Page 26 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

Bex let out a sound between a sob and a laugh, collapsing against the nearest seat. My body sagged with relief, knees shaking.

“He needs more than I can give him,” Devrin added, glancing up. “But he’s alive.”

“Thank you,” Bex said, her voice barely audible through her tears.

The bus rolled to a stop beneath a broad, crumbling awning. A massive building loomed ahead, once grand, now shadowed in dust and decay.

“What now?” Briar asked, scanning the space.

“I think… we get off,” Lark said. He was already standing.

Devrin followed. The rest of us lifted Ezra carefully, moving down the aisle, out into the open air.

The building before us was huge, long, grey, skeletal in its abandonment. But the layout, the shape of the entrance…

“This is a hospital,” I breathed.

Bex pushed forward, hope reigniting in her eyes. “Help! Somebody help us!” Her voice echoed down the hollow corridors as we stepped inside.

The abandoned hospital was dark, cold, and humming faintly with a low pulse of electricity that vibrated through the floor beneath our feet.

A few overhead lights flickered, casting long, twitching shadows down the hallway.

Discarded machines sat in corners like dead animals, their screens black, wires trailing like veins.

The beds were coated in thick dust, untouched for years.

In the far corner, however, several trays of medical instruments gleamed, clean, orderly, and suspiciously dust-free. Vials of medicine. Bandages. Scalpels. Burn cream. Syringes. Everything looked untouched… or perhaps, recently touched.

“This is the trial,” I breathed, eyes scanning the corners of the ceiling. Cameras blinked red in every corner. Watching.

“What?” Briar asked, trying to follow my gaze.

I adjusted Ezra’s weight in my arms, his body unnaturally limp. “This is the medical trial. We’re already in it.”

The words sank like stones into the room.

Bex’s face paled as realization struck. “Nobody’s coming to help us save him, are they?” Her voice wavered, but it wasn’t a question. Not really.

I shook my head slowly. “No.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, choking back a sob.

“Bry, strip that bed,” I ordered. “We need something clean to lay him on. Infection’s the last thing he needs right now.”

Briar nodded and got to work, yanking the linens off with furious precision.

“Are we… all supposed to help?” Lark asked, inching closer, uncertain.

“They probably didn’t know who would be injured, or how,” Briar muttered, teeth clenched. “I’m sure Praxis intended for us to save ourselves if it came to that.” She yanked the last sheet free, then turned to one of the cameras, her glare cold. “But we’re not that selfish.”

Bex was already at the trays, hands flying through instruments and supplies. “I don’t know what any of this is for,” she admitted, voice tight with panic as she picked up a tube with a needle attached then set it down just as fast.

I laid Ezra gently on the stripped mattress, fingers pressing against his throat. There, faint, but present. A pulse. I let out a shaky breath.

“Thorne, look.” Briar rolled over a machine on wheels, her eyes searching mine. “Is this something?”

I stared at it. Dials, cords, blinking lights. “Maybe,” I said bitterly. “But I don’t know how the fuck to use it.” My hands clenched into fists. I felt useless. This must’ve been how Ezra and Bex felt in the tech trial, completely out of their element.

But Ezra survived that one. I’d be damned if he didn’t survive this.

“It’s a heart monitor,” Devrin said, appearing at Briar’s side, hands steady. “I don’t know how to set it up either, but if we can, it’ll at least track his vitals.”

“How do you know all this?” Lark asked.

“Saltspire’s always done well in these trials. And education too. My mom works as a healer in our Collective.”

I didn’t like him. I never had. But right now, I needed his brain more than I needed to hate him.

“Lark!” I barked. “Look for some kind of manual, check those desks.”

“On it!” he shouted back, already digging through drawers like a tornado.

Briar joined Bex at the supplies, creating order out of chaos. “I’m sorting what I recognize here, stuff I think I can use, and putting what I don’t over there.” She pointed to a growing pile of instruments and vials. The pile of things she didn’t know was much larger.

“Lark, anything?” I called.

“A lot of books,” he replied, popping up from behind the desk with a stack in his arms. “No manual, but these are medical textbooks, maybe there’s something useful?”

I looked at Bex. She was already moving.

“Get to reading, love,” I said.

She grabbed the top book and flipped through the pages at lightning speed. “This one’s on machines, yes!” She scanned the diagram, then bolted to the heart monitor with a kind of desperate grace.

Wires were connected. Thin white disks pressed to Ezra’s blistered skin. A button flipped.

The monitor whirred to life. And then— beep… beep… beep…

His pulse echoed through the room. Everyone exhaled. But it was slow . Too slow.

“Okay,” I said, voice trembling as I met her eyes. “Time to read about how to treat burns.”

I glanced at the supplies. Praxis had left us with the tools, some of them, at least. That was always their way. They didn’t make these trials impossible. Just cruel. Twisted. Designed to break us before they tested us.

But we weren’t broken yet.

And Ezra wasn’t dead. Not yet.

We still had time.

The heart monitor's steady rhythm was a fragile thread we all clung to. Beep… beep… beep… The sound filled the silence like a lifeline, until it didn’t.

It stopped.

A single, flat tone screamed into the room.

“No, no, no, no,” I whispered, whirling toward the machine. The monitor displayed a flat line. Ezra’s pulse was gone.

“Bex!” I shouted.

She was already moving, flipping furiously through the pages of the textbook. Her hands shook, but her eyes scanned with laser focus. “There, page 142,” she muttered, voice tight with panic. “I think…I think I can do this.”

“Just tell us what you need,” Briar said, stepping to her side.

“AED pads. Syringe…adrenaline.” She read off the list. “There’s a chart, wait, I’ve got it.

” Bex yanked the supplies she’d previously sorted into the ‘what the fuck is this’ pile.

Her fingers trembled, but her grip was sure.

“Turn on that machine.” She said pointing at a bulky device.

I quickly turned it on, it whirred to life.

I stayed by Ezra’s side, watching helplessly as she worked. Her face was pale under the flickering light, her hair matted to her face with sweat and soot. She pressed the pads to Ezra’s chest, following the instructions in the manual like her life depended on it. Because his did.

“Nobody touch him,” she barked, all of us pulled our hands away and watched her.

She hit the button.

Ezra’s body jerked once, violently.

“Fuck,” she cried.

Still nothing.

Another shock.

“No no no no no no. I’m so sorry, Ezra,” she cried out, tears streaming down her face. My vision blurred as my own tears began to pour. We couldn’t lose him. Not like this. Not now.

Then, beep… beep…

A ragged sob escaped Briar. And someone gasped. I realized it was me. Ezra’s pulse was back. Shallow. Weak. But back.

“We need to,” she closed her eyes recalling the words on the page she’d just read. “Give him fluids,” Bex said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She was swaying now, tilting slightly as she crouched beside him.

“Bex,” I said quietly, moving toward her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Her answer was automatic. Too fast. She pressed gauze to Ezra’s burns and fumbled with a vial of fluid. Her fingers slipped. The vial clattered to the floor. She didn’t go after it.

I stepped forward, catching her elbow as she tried to rise. “You’re not fine. You’re…”

“Not now,” she snapped, her voice sharper than a blade. “Not until he’s okay.” She grabbed another vial with shaking hands and attached it to an IV, threading the line with frantic determination.

But her body gave out before her will did.

She slumped forward, catching herself on the edge of the bed with a weak grunt before her knees buckled. I caught her just before she hit the floor.

“Bex!” Briar cried, rushing to her.

“She’s out cold,” I said, easing her to the ground. The puddle of blood pouring from her leg was gushing now. “Shit. She’s burning up. And she’s bleeding out.”

“She needs meds too,” Briar whispered, brushing hair from Bex’s face.

“I’ll take care of Ezra, You go focus on her” Devrin said suddenly, reaching for the creams and gauze on the supply tray. His voice was calm, steady.

I stepped between him and the bed, my body locking like a wall of iron. “Like hell. I’m not leaving him with you.”

Devrin didn’t flinch. He met my glare dead-on, focused. “His story doesn’t end like this.”

That made me falter. Just a fraction of a second. My mother’s voice echoed in my head, those same words wrapped in a lullaby of defiance.

Something shifted in me.

“Take care of him. Okay?” I said, with a quick nod, and turned to Briar. “Get her on another bed. Now.”

Briar was already moving, ripping the dust covered sheet off the nearest cot. We got Bex between us, barely able to lift her deadweight. Her skin was pale and tacky with sweat, and her breathing had grown too shallow.

“Lark!” Briar barked. “Book. Blood loss. Find it.”

Lark scrambled, fumbling through the mess of medical textbooks like they might explode. His hands shook so hard I thought the pages might tear. He landed on a thick volume, nodding at me with wide eyes. “Got it.”

“Talk to us,” I said, kneeling beside Bex. I swept her matted hair from her face. “What do we do?”

“Is she still bleeding?” He asked, reading off something.

I looked down at her leg, coated with dark red blood. I took some gauze and cleaned around the wound, watching it to see if blood pumped out of it anymore. “No.”

“That’s good,” Lark said, nodding and turning the page.

“So, what’s next?” Briar asked, voice tight.