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the mall.
    Anguish exploded inside me, a shock to my entire
    system. My lungs ached. My throat burned. Tears
    poured from my eyes. The scream bounced around in
    my head so fast and hard I couldn’t think.
    I couldn’t hold it in. The keening started up again,
    more urgent than ever, and my jaws—already sore
    from being clenched—were no match for the renewed
    pressure.
    “Give it to me…” Lydia said, and I opened my eyes
    to see her staring at me earnestly. She looked a little
    better. A little stronger. Not quite so pale. But if she
    took any more of my pain, she’d backslide. Fast and
    hard.
    Unfortunately, I was beyond the ability to focus by
    then. I didn’t know whether or not to give her what she
    wanted, much less how to do it. I could only ride the
    Rachel Vincent / 67
    scream jolting through me like a bolt of electricity and
    hope it stayed contained.
    But it wouldn’t. The keening grew stronger. It
    thickened, until I thought I’d choke on it. My teeth
    vibrated beneath the relentless power of it, and I
    chattered like I was cold. I couldn’t hold it back.
    Yet I couldn’t afford to let it go.
    “There’s too much. It’s too slow,” Lydia moaned.
    She was tense, like every little movement hurt. Her
    hands shook again, and her face had become one
    continuous grimace. “I’m sorry. I have to take it.”
    What? What does that mean? Her pain was
    obvious, and she wanted more? I pulled my hand
    away, but she snatched it back just as my mouth flew
    open. I couldn’t fight it anymore.
    The scream exploded from my throat with an
    agonizing burst of pain, like I was vomiting nails. Yet
    there was no sound.
    An instant after the scream began—before the
    sound had a chance to be heard—it was sucked back
    inside me by a vicious pull from deep in my gut. My
    mouth snapped shut. Those nails shredded my throat
    again on the way down. It whipped around inside me,
    my unheard screech, being steadily pulled out of me
    and into…
    Lydia.
    She began to convulse, but I couldn’t pry her
    fingers from my hand. Her eyes rolled up so high only
    the lower arc of her green irises showed, yet still she
    68 / My Soul to Lose
    clung to me, pulling the last of the scream from me
    and into her. Pulling my pain with it.
    Gone was the agony of my bruised lungs, my raw
    throat and my pounding head. Gone was that awful
    grief, that despair so encompassing I couldn’t think
    about anything else. Gone was the gray fog; it faded
    all around us while I tried to free my hand.
    Then, suddenly, it was over. Her fingers fell away
    from mine. Her eyes closed. She fell over backward—
    still convulsing—before I could catch her. She hit her
    head on the footboard, and when I fumbled for a
    pillow to put under her, I realized her nose was
    bleeding. Dripping steadily on the blanket.
    “Help!” I shouted, the first sound I’d made since
    the whole thing started, several endless minutes
    earlier. “Somebody help me!” My voice sounded
    funny. Slurred. Why was it so hard to talk? Why did I
    feel so weird? Like everything was moving in slow
    motion? Like my brain was packed with cotton.
    Footsteps pounded down the hall toward me, then
    the door flew open. “What happened?” Nurse Nancy
    demanded, two taller female aides peering over her
    shoulder.
    “She…” I blinked, trying to focus in a thick cloud
    of confusion. “She took too much…” Too much of
    what? The answer was right there, but it was so
    blurry… I could see it, but couldn’t quite bring it into
    focus.
    “What?” Nurse Nancy knelt over the girl on my
    bed—Lisa? Leah?—and pulled back her eyelids. “Get
    Rachel Vincent / 69
    her out of here!” She yelled at one of the aids,
    gesturing toward me with one hand. “And bring a
    stretcher. She’s seizing.”
    A woman in bright blue scrubs led me into the hall
    by one arm. “Go sit in the common room,” she said,
    then jogged past me.
    I wandered down the hall slowly, one hand on the
    cold, rough wall