Chapter 13

Pavlina’s senses came back. “Take her to lab room #1 and get her settled.” Then she bolted into the operating room where the doctor had the crash cart out, charging up for the first defib attempt.

The air was charged with tension, the rhythmic beeping of the EKG machine slicing through the chaos like a warning siren. Pavlina skidded to a halt, eyes darting to the monitor. Jagged lines spiked erratically across the screen—a violent dance of voltage that pulsed in stark contrast to the dimmed lights above. The familiar pattern of ventricular fibrillation flickered in front of her, a chaotic, swirling mess of electrical impulses that threatened to spiral into total cardiac collapse.

With precision bred from years of medical practice, the doctor noted the details: the blue-green hues casting shadows over the screen, the sharp peaks and valleys undulating like crashing waves—each spike an urgent call for intervention. V-fib. No time to waste. He could almost feel the static in his veins as he assessed the patient’s condition—the skin pale and clammy, breaths shallow and quickening.

“Charging it to three hundred joules!” The doctor yelled, his hands moving swiftly to adjust the settings on the defibrillator while Pavlina instinctively stepped closer and grabbed Aeden’s free hand, the one without an IV in it.

“You can’t do that! You have to let go!” the doctor yelled at her.

“I will.”

She held on to his hand pushing thoughts of love and survival in every way she knew how. As the doctor placed the paddles on Aeden’s chest and yelled “Clear!”, she let go. His body convulsed from the shock, but his heart rhythm remained erratic on the monitor. Pavlina grabbed his hand again and held it up to her forehead, pushing all of her pent-up emotions, and then she felt a disorienting sensation rush through her body into his.

Aeden’s heart monitor showed an improvement, but not enough. The doctor placed the paddles on his chest, yelled, “Clear!” once more and Aeden’s sinus rhythm improved to the point further intervention was not needed. The trauma team stood there in suspense waiting to see if it would hold and it did. The doctor looked at Pavlina.

“We need blood, stat! I can’t believe he’s lasted this long without a transfusion.”

She ran out of the operating room to the room where Veronika took Marketa and was relieved to see her father performing the CAT scan. “Veronika dragged me out of my office,” he said looking at his daughter.

“You should’ve been here to begin with!” she scolded her father.

He tried to respond, but she cut him off. “Veronika, we need blood and you’re the only one who can donate. Come with me.”

Pavlina stood next to Veronika putting an IV into her left arm as blood flowed out of her right arm into a collection bag. “The most we can safely take from you is two units, but we have to make sure you are well hydrated which is why I’m putting this IV in. Normal humans could not give that much at one time, but we can.” Veronika felt her chest tighten with anxiety as she heard that. She wasn’t used to thinking of herself as anything other than a normal human. While she accepted everything Pavlina told her at face value, it would take some time for it to sink in. Niklaus stuck his head in the doorway. “Marketa has a minor brain bleed so I’ve called in a favor from a neurosurgeon and he’s on his way. It’s worse than a concussion, but it’s not an immediate threat so we wait to see what happens.”

Pavlina looked at Veronika and broke down crying. “You saved my sister. I should’ve listened, heck you shouldn’t have had to say anything in the first place! It’s like the gym all over when I didn’t stop to render aid immediately. I feel like a terrible person!”

Veronika gently caressed Pavlina’s head. “Don’t worry, little sis.” Pavlina looked up suddenly, and Veronika laughed. “I’ve always wanted to say that to someone.” Pavlina smiled, sniffing before she wiped her nose. “We’re family now, no matter what. Even if, heaven forbid, Aeden passes away and you don’t end up marrying him, we’re still family. I might still beat you on the court, but we’ll remain family.” Pavlina chuckled. “In your dreams. Your brother showed us some defense techniques the other day. Once we nail them down and Marketa moves up, you guys are finished! You won’t be able to block both of us!”

The two girls shared a laugh and embraced warmly. Pavlina felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. ‘No wonder Aeden loves her so much, that girl is such a ray of sunshine,’ she thought to herself.

Pavlina woke up in the waiting room and saw it was a little past four A.M. Veronika was sleeping next to her and stirred when she felt the movement. A familiar face was in the doorway. She got up and ran to hug him knowing it didn’t really matter to him, but it made her feel better. “How are you doing? Is there anything me or my family can do for you?”

Veronika walked over and gave him a polite hug. Even though the man standing in front of her was informally her uncle, he was still a stranger. ‘The brother of my uncle is my uncle. As long as he’s not my father.’ she thought. He looked at both of them and asked them to sit down. “When I first found my brother’s body, I was sure Rgal or one of his minions had killed him, but I found out that wasn’t true.”

Pavlina gasped and looked over at Veronika who had no expression. “You look like you’re not surprised,” she said to Veronika. Veronika turned to Dodek, “Go on.”

“When I was cleaning up the mess that was left, a young girl came up to me and told me a very interesting story. I think it would be best if you heard it directly from her.”

He motioned to someone unseen outside the doorway and a young blonde teenager walked into the room causing Veronika to tense up immediately. Pavlina felt the tension and grabbed her hand. The young blonde spoke with a slight Russian accent. “Nice to see you again Veronika.”

Pavlina looked at Veronika with questioning eyes.

Without taking her eyes off Anya, Veronika responded to Pavlina’s look. “We met earlier tonight at the park while you were working on Aeden.” Anya was visibly nervous and she struggled with some of her words. “I am the one who killed Extor.”

Saug hurled his glass across the room with all his might, watching it explode into a shower of jagged shards as the latest news stung his ears. “What is it about you people that makes you so utterly incompetent? How hard can it possibly be to capture a single person?” His voice was a razor’s edge, cutting through the air with contempt.

He sat there, a storm of fury twisting within him, struggling to rein in his seething rage. Losing your temper in front of subordinates was acceptable to a degree—instilling fear was necessary—but losing complete control was a weakness he couldn’t afford. Every Alnilamian he had dispatched to Earth had met their demise, save for the fool he was addressing now. Every single one! But ... could it be possible that she was still out there, eluding them all?

Saug snapped his attention back to the camera, his eyes burning with intensity. “I’m sending another team to Earth, a crack set of Krell warriors and while they transit, there’s someone I require you to track down. And Kosti ... you had better not fail me like the others.” His voice was a deadly promise.

Pavlina shot backward in her chair and gasped, caught off guard by the sudden tension, while Veronika started tapping her foot nervously, her eyes darting between Anya and Dodek. Anya retold them the story she had shared with Dodek when he had stepped forward. “What she says checks out. My brother would not have let someone unknown pass by him,” Dodek stated, his voice a mix of resolve and uncertainty.

“Forgiveness is not a part of my culture, but I have acknowledged to her and now to you that I recognize the circumstances of his death as an unfortunate casualty of war. Therefore, I will not categorize her as an enemy as it pertains to me.” Anya flinched slightly as she heard him unsheathe a knife and hold it up. “Since it is my duty to follow orders and protect the Royal family, I am prepared to strike her down if you deem her an enemy.”

Pavlina was taken aback by Dodek’s behavior, her mind swirling with confusion and concern. He had become a little more independent and vocal in the last week, and she wondered anxiously where this newfound assertiveness would lead. Veronika looked at Anya and then at Dodek, her expression unreadable. Was she sensing something that Pavlina couldn’t? Her thoughts were heavy with uncertainty, and Pavlina struggled to piece together her own feelings amid the conflicting emotions that surrounded them.

Veronika spoke, “Anya, come here and give me your hands.” The two girls joined hands, a gesture filled with tension. “What do you want from us? Why did you go through so much effort to track my brother down?”

Veronika’s mind was a storm of suspicion and hope, hoping Anya couldn’t be able to lie with their physical connection. She listened intently as the teenager began to speak, her voice a mix of defiance and vulnerability.

“I was locked up and treated like property my entire life, yet something inside me yearned for something worthwhile. Killing my captors was satisfying to a small degree, but it didn’t fill the void within me. I had no one, nowhere to go. They always told me I was different, but I never understood how. I overheard tales of other worlds and doubted their truth, yet a part of me clung to the possibility. It wasn’t until recently that I realized my origins might not be of this world. I imagine you know how that feels, don’t you?”

“How did you find out about us?” Veronika asked her emotions a swirl of curiosity and unease. “I heard your names, yours and Aeden’s, mentioned over and over until recently when they became the center of attention. They wanted to capture you both, desperately. I couldn’t understand why, but it meant there was something unique about you two.”

“Why did you seek us out?” Veronika pressed, her heart caught between sympathy and skepticism.

“It was a hunch,” Anya confessed, her voice wavering. “Like me, you had ties to both Earth and another world, which gave us something in common. I didn’t know where else to turn. When I saw Aeden for the first time, my heart skipped a beat. I know it sounds like the ramblings of a teenage schoolgirl, but it felt as if I’d met my destiny. I NEEDED to be with him.” Her words hung in the air, leaving Veronika torn between the desire to trust and the instinct to protect.

Pavlina glanced at Veronika, ready to voice her thoughts, but Veronika gently stopped her with a hand on her leg. Turning her attention back to Anya, she pressed on with her questions.

“What do you mean by needed to be with him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t get it. Standing next to you at the park, I felt this strange sense of contentment. It was like you were somehow filling me up with your presence, just like now. I’ve spent my life watching people do terrible things to each other without reason, yet you people seem to care more about others than yourselves. And then there’s Aeden, who threw himself in front of that blonde girl to save her.” Pavlina flinched in her seat, caught off guard. This was news to her.