Chapter Text
Yasmina takes Sammy’s betrayal hard.
Like, real hard.
So it comes as a great surprise to Sammy when Yasmina suddenly jumps out of her and Ben’s kayak and onto the center platform and starts shouting and banging the oar against the pylon as a distraction, which saves Sammy and Darius, but ultimately leads the Mosasaurus straight to her instead.
What is she doing?!
Sammy calls out to Yasmina, but Ben tells them to keep going—to not stop paddling.
“She said whatever happens—don’t stop paddling!” Ben strains as he lifts Bumpy onto land.
Sammy whimpers and forces herself to keep looking forward, to keep on paddling. Despite everything in her telling—screaming—at her to turn around and force Yasmina onto her and Darius’s kayak.
It’s not just her life on the line. Darius’s life is, too. As she listens to his terrified voice urge her onward, she knows she couldn’t do that to the Dino-smart kid that has gotten them this far; to the very sweet boy that has tried so hard to understand her actions when others have not.
Kenji reaches the control panel, mumbling about having been allowed to feed the thing once before (as a distracted explanation for his knowledgeability), and begins fumbling with the controls.
Once Sammy and Darius reach land, she rushes toward Kenji and yells for him to hurry up. She grabs for the controls herself, but Kenji slaps her hands away.
“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying! Let me do it!” Kenji yells back in panic.
Just when Sammy is beginning to believe that Kenji doesn’t know what he’s doing, a large hook raises towards Yasmina.
“Grab the chain!” he shouts to the trapped girl.
Sammy can barely watch through her misty-eyed gaze as Yasmina jumps onto the cable and Kenji slowly begins reeling her in. She hears someone mutter that she’s ‘not gonna make it’ between Ben’s panicking, and Sammy’s legs give out. The Texan falls to her knees and begins praying. She prays that everything will be okay, that Yasmina will make it.
Oh God, please let her make it.
She’s so focused on praying that she doesn’t even notice the pin-pricks of pain in her hands.
The water’s surface breaks as the Mosasaurus rockets itself skyward. Sammy can only watch in horror as its jaws open wide; Yasmina rocking her body back and forth to gain more momentum and perhaps to try and avoid the impending jaws.
It misses. Just barely, and the cable snaps. The tablet slips away from Yasmina (but Sammy could literally care less about the stupid tablet, all she cares about right now is Yaz, Yaz, Yaz), and the Mosasaurus falls back into the lagoon without its intended meal. With the connection severed, the brave athlete all at once hurtles towards the ground and lands hard.
Sammy gasps at the sudden sharp pain that shoots through her ankle and climbs up the length of her leg.
Wait. What?
No. It can’t be.
The word ‘soulmate’ runs through her head.
There’s no way, right?
Only soulmates can feel each other’s pain. Only soulmates share each other’s hurt.
So why did it feel as if Sammy’s own ankle just snapped as soon as Yasmina landed on the concrete?
It takes her a second to recover from the pain and shock. Everyone has already rushed to Yaz’s aid, so Sammy is the last one to join in on the huddle.
“Yasmina!” Sammy kneels by her side, reaching out to get a better look at her leg, but the other girl pulls away sharply. “Are you—?”
“I’ve already said I’m fine!” Yasmina snaps, gripping at her left leg, but a large and bruising lump at the side of her ankle tells Sammy a different story.
“You’re bleeding!” Brooklynn shouts.
“It’s just a scratch! The stupid metal—!”
“Okay,” Kenji cuts in, “ignore the blood, sure. But your ankle’s inflating like a balloon! That doesn’t look very ‘fine’ to me!”
Oh.
Oh.
That’s when Sammy notices it. Yaz’s hands are bloody from the braided metal, and suddenly the stinging, tingly sensation in her own palms make sense.
They really are soulmates.
What does she do with this?
Does she tell her?
But Yasmina clearly wants nothing to do with her, not after the whole Yasmina-defending-Sammy-against-Brooklynn-about-not-stealing-a-phone-that-Sammy-actually-did-steal-because-she’s-not-a-very-good-spy-and-got-caught thing.
She’d probably just get even more mad and upset and not want to speak to her at all, much like now. But probably worse.
Shit. Sammy can’t have that! She’d simply die.
Sammy mulls it over as the campers try to figure out where everybody went. They decide to hold up and rest on the stands while the sun begins to set.
From her vantage point, she watches the stubborn girl fuss over her ankle and accept no help from the others who offer it to her.
Maybe it’s just the lighting, but Yasmina glows golden. Sammy begins tracing the contours of Yaz’s side profile; face and body. She looks beautiful. Not that she doesn’t always look beautiful—because she does, always (and now Sammy feels guilty all over again for thinking about Yasmina looking as beautiful as she does while she’s in so much pain).
Every interaction between the two of them flashes in her mind. From their first meeting at the ferry, to Yaz’s guarded walls being up at every chance Sammy persistently tried to get to know her, to Yasmina finally opening up after the whole gyrosphere herding mishap and showing Sammy her drawings. The hug. Then from Yasmina defending Sammy every chance she got, to saving her from falling to her death at the Observation tower, and finally to the confrontation after Yasmina crashed the van because she was so distraught by the revelation that Sammy had lied to her.
Oh, Yaz.
Sammy’s heart aches at the sight of her, sitting in the very same spot from which she fell. She feels so utterly helpless.
It’s decided, then. She’s going to tell her.
Sammy approaches the injured girl, back to the sun, casting her shadow over Yasmina who squints up in indignation.
“Thank you, for savin' us,” Sammy says with a gentle smile and kneels by Yaz’s side again. “For savin’ me. That was… amazing. You’re amazing!”
“Stop!” Yasmina snaps, and Sammy shrinks back with a knife to her heart, watching as Yasmina struggles to her feet, gingerly favoring her right side.
“But—” Sammy tries.
“Just don’t,” Yasmina grunts. “We may need each other to stay alive, but don’t for a second think that makes us friends again.” Winces. “Because we’re not, and we will never be.”
Sammy delfates at the harsh words, watching as Yasmina hobbles away with a pained expression on her face. The agony of walking with a broken ankle seemingly more preferable than spending another moment with her.
Her soulmate.
Sammy pulls her knees to her chest and begins to cry.
Oh, what is she to do?
Nothing, she decides, after her surprising talk with Brooklynn. Nothing until she can repair their friendship. It’s the only way it can work.
What Yaz needs is time.
They make it to the South Ferry Dock, but they’re too late.
There are no boats. Gone. They’ve been abandoned.
As Yasmina stares out at the vast black sea, listening to the rolling emptiness where she knows an evacuation ship should be, she isn’t sure what to feel. She can’t feel much of anything aside from the searing pain coming from her ankle.
No one (but one person) has said a word after Darius’s breakdown. The group’s energy has kind of just… stilled. It’s been like that ever since Ben fell from the monorail.
Everyone (but one person) has given up.
Even Yasmina, who never gives up; who keeps going and prides herself in her achievements.
She looks on bitterly, from the crashing waves that should be soothing in a different context but do little to ease the current ache in her chest, to the clutter left behind from people’s hasty retreat. People who made it on time where she had otherwise failed.
Yasmina never fails. She doesn’t lose.
Until now.
Until she stepped foot on this stupid, godforsaken island.
Will she ever be able to run again?
No. Yasmina refuses to think like that.
She watches with a narrowed gaze as Sammy (the one person who still puts on a smile after everything) puts on a good show—actively avoiding Yasmina but flitting from every other person to person, like a frantic bee tending to a wilting flower garden. She rubs Darius’s back, tells him that it isn’t his fault. Not for Ben, not for this.
Darius doesn’t seem to believe her.
Yasmina knows just who to put the blame on, however.
“This is all your fault,” she murmurs, staring daggers at Sammy. It’s all because of her. If she hadn’t become such a distraction—
Kenji, beside her, turns abruptly then—back to her. It’s the only tell since he had collapsed there with a resigned, ‘Fuck this!’ that he’s still alive and breathing and conscious (Yasmina still wonders if he had hit his head after they all jumped from the monorail; how any of them survived that with minimal injury is beyond her), having laid completely motionless since then, hands clasped around Ben’s fanny pack like some kind of a lifeline.
“Are you serious right now?” Brooklynn turns to her with an exasperated look. “Girl, give it up! It’s just a phone! It’s broken, I forgave her—why can’t you?”
“It’s not just about the stupid phone! She lied to us!”
“I’m sorry, okay,” Sammy says, and Yasmina refuses to look into her sad, puppy-eyed gaze. “I already told you why I did what I did. My family—”
“Again with the family—” Yasmina drawls with an eye-roll.
“You are such a bitch!” Brooklynn interjects, but Yasmina ignores her.
“What about us, huh? The ones who are trapped on this fucking dino-infested island with you! At least your family aren’t—”
“You don’t know anything about me or my family!” Sammy snaps, and Yasmina blinks, shocked that Sammy could ever raise her voice like that.
But Yasmina isn’t one to easily back down.
Even when she’s given up on literally everything else, she still has her pride.
“Sure I do,” Yasmina claps back. “I know that your family supplies meat for the dinosaurs, which makes you a bunch of cow-killers.”
Sammy looks mad, oh she looks big mad—and now she’s approaching Yasmina.
Oh no.
Yaz’s fear spikes for a second and she attempts to shuffle away with little success.
“Just—” Sammy starts, wincing like she’s the one in pain. “Just let me—”
“Don’t you dare touch me!” Yasmina demands. Why can’t Sammy just leave her alone?
“I’m just tryin’ to help!”
“You’ve done nothing… everything but help since you got here! All you’ve done is made things worse! For all of us!” For me.
“I know!” Sammy shouts. “It’s my fault! It’s all on me! I’m the reason that my family is in such financial debt. That’s why I had to do it. Had to come here. Not my brother, not my sisters—me. If Papá didn’t need to spend so much of the ranch’s earnings on my medical care, then—”
“Medical care?” Darius finally snaps out of his self-loathing daze at the dock and approaches the group. “Sammy, are you—?”
“I’m fine! It… it doesn’t matter!” Sammy gives up with a defeated look, tears in her eyes, and backs away. “Forget I said anything. Please.”
Great. Now Yasmina feels like absolute shit.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Brooklynn says, glaring at her.
Yasmina glowers in silence while Darius decides that they should camp out by the shore in case rescue decides to come back and search for stragglers. He puts on a brave face, but even Yasmina can read that he doesn’t truly believe that’s going to happen.
They’re all on their own now.
All they have is each other.
Yasmina pointedly doesn’t look in Sammy’s direction.
The campers do as Darius says. They always do. He’s the only person here with any sense, and Yasmina thinks she’d follow his lead anywhere.
There’s a large white tent nearby that must’ve been put up in haste for the injured park-goers to be medically tended to while they waited for more evacuation ships to arrive. The next day, they begin rationing the leftover bottles of water found in the tent and scattered along the dock and shore. They also have Ben’s carob bars and juice packs, but it’s a much more limited supply, and no one quite favors the taste much, like, at all. It’s a miracle his fanny pack could fit as much as it does, and they’re all very thankful for it (bless him), but Sammy was right (and Yasmina hates to admit it) when she said it tasted like dirt.
Yasmina would actually rather eat real dirt than eat another carob bar.
When their supply begins to run out, they (aside from Yasmina) take turns in pairs venturing into the jungle to forage for berries and look for a fresh stream of water.
But by the third day it’s clear that no one’s coming back for them.
“It’s useless!” Kenji kicks at the sand. It’s the most life she’s seen in him (if she can even call it that) since… well. Since Ben fell. “No one’s coming back for us. They left. They don’t care. No one cares about us—a bunch of dumb kids!”
“Kenji—” Sammy begins gently.
“Well what do you suppose we do about it, huh?” Brooklynn retorts.
“Oh I don’t know, find a way to call for help?” Kenji flings his arms wide in exaggeration.
“With what, exactly?” Yasmina joins in on the argument. “Sammy destroyed our only hope—”
“Oh enough about Sammy and the stupid phone, already!” Kenji shouts. “God, Yaz! There’s more phones! There were tons of people who were just here that left in a craze just days ago! Someone could’ve dropped—left behind—hell, there’s people here now! We’ve all seen it! How about we go and look around—”
“You want us to search dead bodies?!” Brooklynn screeches in terror.
“Well what choice do we have!”
“If we go back into the jungle, there’s a big chance we get eaten and end up like—”
“Don’t say it!” Kenji snaps, covering a useless hand over one ear and pointing a finger at Yasmina, daring her to finish the sentence. “Don’t fucking…”
Yasmina shuts her mouth, and he drops his hand, which immediately falls back into place—resting on Ben’s fanny pack strapped securely around his waist.
“No. Kenji’s right,” Darius says. “We need to do something. We can’t just sit here—”
Now Kenji’s pointing a finger at Darius. “News flash, Dino-Nerd, but this was your idea—”
“Jesus, Kenji!” Brooklynn blurts in exasperation. “He’s agreeing with you—”
“Guys!” Darius yells, and the two go quiet. “I have an idea. We’ll go to Main Street and see if there’s any way we can call for help. All the crazy action has gotta have died out by now, but we still need to be on high alert. Got it?”
Everyone solemnly nods.
“Good.” Darius’s determined eyes fall on Yasmina. “You okay to walk?”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
Darius gives her a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid not, no. But you’ve had a few days of rest, yeah?”
“What good that did,” Yasmina mutters. “Well, then lead the way.” She attempts to stand, but stumbles forward. Darius is quick to duck under her arm and support her weight.
“We’ll lead the way,” he says, twisting around. “Let’s go.”
Darius, ever-considerate, keeps the pace slow and steady for Yaz’s sake.
Yasmina hates it. Not Darius—no, never—but she hates that because of her injury everyone else has to fall behind. She’s not used to this. She feels so, so useless.
Maybe it’s not Sammy that she blames, but herself.
If she didn’t break her ankle, they all could’ve made it to the South Ferry Dock on time.
So she tells the others to go on ahead of her and Darius.
“It’s not a race against time, Yaz,” Darius tells her gently. “We already lost that one.”
“Because of me,” Yasmina replies grimly.
“What? No! Please don’t blame yourself. Unless you want to get a talking from Sammy, too.”
Yasmina scoffs. “No thanks.” Even as she says it, she can’t help but look back at the lone girl who has remained uncharacteristically quiet behind the duo.
She looks so sad. Like a wet puppy who had just been kicked.
Sammy catches her eye and Yasmina quickly looks straight ahead, embarrassed about having been caught staring.
A flash of white on black hits her when a leafy branch smacks her right on the face (but misses Darius who is shorter and on her other side). Yasmina stumbles back with a surprised grunt. Sammy stops right next to her with a soft gasp and—did she just flinch?
Yasmina thinks it’s an accident, but then she sees Brooklynn looking back at her with a wicked smirk and knows it wasn’t.
“Bitch!” Yasmina rasps angrily.
“Payback’s a~” is all Brooklynn’s annoying response.
“You could’ve hit Darius!”
“But I didn’t, did I?”
Brooklynn and Kenji share a high-five.
Darius struggles to hold back Yasmina who lets out a frustrated growl.
When they get to Main Street, it’s mostly rubble and ruin.
Everyone spreads out to search, and all Yasmina can do is sit on her ass and observe. And observe she does.
Brooklynn finds a working camera and reverts back to her influencer-self, roping Kenji and Sammy in her vlogging antics. Doing a whole lot more goofing off than searching.
Yasmina realizes now why Darius was appointed leader.
They don’t find any phones, but what they do find just might be better.
Yasmina hopes the distress signal reaches someone.
After staying on Main Street overnight, Darius deems it unsafe (because of dinosaurs, of course) and suggests they go back to the camp. The one before everything went to shit.
No one is quite fond of the idea. Because hello, it was destroyed by the Indominus rex. But Darius makes a valid argument about the area around the camp housing the necessities they will need to survive (plus, what better place for rescuers to find stranded campers than at camp?), and so they each bring as much concession food and drinks as they can, stuffing them in gift shop bags, and head back into the jungle.
They’re barely through the thick of it (something Sammy would say) when a low, guttural sound puts everyone on alarm.
“Is that…” Kenji whispers.
“A T-Rex,” Darius finishes, just as quietly.
Yasmina feels a pair of eyes on the back of her head, and this time she’s sure it isn’t Sammy.
“Don’t. Move,” Darius grits through clenched teeth. “Nobody… move.”
A flash of feathers darts between their feet. Kenji startles, alerting Rexy.
“Kenji, you idiot!” Yasmina shouts. She wants to smack him upside the head, but he’s out of reach.
“It wasn’t me! It was the stupid Compy!”
“Doesn’t matter!” Darius yells. “Scatter!”
For a split second Yasmina fears that Darius is going to abandon her, but then he begins pulling her forward.
Sammy feels it before she hears it.
She’s running through blurs of green when she trips on her own two feet because the pain is so excruciating. Like a jagged lightning bolt darting through her system, beginning at the ankle.
But her ankle isn’t the one that’s twisted, so she gets right back up and keeps on running. Toward the pained scream.
“Yaz!” Sammy calls out. Oh God, it hurts so bad.
The screaming doesn’t stop, but it also sounds like it keeps getting farther and farther away from Sammy, which frustrates her to no end.
She feels hands pressing into her back and pushing her forward from behind. “I think it’s coming from over there!”
Sammy spots Darius in the distance. Her heart leaps into her throat when she sees the T-Rex close in on him, but Darius is quick—narrowly dodging the incoming jaws. She hears a hidden Yasmina call his name, over and over, but he continues playing cat-and-mouse with the world's greatest beast that ever lived—leading Rexy away through the underbrush until they both disappear.
“There!” Brooklynn points.
Sammy follows Brooklynn to where Yasmina is laying tucked into a crevice between two large flat rocks, uplifted by the roots of a larger tree. She’s holding her leg and openly sobbing, hair loose from her ponytail and clinging to her forehead. Sammy immediately runs to her side, brushing the sweat-soaked strands out of her face.
“He left... he just left me here to die!”
Sammy’s heart breaks all over again. “No, sweetheart,” she coos. "Darius wouldn’t do that."
“He saved you!” Brooklynn crouches by Yaz’s feet and begins examining her ankle, which is bent at an awkward angle and all kinds of swollen. “It’s getting worse! What do we do?!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Yasmina cries.
“We need to set it,” Sammy says, trying to keep her voice as steady as can be. “Can you do that, Brooklynn?”
Brooklynn looks at her wide-eyed. “I—”
“Think of it like one of your videos! Like when you climbed Mount Everest and sprained your ankle and had to—”
“Yeah,” Brooklynn cuts her off softly, voice strained. She takes a deep breath. “Okay. I just need... to make a brace. I’ll be right back. Stay with her?”
“Of course.” Sammy shuffles closer to Yasmina, repositioning herself so she’s now holding the injured girl from behind, legs splayed on either side. “I won’t be going anywhere.”
Sammy isn’t sure how long Brooklynn is gone for. Yasmina won’t sit still, body trembling, shaking like a leaf in her arms as if she were a cat that just had a bath. So she just continues to rub soothing circles and whisper sweet nothings into her ear everytime Yasmina shuffles like she’s trying to get away or speaks nonsensically.
“Brooklynn will be back,” Sammy murmurs. “Then Darius… and Kenji.”
She briefly wonders about the safety of said boy. Sammy hadn’t seen Kenji in all the chaos since he got spooked by the little Compy. But she’s sure he’s okay. It’s Kenji, she tells herself. That boy’s got a knack for getting himself out of more trouble than he’s been in.
Brooklynn returns shortly after with two pieces of peeled-off bark and a rope of vine.
“Hold her steady,” she says and gets right to work.
Yasmina immediately begins thrashing like crazy once Brooklynn starts messing with her ankle, and Sammy hugs her tighter.
“Hold her steady!” Brooklynn repeats more vigorously.
“I am! She’s in a lotta, lotta pain! It’s makin’ her really scared and disoriented!”
Brooklynn doesn’t say anything to that. She just tugs on Yaz’s leg, which she receives a howl of pain for.
“Careful!” Sammy clenches her teeth, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“I’m trying!” Brooklynn exclaims, blinking rapidly.
Then she stops altogether.
Sammy’s gaze narrows at Brooklynn’s conflicted expression. “What is it?” she urges.
“I…” Brooklynn’s voice falters, her eyes darting away.
“Brooklynn…?”
Brooklynn covers her eyes in frustration, hands trembling. “I can’t!”
“Can’t? Can’t what?”
“I can’t do this! I just… I just can’t!”
“Brooklynn, what do you mean? You can do anything! I know you can!”
Brooklynn’s breathing heavily now; speaking in-between gasps for air. “I’m afraid I’ll mess something up and make it worse!”
“You won’t mess up! If you can climb Mount Everest, then you can—”
“I didn’t actually climb it…” Brooklynn says it so quietly that Sammy isn’t sure she heard correctly.
“What?”
“I didn’t actually climb Mount Everest!” Brooklynn cries. “It was fake! It was all fake!”
Sammy blinks, stunned at the revelation. “But your ankle. What about—”
“Staged,” Brooklynn admits. “I… thought it would add to the drama.”
Sammy can’t believe what she’s hearing.
Everything was fake?
A palm suddenly slaps her face.
Oh. That’s right.
Sammy looks down as she remembers the girl trapped in her arms.
Yaz’s fingers begin clawing her cheek in a haphazard manner and Sammy gently clasps her hand over hers.
“I got you,” she tells her soulmate, pouring every ounce of love that she can into those words of affirmation. Yasmina blinks up at her, eyes glossy and dazed. Sammy forces herself to look away, then to Brooklynn, she says, “Switch with me.”
Brooklynn snaps up. “Huh?”
“Switch with me,” Sammy repeats, brimming with newfound determination. “I’ll do it.”
“Do you even know how—?” Brooklynn begins to protest, but Sammy is already moving away from Yasmina, as much as it pains her to do so (as much as she wants to keep holding her close).
“When you have as many cattle as we do on the ranch, the vets come to you,” Sammy explains, kneeling down. “I’ve sat in and watched ‘em get fixed up many a times.”
“But did you actually do any of the ‘fixing’ yourself?”
“Once.” Sammy’s eyes drop down to Yaz’s mangled ankle, and she touches around the area gently to get a better feel for it. Her own ankle tingles in response; Yasmina draws in a hiss and kicks at her. “Keep her still for me. I think… I think I got a handle on it.”
“If you’re sure…” Brooklynn says, hesitantly taking the spot behind Yasmina that Sammy just vacated.
“I mean, how different can it be?” Sammy waves a hand dismissively.
“I don’t think—” Brooklynn starts.
“I’m not a cow!” Yasmina strains, cutting her off. She tries and fails to set a glare on Sammy, unable to look in one direction for long.
“Of course not, sweetie,” Sammy responds softly. Eyes darting back to Brooklynn, Sammy firms her voice and says, “Steady her leg.”
Brooklynn nods, gently but firmly holding Yaz’s leg in place.
Sammy takes a deep breath. She can do this. She has to do this.
As Sammy starts to realign the ankle, she feels a sharp stab in her own. Fuck, it hurts.
Yasmina thrashes, a scream of pain escaping her lips. “No! No, it hurts!” she sobs, tears streaming down her face.
“I know, I know!” Sammy says in a gasp, vision blurring. More than you could ever know.
“Please!” Yasmina cries out, and Sammy almost does too, but she bites her lip hard to keep from doing so. She forces herself to stay calm; ignore the pain.
“Hold her still, Brooklynn!” Sammy urges, growing frustrated because she can hardly see what she’s doing.
“I’m trying!” Brooklynn tightens her grip on Yaz’s leg. Instead of holding her from behind like Sammy had, the smaller girl’s switched tactics—now using her body to pin Yaz’s upper body to the ground. “She’s really strong!”
“Yaz, I’m so, so sorry,” Sammy whispers. With a sickening click, the bones shift back into place. Yaz’s cries grow louder, and she thrashes harder, but Brooklynn holds a firm, white-knuckled grip.
The pain is excruciating, and Sammy feels it all, every twist and surge of agony. Tears stream down both their faces, but Sammy doesn’t stop. She can’t stop.
“Almost there, Yaz,” Sammy breathes. Yasmina just groans.
With the ankle now set, Sammy quickly grabs the two pieces of bark Brooklynn brought over. She places one piece on either side of Yaz’s leg, forming a brace. Her hands shake as she wraps the vines around the bark, pulling them tightly, causing Yasmina to wheeze.
“It’s done,” Sammy says, and despite the pain lingering like a ghostly phantom, relief washes over her. “It’s no permanent solution, but it’s done.”
Brooklynn hops off of Yasmina, and Sammy takes the opportunity to carefully climb over and check on her. She feels a pair of hands cup her face and looks down to see Yasmina looking up at her with an unreadable expression.
“You’re crying,” Yasmina rasps.
Sammy blanches. She doesn’t want Yasmina catching on to the whole soulmates thing, not when their friendship is still on the mend. Quickly, she sits up and forces a smile, causing Yaz’s hands to fall away. “Mamá always did call me an empath! It’s what makes me such a crybaby, I guess.”
Yaz’s brows furrow, a puzzled look crossing her still-dazed features.
“Look! Darius and Kenji!” Brooklynn exclaims, waving her hands excitedly and hopping in place. “They’re okay!”
Sammy sighs, relieved that her friends are safe, and collapses right next to Yasmina.