Tris & Izzie Read online

  The other head was a steaming lump on the ground, and above the dog was Tristan, holding a sword like you see in movies, with a hilt covered in jewels and a wicked-sharp blade. The way he held it, I could tell that this wasn’t the first time he’d used it.

  Why hadn’t I seen it before? He had to have brought it to the homecoming game.

  Sure. Who wouldn’t bring one?

  I felt myself go cold as a wind kicked up around me.

  “Isolde?” asked Tristan. “Are you all—”

  He didn’t finish, because the dog, now with only one head, suddenly jumped up and came after me. My mouth dropped open to scream again, but no sound came out.

  Tristan lifted the sword again and sliced through the second neck.

  The head continued its forward momentum. First law of thermodynamics. It turns out that it works with magical creatures as well as regular ones.

  The head landed on me, warm and wet, then bounced off and skidded to a stop next to an old Chevy pickup truck.

  I was covered in blood and shaking with terror, and I thought I would puke.

  Tristan came to my side. “You are safe now,” he said. “It’s dead.”

  “Dead,” I whispered.

  He pulled me against his chest, and I tucked my head under his chin, gasping in the smell of him. It was the only thing that could take away the smell of the dog and its blood. At that moment, I didn’t care about anything else.

  Chapter 9

  With Tristan’s arms around me, I gradually stopped shaking. My sweaty forehead was pressed against his neck, but he didn’t seem to mind. I felt like I was floating in his arms, and I wasn’t sure I ever wanted him to let go. I would have kissed him then and there, but just in time, I heard voices.

  I looked up and saw Branna. And Mark. And just about everyone I knew from school.

  Mark was running, but he didn’t have a weapon. I won-dered what he would have done to the dog if he’d come out-side before Tristan. Dribbled the two-headed thing like a basketball?

  Tristan was the one who had been prepared. He was the one who had saved me. But he was not my boyfriend.

  I pulled away from him. “Th-Thank you,” I said with effort. He was standing funny, with one side hunched over, but I didn’t think much of it.

  Mark had his arms outstretched.

  Branna’s mouth was wide open, her eyes glinting.

  Mark reached me. “What happened to you, Izzie? I heard some barking, and I saw Tristan running out the gate. I came right away.”

  “The—the dog,” I jabbered. “It—” I remembered in time that I couldn’t say anything about magic. Mom had drilled it into me: never in public. “It attacked me,” I said. “It must have been rabid.” I could see no sign of the second head on the asphalt now, only the first one. I hoped that meant there wouldn’t be news reports about a magic two-headed dog.

  “Did it bite you?” asked Mark.

  “I—I—don’t know,” I said, shivering. Suddenly, I was freezing.

  “Tristan, did you get bit? Because you might both need shots,” Mark said calmly.

  I turned to Tristan just as he crumpled onto the ground, unconscious. There was a gaping wound on his side where the dog must have attacked him while my back was turned. I hadn’t even noticed it before.

  Tristan had held me and whispered assurances to me and made me want to kiss him, and all the while, he’d been seriously wounded. I didn’t know if I should love that or hate that about him.

  Branna was the first one to reach Tristan’s side. Mark struggled with me when I tried to pull away from him. “Let someone else take care of Tristan,” he said. “Izzie, you’re going to hurt yourself worse if you don’t take a rest.”

  But I wasn’t going to watch from a distance as Tristan bled to death. I limped forward.

  Branna had pulled off her sweatshirt and was pressing it into Tristan’s wound.

  Tristan’s arms and legs started to jerk, and there was foam coming out of his mouth. This wasn’t a normal reaction. The dog’s magic must be affecting Tristan somehow.

  “Come on, Tristan,” Branna said. “Come on. You’re going to get through this. You have to live!”

  I didn’t want her face to be the one he saw when he woke up—if he woke up. I moved to his other side and he seized again.

  “That was no ordinary dog,” said Branna quietly.

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  “Whatever happened to him, he’ll die if he doesn’t get treated soon,” said Branna.

  My eyes were stinging with tears. Tristan had saved me. It was my fault he was hurt. The dog had come to kill me, not Tristan.

  “I called the ambulance,” I heard Mark say right next to me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and tried again to pull me back. “Izzie, let Branna take care of him. You need to lie down.”

  “My mom,” I said. “You have to make sure it’s my mom coming in the ambulance. He needs her.”

  “I’m sure your mom is a great ambulance driver, but we want whoever is closest, so they can get Tristan to the hospital as soon as possible,” said Mark.

  It sounded perfectly reasonable in a world where there was no magic, but my mom would know how to deal with a magic dog’s bite. She had healing potions that could do things no doctor could.

  I couldn’t find my cell phone. I must have lost it in the fight with the two-headed dog. “Call back,” I said. “Call back and tell my mom she has to come.”

  “Izzie, you need to calm down.”

  I slapped Mark across the face. “Call back!” I insisted.

  Mark put a hand up to his face, clearly more in surprise than in pain. “Fine. I’ll call back,” he muttered.

  I leaned forward. “You’re going to be all right,” I commanded Tristan, who was still unconscious. He was not allowed to die on me. He had come into my life and messed up everything. Now he was going to die and leave me alone? No way.

  “Okay, your mom is coming,” said Mark after a quick conversation on his cell. “She was the one coming in the first place.”

  “Good.” I took a deep breath.

  “Branna, tell her she’s not going to help Tristan by making herself sick,” said Mark.

  Branna looked at me. “You’re not Tristan’s girlfriend,” she said bluntly.

  “And you are?”

  “More than you,” she said.

  I nodded and stood up. I felt tired, nothing more. Maybe that meant the love philtre really had worn off.

  I swayed on my feet, and Mark put out a hand to steady me. “You’re burning up,” he said. “That can’t be good.”

  Who cares? I thought. It was Tristan who was in danger.

  I would have fought Mark, except that I couldn’t. I was too weak.

  “Branna, there’s something really wrong with her,” said Mark. He helped me lie down next to Tristan, and I thought what a good boyfriend Mark was, after I had slapped him and everything. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just waited while the world seemed to move in waves.

  “Izzie?” That was my mom’s voice. I could see a kind of blur of her standing over me.

  “Tristan,” I said. “Help Tristan.” He was the one who had gotten bit by that dog.

  “He’s already in the ambulance. I need you to get in there, too. Can you tell me what happened?” She looked behind her and then whispered, “You can tell me the truth, Izzie. Even if there’s magic.”

  “Dog,” I said. “Two-headed. Speaking.”

  “Two-headed. It was probably a slurg, then. What did it say?”

  “Kill me,” I said to Mom, desperately holding on to her arm. “Said it wanted to kill me, kill magic.”

  “Can you tell me anything else about it?” Mom asked.

  “Black,” I said. “Shiny. Strong.”

  “How big?”

  I tried to lift my hand, but it moved only a little. “Uh— chest high,” I said.

  “I understand,” Mom said.

  Then I was being l
ifted into the ambulance. I could hear something beeping every few seconds, and I thought Tristan must be lying next to me. He was still alive. He was going to make it.

  “We’ll get you to the hospital,” said an EMT.

  “Just a moment. I need to talk to her first,” said Mom. “She’s my daughter.” There was a pause. “Privately,” she added.

  The EMT moved away. Then my mom was between me and Tristan, a hand on each of us. “Izzie, concentrate,” she said. “You are burning up. Do you know why? Did you try to use magic?”

  I shook my head from side to side, unwilling to admit even then that I had stolen her love philtre.

  “Are you sure? I need to know, Izzie.”

  I hesitated. “Potion,” I finally said.

  “You took a potion?” Mom asked.

  I nodded.

  “From home? One of mine?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, nothing I have in the house could have caused this response. It has to be something else. We’ll have to figure it out later, after you’re safe,” Mom said. “Listen, Izzie, I’m going to give you and Tristan a healing potion. It will taste terrible, but you have to drink it all. Do you understand?”

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered.

  “And one other thing,” said Mom. “I need you to spit in Tristan’s potion. And think about him getting better. Think it hard.”

  “Whuh?” I said.

  “I can explain everything later, but I need you to do this now. It will save his life, Izzie, if it can be saved.”

  It made no sense to me. I wasn’t a witch, and I’d never seen Mom spit in her potions to make them more powerful. But I’d save my questions for later.

  “Spit,” said Mom.

  I spat into the bottle she held to my mouth. I saw a flash of fire, but it disappeared so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it.

  Mom certainly didn’t say anything about it. She swirled the potion around, then tried to dribble it into Tristan’s mouth.

  He choked and spat it back up.

  “It will help you,” said Mom urgently. “I’m a witch. Tristan, listen to me.” She tried to pour it in, but he spat it up again reflexively.

  “Izzie, you’ve got to get him to take this. He’s slipping fast. Any other human would be dead from a slurg bite. I don’t know why he’s survived as long as he has already. You’re his friend, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was his friend, and more.

  “Then you’ve got to get him to listen to you.”

  I tried to lift myself up on one elbow, but it was hard. I felt like I had suddenly turned into an elephant but had only a mouse’s portion of strength. I would do anything for Tristan, though, even drag my elephant self over to his stretcher and lean close to his ear.

  “Tristan,” I said. “It’s Izzie. Nod your head if you can hear me.”

  He nodded very slightly and groaned.

  “You’re sick, Tristan. That dog poisoned you with his bite. You’ve got to drink something to make you better. Do you trust me?”

  “Isol—” He tried to get my name out, but he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

  “Tristan, listen to me,” I said as loudly as I could. “You’ve got to drink this. If you love me, if you ever meant anything that you said to me, drink this.”

  I waited for a second. His eyes fluttered open, and I swear he looked at me and smiled, just like he had when we met. I hated him for that arrogant smile, and loved him, too.

  I poured the potion down his throat.

  This time, he drank it.

  As soon as he was done, I sagged to the floor. I didn’t have enough strength left even to get back onto my own stretcher. Mom had to get me onto it, and then she had me drink some of the potion myself.

  “Good work, Izzie,” she said. “Amazing work, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who survived an attack by a slurg.” She kissed me and rubbed her cool hands over my hot forehead. “Except your dad.”

  That was all I remembered for three days.

  Chapter 10

  “Izzie, I love you,” I heard as I dreamed in the hospital. I thought Tristan was saying it, and I was so happy that he was alive.

  But when I woke up properly, Mark was sitting beside my hospital bed, holding my hand, and I realized that it had been him all along.

  Tristan wouldn’t have said Izzie, anyway. It would have been Isolde.

  Mark looked terrible. His face was gray and his beard was in that in-between stage where it didn’t look rough; it just looked like he hadn’t shaved for three days.

  Could it really have been three days? We must have missed the homecoming dance on Saturday night. And I had such a pretty blue silk sheath and red heels that I had planned to wear, with my hair up.

  I ran my tongue along my teeth, and they felt like it had been three years since I had brushed.

  “Stay with me this time, Izzie,” said Mark. “Please, I can’t bear it if you leave me.” He spoke with a sincerity that I could not doubt. Mark loved me absolutely. He would have been the one to save me if he had been fast enough. Was it his fault that it had been Tristan instead?

  “Say something, Izzie. Anything.”

  “Hi, Mark,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything better.

  But he seemed happy with that. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he looked at me, his eyes shining with tears. He shook his head; then he spoke in a voice that sounded very small. “I shouldn’t let you see me like this. I’ll be back in a minute.” He let go of my hand.

  I pulled him back, surprised that I felt strong enough to do so. I didn’t feel like climbing a mountain or anything, but I felt better than I had in the ambulance. “Don’t go,” I said.

  Mark looked down. “I’ve been waiting,” he said. “For days.”

  “I know.”

  “Your mom made me go away and sleep a couple of times, but I wouldn’t leave the hospital. I slept on one of the couches out there. I wanted to be here when you woke up. I had to tell you that I was sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Mark,” I said.

  “No. I should have been there for you. I let you go out there by yourself while I was watching a stupid football game. I mean, it wasn’t a stupid game. It was an important game for the football team and for the school. But you almost died.”

  “Mark, you didn’t know.”

  “I know. I should have felt something, though. Don’t you think? I knew you’d been gone too long, but I thought maybe you didn’t want to come up and watch with us. I was annoyed with you, to tell the truth. Can you believe it? That was the last emotion I felt for you before I heard you screaming.”

  “Mark, I was annoyed with you, too,” I admitted.

  “My fault. Can you ever forgive me?” He was getting a little slobbery with tears.

  “Yes, I forgive you. I already forgave you. But it was nothing, Mark. I’m fine now, right?” He was being so nice I should have felt loving back. Tristan wasn’t even here, but my feelings for him were, and right now they were getting in the way.

  “You had this terrible fever for the first two days. They gave you every antibiotic they could think of, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. And then, suddenly, it just started to go down on its own, and now you’re awake.” Mark patted my hand. Then his hand drifted up to my neck. Then he was kissing me, lightly, on my eyelids and my cheeks and my nose and my chin. Not on my lips, though.

  I was kind of glad about that. He was treating me like I was a china doll, so I was able to avoid a full kiss.

  I guessed the love philtre hadn’t worn off yet after all.

  “How is Tristan?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I think I heard your mother say that he was out of danger. They thought he was going to die the first couple of days he was here. No one knew what was going on with him, but he had multiple-organ failure. Then somehow he just came out of it, about the time your fever went away. They’re saying it’
s a miracle. They were afraid surgery would cause too much trauma, but his wounds seem to be healing just fine now.”

  I wondered what had happened to his sword. Had he hidden it somewhere, or was it still out there, in the school parking lot? Would people think it was strange and start asking questions, start guessing that magic was involved?

  “Can I see him?” I asked.

  “Um, Izzie, you just woke up. I sort of want you to myself for a while. Is that too selfish of me?”

  There were probably hundreds of girls who would kill to have Mark as their boyfriend, to have him standing over their bedside in the hospital, giving them butterfly kisses. But I wanted to see Tristan. That was all I could focus on.

  “He saved me, Mark, and he almost died. I feel like I need to say thank you.” Would Mark buy that? I didn’t feel like making up an elaborate story. I knew that at some point I would have to tell him the truth, or at least a part of the truth. If the love philtre couldn’t be counteracted and it didn’t wear off, I might even have to break up with him. But not right now.

  “Maybe you could send him a note?” Mark suggested.

  I grimaced in frustration. “Mark, I need to tell him in person. Will you go and see if he can have visitors?”

  “Now?” asked Mark.

  “Yes, please. I can’t rest until I see him. You should thank him, too, you know. How would you feel if he hadn’t been there for me?”

  Mark shuddered and reached for my hand again. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. He moved aside and then I saw what was behind him. It was the most amazing floral display I had ever seen. Mark’s fitting into the room next to all those vases was quite the engineering feat. They were on a couple of tables, on the floor, on the windowsill, and even on the shelves in the open closet. There were red and yellow and white roses, and tulips and orchids and daffodils, and daisies, and just about everything else you could imagine.

  “What are all those?” I asked.

  “Oh, they came while you were sick. They’re from friends and teachers. The principal. The football team. The basketball team.” Mark waved at one vase after another. I was guessing that he had something to do with the teams’ sending flowers, but there were still about ten left.