[CONTENT WARNING: I was sobbing like a baby while writing this chapter. It took two weeks to write because I got partway through, had a crying fit, and couldn't even open the doc back up for another little while.
I hope you're ready.]
Oh no. Oh, God, no, no no no no no this couldn’t be happening—
“Hounaida!” I all but slid across the floor as I kneeled down in front of her. I shoved aside my horror at the way the still-warm blood seeped through the legs of my pantsuit and focused on the little girl in front of me, or at least I tried to, but oh God there was so much blood and, and what the hell was I supposed to—
No, no, I had to think, shit! I’d only ever gotten the bare minimum of training for triage and disaster recovery, what with the fact that the open flames I left behind when moving fast were the absolute last thing you wanted in an environment like that! I still knew some first aid, but what if it did more harm than good here!? I didn’t know how to handle something this bad, it was…
Damn it, no, I had to do something! I stripped off my ruined blazer and pressed it against the wound. Hounaida whimpered, and Zara yowled in fear beside the two of us, but I kept pressing, kept applying pressure.
“Hounaida, honey, listen to my voice, okay?” I practically begged, folding the blazer up tighter atop itself to let me apply more pressure and soak up more of the blood. “I, I n-need you to keep your eyes open, okay? Can you do that for me, hun? Please?”
“Hnng,” she groaned, and I saw her look at me. Her eyes were half-closed and looked unfocused, but she was awake, that was important, okay, shit, alright was was next? Stop the bleeding; I was applying pressure as well as I could, so now? I didn’t have the skill or supplies or composure to do this. I had to call for help.
I couldn’t call for help with my hands occupied, damn it! If only I had—
Wait, that’s it!
I reached within myself and tugged at the connection I shared with Gorou, blasting as much urgency and immediacy and need help please his way as I could. But two seconds ticked by, three, four… nothing. Damn it, damn it Gorou I know you were ready to go when the stalker had us at gunpoint, where are you!? I tugged the connection wider, wide enough for our senses to—
PAINPAINAGONYOHGODDESSITHURTSIT—
I recoiled and slammed the connection shut, breathing hard and gasping; shit, damn it. Damn it! My hands had flown up to my torso when the PAIN came through our link, phantoms of the already-gone bullet wounds making my heart stutter and lungs ache from the memory alone. I placed them back atop my blazer and pushed down; Hounaida’s pained groan at the pressure was weaker this time, softer.
I was running out of time. I had to call for help, and Gorou was out for the count; I had to use my cellphone—
Wait, my phone! It had been in my blazer pocket, fuck! Oh God damn it, no, even if it hadn’t gotten shot it was covered in blood now and crushed, there was no way that would work now! The closest phone was theoretically the stalker’s, but I couldn’t waste time on the off chance he hadn’t brought it or had recovered enough to stall me; he’d gone quiet, though, and that could be a problem, but — no, I didn’t have time to think about that, I had to call for help!
I couldn’t just leave Hounaida here while I grabbed Mariem’s landline handset. But I couldn’t move Hounaida either, not when she was like this, not unless… maybe I could tear down the curtains and bundle her in them, use them to carry her while keeping pressure that way?
I yanked at the curtains, but even though I was much stronger than my size would suggest, it still wasn’t enough to pull the curtain rod free. Damn it… damn it! Okay, think, Naomi; there had to be some way to—
“A-ah,” Hounaida groaned again, weakly reaching for Zara. The fox whimpered and nosed at Hounaida, licking her chin and cheeks in a desperate attempt to get some response from the girl and keep her anchored to consciousness.
Okay, shit, pulling the curtain rods free was a no-go. I had to stop or at least slow the bleeding if I wanted to move her, but Hounaida wasn’t strong enough to apply pressure herself, and while Zara had quite obviously gotten smarter thanks to whatever Gorou did, she was also still a twenty-pound quadruped. I was the only one who could stop the bleeding, and the only one who could call for help, but I couldn’t do both!
I had to move her so I could call for help. I couldn’t do that while she was bleeding, but I couldn’t stop the bleeding without applying pressure, or—
… oh, God. No, there was one thing I could do.
I could cauterize the wound.
It was a last-ditch option, something that could make an already bad situation worse — but could it get much worse than this? I had no supplies, no way to call for help. It might be too much for Hounaida to take and end up killing her, but if I didn’t do something, she was dead anyway! I… I had to. I had to cauterize the wound.
I was going to be sick. I couldn’t be sick; Hounaida was counting on me.
God, please forgive me for this.
“I’m so so so sorry honey,” I said, trying and failing to keep my voice calm as I reached for her wrist. “Hounaida hun, give me your hands, I need you to—”
Oh, no.
My attempts to pull the curtains free had shifted Hounaida along them a little bit, so the spot she’d been lying against was now uncovered. I could see what was behind her.
I could see another deep, dark spot of blood, saturated and dripping.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. With two careful fingers, I felt around Hounaida’s flank to her back, and—
“O-owww…”
Shit. Shit!
Oh God, oh, fuck.
It was worse than I thought; it was so, so much worse, it…
It was a through-and-through. She wasn’t just bleeding from where the bullet had gone in, where I hadn’t managed to protect her. There was an exit wound, too.
I hadn’t been staunching the bleeding at all. Had I?
I pulled my hand away from Hounaida’s back and pressed down on the bloodied cloth over her front, even though I knew, I knew it was futile. My eyes were burning, and my heart hung so heavy and my shoulders were shaking but I couldn’t let Hounaida see it, I couldn’t let her know that I, that I didn’t, that I…
I…
“Mzz Foxy?” The words were slurred, spoken with clumsy lips and a heavy tongue. I met Hounaida’s eyes and found them dull, glassy. She ever so slightly raised one hand from where it lay on the floor in her own blood, and I took it with my own. “‘m c-cold…”
“I, I know honey, I know,” I stammered out, trying not to cry, trying so hard to be strong for her because there wasn’t anything else I could do for her here and I knew it, and oh God it hurt, why did it have to hurt so much? And… and the worst part was? In a twisted, hideous way, the stalker was right.
I’d underestimated what the man was capable of, failed to account for how irrational he might have been, put too much weight and credence on making sure things were done right instead of just focusing on getting them all done safe, and — and now because of it, because of my reticence and my complacency and my arrogance, a little girl was dying.
And despite all my power, despite the literal divine gifts I carried with me at all times… I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless to stop it.
All I could do was sit here in a puddle of her blood, hold her hand…
And watch her die.
“... wan’… mama…”
“I know,” I gasped out, no longer able to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry, I…” I didn’t know what to say. What could I even say? This poor little girl, she… Hounaida was scared and wanted her mom and I, and she… I… I didn’t… oh, God, why? Why did…?
Why did this have to happen?
Beside us, Zara the fox whimpered and cried, looking at Hounaida with despair and anguish and recognition in her amber eyes, and my heart broke all over again. God, Hounaida had been the one to give the poor girl a reason to live again after her mate died, and with that scar still being so recent… it was too much, it was so incredibly much and I could feel it, despite how narrow the branch was to her from my connection with Gorou, and—
Wait. Wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait a minute there was something there was something hang on oh my God please please please let that—!
I looked Zara in the eye an instant before grabbing her tail in one hand, then brought it to join the hand that held Hounaida’s steadily weakening grip, pushed away my tears and despair for just a moment more, and focused.
How had I let myself forget? How had I let that detail slip past me in the one moment where it might well be the only thing I had left!?
The only reason I’d known to be here in the first place was the nascent connection Gorou had forged between himself and Zara, and while I could faintly trace that bond off of the one I shared with him, it wasn’t the only branch. The weaker one had let me know something was wrong to begin with. But that one didn’t matter now. The other one did.
The other one was the only option I had left.
So I focused inward, forced my foxfire soul to shine as bright as it possibly could, and did my best to copy what Gorou had helped me do once before, back when I was still a normal human — I reached through that bond, and reached up. Up into the heavens. Up to the moon, to the arcane geometries upon its surface, invisible to the human eye.
Up to the ones who’d locked themselves away inside — to the one at the very bottom of that third trunk on my family tree.
“Help me, please.”
I spoke in Japanese, not because it was Her native tongue — but because even though Hounaida was slipping further away with every passing second, I didn’t want this one last gamble to be the last understandable words she ever heard.
“There’s nothing more I can do, nobody else to whom I can turn, and this girl is about to die because of me and I cannot let that stand, so please, Honored Grandmother! I don’t care what it takes — I will offer any cost, pay any price, make any sacrifice, anything if it means she doesn’t have to die. So please help me save her! Please!
“I beg of you — Inari-Ōkami!”
For a moment, there was… nothing. No response. No answer to my prayers, no hope to hold onto, no light at the end of the tunnel—
But then I felt something. Something familiar, something old and powerful and aghast.
For the second time in my life, I felt the touch of something so wonderful, so immense, so impossibly more than myself, and—
Divinity defies definition.
There are no words that can accurately convey the sheer scope of something so broad and vast yet so narrow and precise, so paradoxically powerful-yet-weak and unbound-yet-constrained. I’d had Gorou serving as a sort of filter for my first encounter, the flickering ember of his godhead serving as a reference point, but all I had this time was the little divine spark I’d been gifted, and that simply wasn’t enough, and what I felt here was…
Everything, yet nothing. Iota and expanse, instant and eon, all as one. And within all of that, propping it up, laying over it, seeping into every crack, there was… there was—!H E R
Emotion and intention flowed over me, so vast and grand it threatened to extinguish my foxfire soul just from mere proximity, everything was so sharp yet so dull and so bright yet so dim, all and none and impossible to fathom.
Love. Care. Worry. Fear. Confusion. Concern. Remorse. Pity. Uncertainty.
No price too high; no cost too great; no sacrifice too much. Was I certain? Did I know what I had offered, what I risked condemning myself to?
Yes and no, obviously not and of course. ‘Anything’ to a goddess like H E R wasn’t something fathomable to a mortal like me, and if I’d had to ask anyone else, anything else, I would have balked from what would clearly have been a Faustian bargain. But I’d felt H E R touch once before, when S H E’d smiled upon me, guided me to remaking myself not as I was, but as I should have been. It was a kindness I hadn’t even thought to ask for. It was a kindness not unlike what I was asking for now.
Despite my myriad self-recriminations, what had happened was not truly my fault. I was not responsible for the actions of others, could not hold myself responsible for them. So why? Why hold myself to account for them?
Because I had been the one in a position to help, had tried to help, and because I hadn’t been good enough, a little girl lay dying in a pool of her own blood while I sat there powerless to help.
Wasn’t that enough, though? Didn’t the effort stand on its own merit?
No. No, it didn’t. Not when I’d have to tell Mariem that I’d watched Hounaida die, that she’d used her final words to ask for her mama, that I’d just sat there and let her slip away when there was something I could do, anything, anything at all.
But I wasn’t beholden to either of them. Not Hounaida, not Mariem. So why? Why offer so much? Why offer my life, my soul, my very existence for a girl I’d scarcely known for a few weeks?
Was that it? Was that all it would cost? A simple one-to-one, my life for hers? That… that wasn’t even worth thinking about. Of course. Of course I would.
But why?
That… what…? What kind of ridiculous question is that? Why? Why what? Why be good? Why even ask that!? Why should goodness need a reason!?
That—
It doesn’t matter that she has a mother who loves her and a father who would die for her; hell, who might well already have died for her! It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I could’ve saved her life and chose not to! It doesn’t matter that it is unfair and unjust for a little girl to die because of the ego and neurosis of a man who thought of another human being as an object to covet, to own, to be owed! None of that matters here! The only thing that matters, right here and right now, is whether I can help that dying child or not!
Even if—
YES! I know I’m not the one to do it, I know I’m only a conduit, and I know that’s the kind of thing which exacts a hefty toll. So please, Honored Grandmother! Let me be selfless! And if I can’t be selfless, if this requires a bit of selfishness from me, then let that be my selfishness, just this once!
Let this power of mine help me save a life instead of taking one!
No matter the cost?
No matter the cost! Just please… please save her! Don’t let her—
Consciousness came back with a jolt, confusing and disorienting, bright and busy and noisy, and my tail was scrunched under me quite uncomfortably. For some reason I was lying on my back, whereas just before I’d been kneeling down in front of—
Shit!
“Hounaida!” I yelled as I jolted upright in a panic, barely even noticing my surroundings as I desperately scanned the area in front of me for Hounaida, hoping and praying that—
“Naomi!” a familiar voice half-shouted into my ear as a pair of hands held my shoulders in a firm but not restrictive grip. “Naomi, hey, I need you to calm down for me, okay? Deep breaths, slow and steady.”
“I, what — Megan?” I turned towards that familiar voice and found my sister-in-law there, with someone else hovering over her shoulder with… was that IV tubing and a saline bag? What — was I in an ambulance? What happened? When did an ambulance get here? How long had I been out?
“Easy there Naomi, alright?” Megan reassured me, and took her hands off my shoulders to help me up and ow my back, ow my tail, oh God this was why I only slept on my side or stomach! Megan didn’t comment on the pained groans I let out, which was nice of her, and I looked down to see… wait, that wasn’t my ruined clothes; who’d changed me into a pair of loose sweats? “You were out for about four hours. We’ve got that ratfucker in custody, Waqas is already at the hospital, and—”
“Hounaida!?” I gasped out, my heart rate spiking and ears pulling flat in panic. “What happened, is she, did—”
“Naomi!” Megan snapped, and I went dead still. “Sit still, close your eyes, and breathe.” My jaw clacked shut so quickly I almost bit my tongue, and I wanted to scream, but instead, I did what she asked. “Good. Now: in, hold, out; in, hold—”
“She’s awake!” a young girl’s voice yelled, and my ears turned towards it the instant I heard a fox’s yip accompany it. “Miss Foxy!? Miss Foxy!”
She… she was okay? I’d… had it actually worked?
“Hounaida!?”
I jerked away from Megan and the EMT tech that had been prepping to re-stick me with a fresh IV, half-remembered training reminding me to leap free of the ambulance before I let my foxfire carry me over to the young girl and the fox she had in her arms.
“You’re… you’re alright. Oh… oh my God,” I murmured in disbelief. Then I kneeled down and gently laid my hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length as I scanned over every inch of her body.
She was in different clothes, her hair was damp, and I saw no signs of there ever having been a bullet wound. But I remembered the feel of the blood, what I’d thought had been her last words, the light leaving her eyes — wait.
Her eyes. They’d been brown before. It was subtle, but they weren’t anymore.
Now they were amber. And it was hard to tell, but… I glanced between Hounaida and Zara, curled up and perfectly comfy in the child’s arms.
The pair’s eyes were identical — vertically slit pupils and all.
Zara let out a plaintive whine and shifted in Hounaida’s arms. Something passed between the two, recognizable to me only from the way I’d experienced the exact same thing with Gorou, which gave me pause as I tried to parse the implications of what I was seeing.
Then Hounaida took advantage of my moment of hesitation and leaned in to hug me with one arm while the other propped Zara up a bit higher, such that I had the girl’s chin on one shoulder and the fox’s on the other.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
I… I couldn’t help it. I brought my arms around her, delicate and careful as though she might break apart in my grasp and reveal all of this to just be a horrible dream of what I only wish could be, and… and I started crying.
She was okay. She was alright. Oh my God, Hounaida was alive. Changed a bit, yes, different, but alive!
I can’t even begin to describe the sheer relief I felt. How could I? What words were even appropriate? This was a miracle; it was literal divine favor, the kind of thing myths were made of! And it was all to save a life, just… just one life. Unimportant, in the grand scheme of things.
But to me, that one life meant the world.
More activity milled around about us, but it wasn’t until another recognizable voice called Hounaida’s name that she broke our hug and ran over that way. I dried my eyes on the sleeve of the borrowed top someone had gotten me into and looked up to see Mariem walking over to me, Hounaida in her arms and her daughter’s legs around her waist for support. She was still in the full regalia of Lady Liberty, but with one addition — a hijab.
“You saved their lives,” Mariem whispered, eyes awash with emotion as she looked me up and down, taking in whatever info that sensory power of hers was giving, or perhaps the lack thereof. “Thank you, Naomi. Thank you.”
“Is Waqas…?” I trailed off, ears pulling flat and tail trying to creep between my legs as I glanced at Hounaida.
“There’s… some edema,” she began, carefully picking her words so as not to alarm her daughter. “They’re keeping him sedated until the swelling comes down. It’s down to results from radiology for the exact prognosis, but the important thing is he’s alive. He’s still here, and that means we can help him recover, Allah willing.”
“Then what are you waiting here for?” I flicked an ear and gestured in what I thought to be the rough direction of the hospital. “Go be with your husband, Mariem.”
“But…” she glanced down at Hounaida in her arms, and Zara with her.
“A fox, yes. So? You’re Lady Liberty,” I pointed out. “Trust me, they’ll make an exception.”
“I — I suppose. Very well.” Mariem gave a very slight bow before she floated up into the air, angling her body so Zara and Hounaida were lying against her. “Fi aman Allah, Naomi. And thank you.”
Then Lady Liberty was off, drifting along at a rather sedate pace to keep the flight comfortable for her passengers as they went off to see the hospitalized member of their family. Waqas was… he was hurt, no doubt. But he was going to get the best medical care money could buy. There would be damage, yes, he’d been unconscious for too long to come out of it unscathed. But with any luck, it would be limited. I prayed it would be.
At the very least, Hounaida was okay. I… didn’t know what had happened, exactly. All I could tell was that there was now something between her and Zara that resembled what I had with Gorou, which… wait, Gorou! I had to let him know I was okay!
I reached down into the kernel of foxfire at my core and felt for the bond we shared, sending feelings of relief and wellness and letting him know that I was okay, knocking at the metaphorical door to—
No response.
My blood ran cold.
Anything, I’d said. Any cost, any price, any sacrifice.
But… I’d assumed that if there was a toll to be paid that I’d be the one to pay it! Not…! No. No, that couldn’t be it. Gorou’s mother wouldn’t do that to him. But still…
I had to get home.
“Please don’t run off like that; you’re gonna give me a heart attack.” My closer ear to her swiveled towards Megan and tracked her as she approached. “Now are you going to sit still and let the EMT look over you?”
“Megan, I need to get home,” I told her.
“You… what?” she asked, flummoxed. “Naomi, you—”
“We both know I don’t stay wounded when I teleport,” I snapped back. “But when I got shot, the pain all went away because Gorou took it from me, and now I can’t feel him and I need to get home and make sure my greatest-grandpa is okay, Megan!”
My voice had risen to a shrill yell as I spoke, but Megan seemed to take it in stride. She looked me in the eye for a moment and gave a severe nod. Then she let out an oddly specific whistle, pointed towards one of the black government SUVs parked along the cul-de-sac, and gently shoved me over that way.
“One last thing.” Megan held out her hand towards an approaching agent who dropped a plastic bag into her grip, which she then passed over to me. I took it and saw my cellphone; the blood had been cleaned off of it, but… well, the entire thing was bent over itself rather badly, with the screen completely pulling away from the body to reveal the device’s electronic insides. “If you’ve got an old phone lying around at home, pop the SIM card in and at least let me know you’re okay. If not, just email.”
“Of course,” I said. “Thanks, Megan.”
“You can thank me after you check on the old man!”
I knew a dismissal when I heard one, so I followed Megan’s subordinate to the SUV and climbed in the backseat.
“Sirens?” he asked, and I almost bit out a reflexive ‘no’, but…
“Please,” I said instead. The man nodded and opened up the glove compartment, then grabbed a windbreaker from it and tossed it my way. I pulled my ears flat, bunched up the garment, and pushed it tight against the top of my head.
The sirens turned on, loud but muffled, and then we were off.
Please still be there, Gorou, I prayed inwardly. Please be okay. If he’d had to suffer the consequences of my choices, or — or if he’d demanded to shoulder the burden instead…?
Please.