Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial

Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial

Again, sorry I messed up and missed posting. Illness and travel. Oops.

Okay, when last we left our intrepid heroine she had grabbed her gun and backpack and jumped off of a tall set of shelves in the garden center into the seam in reality she had opened up beneath Tracker's feet, following him into . . . .

I managed to grab a deep breath on my way down. Good thing, because the seam I'd created opened into the deep end of the swimming pool of my former high school.

It's not as stupid as you think. First, it was wet, to put out Tracker's fire, and cold, to help with the burns. Too, it was not a place that would spring immediately to the minds of my enemies. Oh, they could follow, but they'd have to work magic to do it, and with Evan injured and the trouble my gunshots had probably caused, I didn't think they'd have the time. And it wasn't like I intended us to stay here. Besides, it was the first place I thought of, and the one place I was sure I'd be able to link to. It was, after all, the very first place I'd ever created a seam to.

My feet touched bottom, and I pushed upward with all my might. The wet backpack felt like a lead weight in my arms, but I wasn't about to let it go. Opening my eyes, I focused on the dark shape bobbing slackly on the surface of the water, ash darkening the water around it.

Oh God. Tracker!

I'm not a great swimmer, but I managed to get over to him and turn him over. Wrapping my arm around him from behind, I struggled to drag his limp form across the pool to the steps at the shallow end. He was breathing, but it sounded raspy and wrong. And his skin, where it hadn't been protected by clothing . . . I shuddered. He needed healing; needed help, and needed it now, if he wasn't going to have permanent scarring and permanent disability. I couldn't let that happen. Never mind my past. Never mind what issues I might have with my former mentor. My friend needed healing, and she was the best healer in the business. Checking to make sure the safety was on on the Ladysmith, I shoved it into the main compartment of the backpack.

Swallowing my fear for Tracker, and my own nerves at what I was about to do, I unzipped the little inner pocket and reached inside. The crystal she'd given me when I'd started as her apprentice was where it always was, dangling from a delicate gold chain. If it still worked, Tracker and I would be able to pass through her wards.

I slipped it over my head. Pulling Tracker's still form close, I opened a seam to my master's home, all the while praying that she hadn't recalibrated her defenses and that I wasn't about to obliterate us both.