’t think so.” He rubs my back softly. “You aren’t one for bouts of hallucination.”

I sniff. “Then why isn’t she still awake?”

“That’s a great question I don’t have an answer to. We’ll figure it out.”

I wipe at my nose and break free to look into his ocean-hued eyes. “With supervision.”

“Precisely.” He smiles warmly. “But not tonight.”

He’s not wrong. I’m tapped out. My body. My fire energy. My emotional fortitude. Everything is depleted.

“Where’s Declan? Would he mind sitting with her while you take me home?”

“Not a problem,” Declan advises from the doorway.

“How are you feeling?” He was notably weak after the augmentation with Kiley, hence the trip to the hospital in the first place.

“Very best,” he assures me. “How’s your temperature?”

See? They love those temperature checks. “I’m cool,” I repeat the same lie.

I want to work out what I did right so the next go will be less traumatic. I also need to work out how the transfer of my power was directly connected to my mom’s brief palpitation, but I’m far too tired to do any serious hypothesizing.

While the sum of my days is consistently in a minus state, I can’t afford to dwell on it. The day wasn’t an epic fail. Objectively. For a short and sweet two-second span, I saw my mother’s eyes for the first time in my life, and I’m hopeful I’ll see them again.