I wasn't sure who was in the house at this point, or whether the talisman was still inside, but there was nothing to do but to go for it. As we snuck around to the back where we made our earlier escape, I gently tugged on the back door, and when it opened with my hand, I nudged it back to its original closed position as quietly as I could.

Harvey left it open?

"Ha. Dumbass." Dominic laughed to himself, but the smile quickly fell off of his face. "Unless he's expecting us to do this. The talisman always seemed to know what kind of move you and I were about to make."

I nodded. "That's what I'm thinking. I don't think we can trick him, but we sure as hell can outsmart him. We're a pretty smart team together. It's mostly you, though."

Dominic shook his head. "Nope. It's both of us, Lindsay."

I turned back to the door, and if we both weren't crazy, then Harvey was waiting for us on the other side of it somewhere. Or he was somewhere causing havoc to get whatever it was he wanted. Either or.

"Should I—" I began, but Dominic cut me off.

"Don't ask me. Do what you feel is best."

I shut my eyes for a second and took a breath. He didn't ask what I thought was best, but what I felt. And in the moment, I felt that the only option was to put on my big girl pants, stop running from what overwhelmed me, and open the door.

If that was the wrong move and we both ended up with a knife in our kidneys, then at least I did the best with what I had. I did my honest best.

The door didn't make a sound as I pushed on it, but my breathing was more than loud enough to make up for it. I assumed Dominic had the same sickening swirl in his stomach that I had as he was practically pressed up against my back.

"Linds," Dominic shouted from just above me, and I jumped at the sound of his voice as something zipped over our heads.

I turned around to look at what it was, but when Dominic started coughing, my head snapped back around to where Harvey, talisman in hand, was standing in front of us.

"Fuck me," Dominic wheezed in between coughs.

"Oh my god!" The words left my lips before I could quiet my brain. I should have thought about the stress and his asthma. How stupid and careless was I? "Your inhaler. Do you have it with you?"

He shook his head.

Shit. We must have left it behind at some point during the course of the day.

Harvey cleared his throat. "You want something?"

"Oh, shut the hell up. I'll get to you as soon as I figure out what I'm supposed to do for Dominic," I spat back at Harvey. The audacity some people had. But I rested my hand on Dominic's back. "Everything is gonna be fine. I know you can't breathe right now, but it's gonna be fine."

He didn't stop coughing. But if he could talk, I imagined he would have told me that I wasn't helping at all.

"Do I need to call the cops on you two for breaking and entering?" Harvey said.

"Here, sit down, but keep your airway as open as possible," I said and nudged his shoulders down toward the ground. "You're gonna be fine."

Dominic followed my lead and took a seat on the floor in between wheezy breaths.

"Jesus Christ," Harvey muttered, but I ignored him. As terrible as I was, I didn't make someone else's medical emergency about me. What a pussy Harvey was.

"Now listen to my voice. I won't let anything happen to you," I said. If Harvey even flinched in Dominic's direction, I'd take the talisman and come up with the most brutal way to kill him in front of all of his band mates.

Fill his lungs with fluid. Cut some large artery in his leg. Set a room on fire with him in it.

Lindsay, focus on the task at hand.

I shut down my thoughts long enough to listen to him breathe in between coughs. It seemed a little less wheezy, and I wasn't sure if that was my imagination, my reassurance, or the seated position.

"You're doing great. Just keep focusing on getting as much air as you can," I said. "You're gonna be—"

The talisman.

As more sputtering came from Dominic's lungs, there wasn't much else I could do to help his asthma attack without a rescue inhaler, but there was one other option that could help.

The first time the talisman fell into the wrong hands—Sierra's—it practically froze her fingers off (her words probably, not mine), and if I could just get it to happen again, I could fix everything.

I turned to Harvey. He still held the talisman, but now his fingers enclosed it like he knew that there were a few wheels turning in my mind.

Back to Dominic. "Hang in there. You're gonna be fine."

I shut my eyes. Hey, talisman, I know you've got a new friend, but Mama's here now, and she needs you to come home. I don't care how it happens. I just need you to help me help Dominic. I'll fix everything else later.

Dominic slouched to the side, and I grabbed his shoulders and straightened him up again as he coughed on me a few times. When he caught himself, he turned away, but I already had his germs anyway.

"I need you to do your best to stay upright, okay?" I said, and he responded with a nod.

I glanced back at Harvey, who was still standing there like a deer in headlights. The talisman was so close, yet how could I let anything but my mind wander over there to go take it back? One, Dominic, and two, Harvey was about twice my size and much smarter than me.

"Lindsay," Dominic gasped after yet another round of coughs. "Do it."

Do what? He and I were nearly almost always on the same page when it came to the talisman, but was he really trying to tell me that it was okay to leave him to get what we came for?

He had to be. The talisman could maybe steer us wrong, but the connection between us never could. Probably. Right?

Because my heart rate just wasn't high enough already, was it?

"I can't get it to stop." I turned back to Harvey. "Please help him. You can keep the talisman if you just help him with that." I gestured to the talisman.

He held it up to me. "This?"

"You know that's what I mean. If you just bring it over here, I'll show you how to use it. Please."

"You love him?"

I blinked, stunned. "I—it doesn't matter. He's a person who needs help."

Why would he even ask that? Weirdo.

Harvey hesitated for a moment.

"Harvey, please. It's all yours if you just let me help him," I pleaded.

"Swear on your mother's life."

What was he, ten? "I swear on my mother's life."

Well, she had a good run. It was nice knowing her. Not.

Harvey knelt beside me on the floor in front of Dominic. "I'm not dumb enough to hand this over to you. But I'm also not dumb enough to let him die on the floor like this."

"That's fine," I said as Dominic started to lean over again with every cough. I sat him up. "Just hold the talisman out so it touches Dominic."

He held it against his pant leg, and given that I was making rules up as I went, that was good enough for my standards.

"Now put your hand over half of it, and I'll put my hand over the other half," I said. There was still a little bit of shake in my voice, but I pretended no one heard it.

Harvey covered up almost the entirety of the talisman for his own security, but all I needed was a little piece for my hand. As soon as my skin made contact with its cool metallic surface, Dominic gasped for a large breath of air, and as a few long seconds went by, his coughs slowed down.

Talisman, now's our chance.

Before I could even decide what I wanted it to do, an orange glow enveloped the metal, and a few sparks flew from the surface before it burst into flame.

"Shit!" Harvey cried and pulled his hand away, but I didn't feel anything burn my skin despite the fact that my hand was in the fire. And it didn't seem like Dominic did either, since he didn't budge from his seated position.

I snatched the talisman and Dominic's hand, and all I could do was hope that his lungs could handle the sprint to the car. And if they couldn't, I'd fix him as many times as it took.

We dashed out the door one more time and back around front to the car, but the ground squished beneath my feet with every step like it had just rained. I wasn't sure if I had lost track of time inside or if I somehow made it happen, but it didn't really matter either way. All that mattered was that I had the talisman, and this time, I wasn't going to let anyone take it from me.

Dominic let out a long exhale from the seat beside me as we sat for just a moment with the doors locked. "Well that sucked."

I nodded. "But we didn't have to stab anyone, so that's good."

Dominic rolled his eyes. "I was kind of looking forward to that, too."

I didn't reply to that. We certainly had a long day, and whatever energy I had left drained out of me like I wasn't only nineteen years old. But magic did that to a person, probably. It took a lot to set metal on fire.

"Now let's get out of here and back to campus," Dominic said.

"What about everyone in Sherwood?" What was I talking about? I couldn't make it that far without crashing us both into a ditch somewhere.

"They'll live for one night."

I nodded and started the drive back to our dorms.

You're gonna be fine. My own words swirled in my head as my eyes fluttered shut. I shook my head quickly. It didn't energize me at all. I wasn't sure why I thought it would.

"You okay?" Dominic asked.

I nodded. "Just really tired. It pretty much came out of nowhere."

He smiled and shook his head. After watching him struggle to breathe for what felt like an hour, it was a nice change. "It came out of nowhere? Lindsay, don't be ridiculous."

"It's too late. I'm ridiculous," I said. This mind-numbing conversation was certainly doing wonders for keeping me awake.

"Well, thank you for being ridiculous. You killed two birds with one stone by not leaving me to die," he said.

"What two birds?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

It must have been the exhaustion, because I really didn't have a clue. All I knew was that I wanted to pass out in my dorm next to him where I knew he was okay.

Wait. The second bird was the talisman.

I sure hoped it was okay with being the second bird.

"You know, that's the first time you truly controlled what the talisman did," he continued.

"Is it?" I couldn't remember if I really did. I didn't think it was much of a conscious effort.

"It is. I saw the fire in your eyes. It wasn't just oxygen deprivation either. I know it wasn't."

I wasn't sure about that either, but I assumed there was a possibility that there was a literal fire in my eyes. Stranger things had happened to us.

God, magic could really kick your ass. Who would have thought?

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Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading! And thank you for your patience with me. Again. I really, really appreciate it.

So for today's question, what are your top three most used emojis? Do you feel like they represent you as a person?

For me, it's definitely the laugh-crying face that I'm pretty sure I read is no longer cool, the sobbing emoji, and the grimacing emoji that's definitely uncomfortable about something.

I will put them in a comment for clarity's sake:

These definitely sum up my personality well. I feel like y'all know me well enough that I don't have to elaborate any further.