Jailhouse Blues I

In the end, Jayla, Lil, Sai-ee, and I were all shoved into that truck. The soldiers didn’t have a better place to put us.

Jayla had been shot in the chest. I couldn’t tell if it was in the heart or the lung or what, but she was losing a lot of blood, and she was unconscious. Her breath came in little wheezy gasps, and occasionally she coughed up blood.

“C’mon, Jay. C’mon. Stay with me. Don’t you think you can go leaving me alone.” I pressed my hands to her chest, leaning my entire body weight on her in the cramped dim and airless backseat, trying to keep her blood in like that, pushing magic through my hands in an attempt to keep her alive.

She wasn’t waking up.

“Sai-ee, help me.”

“Two people aren’t better than one,” Sai-ee said, face in Lil’s shoulder. He was hugging her like he never planned to let her go. “Barely better than none.”

“Sai-ee,” Lil said. “I liked how you looked back there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Standing in the sun. Taking action.”

“And look where that got us, huh?”

She was trying some roundabout way of convincing him. I didn’t give a damn about that. At this point I hated Sai-ee and every other character and word I’d ever written. I kept trying to keep Jayla’s blood in and gritted out, “Just fucking help me.”

Something in my tone must’ve convinced him, or maybe it was Lil after all. In any case, he came to my side and put his hands on top of mine. Warm energy rushed through them. Jayla coughed again, but no blood came out that time. Her lung must’ve been healing.

My hands were pressing down into where the bullet had struck, pushing blood up out of the wound. I moved them slightly to the sides, but now they weren’t keeping anything in. I didn’t know enough first aid for this. Did we have to get the bullet out? The most important thing, surely, was keeping pressure going, keeping up the healing energy. Anything else could be dealt with later.

“Thanks. For trying to save me, right?”

The truck went over a bump in the road. Crowded together, Sai-ee and Lil and I all bounced around, and Jayla too, slipping out of my grip and bumping her head on the ground.

“Shit!”

She was as motionless as a corpse, and as lethargic, not even stirring in that fall. I dragged her back up and pressed my hand to her heart.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba.

I waited three seconds, but another heartbeat didn’t come.

No. She wasn’t dead.

I’d gotten better and better at feeling my internal energy. Right now, it was clustered in my hands and in my chest, guarding my heart. I held her tight close to me and tried to send it all out, drench her skin in it and let it seep in. The backseat lit up in an eerie purple glow. It illuminated Sai-ee and Lil’s sorrowful faces.

“Sai-ee,” I said again. “Help me.”

He shook his head.

“Why won’t you help me, you shitty brat!”

“I can’t bring people back to life, you shitty adult.”

“Have you tried?” I took him by the wrist and put his hand on Jayla again. “C’mon. Give her all you’ve got.”

He drew back. “It’s not worth it.”

Her heart wasn’t beating and she wasn’t breathing anymore.

She didn’t deserve this. She’d always tried to be a good person. She’d gone through so much.

It was my call to try and rescue Lil.

Who was I kidding, it wasn’t just my call, it was my fucking world.

Now that I had my theory, that things I wrote became real because I was a magician, it wasn’t only this world’s existence that made me sick with guilt. I’d written Do it!!!!. God, even if I had no magic powers, was there any fucking excuse for telling that to someone who really was going to kill himself? And yet, after that, I’d kept living my life, kept writing. Even after I got sent into my own novel, witnessed the ramifications of my actions, I’d kept living my life, kept trying to affect the world around me—”make a difference”. Spread awfulness and misery around me like a toxic cloud.

I should just stop.

I let go of Jayla and sunk down in my seat, pressing my face against the wall.

We stopped, and someone took the corpse out.

“Let’s make a run for it,” Lil said, “next time.”

Neither Sai-ee or I responded.

We stopped, and someone took Lil out. She fought as they dragged her away. Sai-ee grabbed her hand and tried to keep her in. His magic powers weren’t equal to two adults pinning him down. So it didn’t get very far.

“Me or you next, you think?” Sai-ee asked. His wrist and clothes were wet with blood, and I realized I was dripping with it. “I’ll take a bet.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not my mom.”

“I kinda am.”

“What?”

“I created you, as a person, and created all of this.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Personal power’s a myth.”

I turned away. “Wish that wasn’t true.”

Sai-ee was taken out of the truck next. Unlike Lil, he didn’t fight, but rag-dolled, so he had to be carried. I wondered who would have won or lost that bet if I’d taken it.

Lil wouldn’t be able to kill him now. So, would he reach old age? Or would Ky’cina and her faction figure something else out?

Finally, I was let out of the truck into another prison. It had gone into the yard of a prison building within the palace. I was led through that yard by a few soldiers down a stone hall into a small cell. The door shut.

I shouldn’t’ve let go of her. What if I’d called it wrong, and she was alive, like before? I’d doomed her then, by loosening my hold. Now she was in their custody.

I shouldn’t’ve let go of her, because even if she was dead, if I’d kept my grip tight, I would’ve had something to hold.