My fingers were wrapped around Heven’s, ice cold and trembling. I released her hand to put my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side as we made our way off the elevator and down yet another sterile hallway.
“Any change?” Gran asked, grabbing a nurse by the arm on her way down the hall.
“No, ma’am. Is this her daughter?” the woman asked, regarding Heven with kind eyes.
“Yes, this is Heven and her boyfriend Sam and you know Logan.”
The nurse nodded. “Your mother is stable. There’s some slight swelling in her brain and the doctor believes that when it goes down, she will wake up.”
“Swelling in her brain?” Heven asked, alarmed. I took my arm from her shoulders and slid it around her waist for support.
“She had quite a fall, hit her head pretty hard,” the nurse responded.
Heven made a small sound in the back of her throat.
“It’s not so bad. She’s going to be fine,” the nurse assured her. “One visitor at a time. Immediate family only until she wakes up.” The nurse looked at me and Logan as she spoke.
“Of course,” Gran agreed.
Gran moved on down the hall and we followed, stopping in front of a closed wooden door. “Go on in. We’ll wait out here,” she said to Heven.
Heven pulled away from me and looked up.
I’ll be right here.
I told her, wishing I had more to offer.
Without another word, she opened the door and disappeared inside.
Gran stood there a moment, then turned to Logan and me. “It’s been a very long day and I’m going to go get a cup of coffee. Would either of you care for anything?”
We both declined as she moved off down the hall. When she turned the corner I looked at Logan. “Start talking.”
His shoulders slumped and I thought he might cry. I grabbed his arm and led him to a room two doors down that was empty and I pulled him inside and pushed the door around.
“At first, everything was okay,” Logan said. “Heven’s mom, she’s really nice. She cooked a lot and most of it was pretty good, except for the chicken. It was kind of like being back home.”
“Then what happened?” I asked patiently.
“
He
started hanging around.” His words tightened.
“Who? Henry?”
Logan nodded. “He was nice at first, too. But then one night he took me to the movies and for pizza. He said things…”
“What things?”
“That if you really cared about me you wouldn’t have left me here and went to Italy. He said that you only cared about Heven.” His voice broke.
“Logan, that isn’t true,” I said, reaching for him, but he backed away and continued to talk.
“He said that you didn’t understand what was happening to me, but he did. He said he could fix me. I told him that he was lying and that you would help me and he got mad. He drove us to this empty lot, a field of grass and he made me get out of the car.”
He started to cry and pure rage lit through my body.
“He hit me, Sam.”
I was going to kill that SOB. As Logan talked, my limbs began to shake.
“He kept hitting me. He told me that I wasn’t doing my job. That I wasn’t submitting the way I was supposed to, that I was too strong.” His voice broke again and in a small voice he said, “I’m not strong at all.”
My vision was beginning to tunnel in and out. I was fighting for control. I was losing.
“He said he was going to break me. That I would do what he wanted from now on…”
I practically tore the door off the bathroom in the room and rushed in and yanked the faucet—the handle coming off in my hand. I looked in the mirror above the sink and glittering gold eyes looked back.
Get control of yourself!
I splashed water on my face, ice-cold water, hoping to shock myself into calming down. I couldn’t change here.
Sam?
Heven’s voice reached through my internal battle.
What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?
It was her concern, her downright weariness, that broke the tension in my body and I sagged against the sink. She needed me to hold it together. She was breaking right now in fear for her mother. I had to be the strong one.
Sorry, sweetheart. Logan was just telling me again about finding your mom. It made me upset.
She’s so still.
But she’s alive, baby.
Yeah, yeah she is.
Be with her. I’m okay now. Come out when you’re ready.
I love you, Sam.
A long exhale released from my body and I pushed away from the sink.
I love you, too.
I tossed the broken handle into the sink bowl, and luckily, there was a water shut off valve beneath. I turned it to shut the water off and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me, grimacing at the way it hung loosely from its hinges. I hoped no one noticed it until we were gone.
Logan was there, tears staining his face. I sighed.
“I’m sorry. I got angry. I am angry. What he did to you, Logan. It’s sick. He’ll pay for what he did.” He would pay with his life.
Logan threw himself at me and I caught him, hugging him hard, silently vowing to let no one hurt him again.
“Are you mad at me?” Logan asked, his voice muffled against my shirt.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He pulled away then and looked at the floor. “I think I did.”
Everything inside me stilled. “What do you mean, Logan?”
“As he was hitting me, I blacked out… When I woke up, I was standing over Heven’s mom… with a glass water pitcher in my hands.”
Horror sliced through me, but I kept calm. I would not freak out. I would not. “You said that you went downstairs for some water that night.”
“There was blood on the pitcher, Sam. I beat her mother in the head with it and now she’s here, in a coma!”
“Shhhh!” I whispered and looked at the door. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but telling the entire hospital staff was not a good idea.
“I poured water on the floor to make it look like she slipped, rinsed off the pitcher and called 9-1-1.”
“No, Logan.” I shook my head. “You’re just confused.”
“No, Sam, I’m not. I can feel it. I did this. Me. There’s something wrong with me…” His voice trailed away. “There’s something inside me that’s evil.”
Denial, sharp and pungent, whipped through me. This was Logan. The little boy who loved to play football and pirates in the backyard. The little boy who trailed behind me every day after school and wanted to be just like me. This boy… this shell of a person that stood before me crying and confessing now was not my brother.
It dawned on me then.
He was right.
There was something inside him. And it wasn’t a hellhound.
It was worse.
Heven
The curtain was drawn around the bed. It was white and made of thick, stiff fabric. The lights were dim and the shades were closed over the windows. I figured it was for when she woke up, in case her eyes were sensitive. She was alone in the room, with no roommate. There was a standard hospital bathroom to the left and a blue chair next to the bed, with the curtain separating the bed and the chair. I went forward, measuring the steps I took and counting the breaths that filled my lungs.
I never wanted this.
I told myself.
Over the past months, my mother and I had our differences. We disagreed a lot and our once-close relationship drifted apart. I regretted it then, but it was easier to blame it all on her and be angry.
I should have tried harder.
And now it might be too late.
I could be an orphan before the age of seventeen.
Losing a father had been horrible, unbearable even. What would it be like to lose a mother too?
My sob was a loud echo in the room and it disturbed the stillness of the space around us. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and took a deep breath. I was stronger than this. It wasn’t too late and my mother was not going to die. Even the nurse said so. I collected myself and pulled the curtain aside.
My mother looked small and pale against the white sheets. The scratchy blankets that the hospital used were draped over her still frame. Beside her, machines beeped and monitors recorded the beating of her heart. An IV was taped to the back of her hand and a large white bandage was wrapped around her head.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, stepping closer to the bed. “I’m home from Italy. It was a good trip.”
She gave no indication that she could hear me, but I kept talking. I told her about my trip and the plane ride. I told her about the places we went and the people we met. Soon, though, I fell silent, feeling awkward at the sound of my voice.
“What happened to you?” I whispered, taking her hand.
Of course she didn’t answer. I leaned over her, studying her features. The machine next to us began to scream, beeping crazily. A nurse ran in and glared at me. “You’re standing on the IV tube.”
I jumped back like I’d been burned. “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t know.”
The nurse sighed. “It’s fine.” She came into the room and pressed some buttons. The beeping stopped. “Be careful,” she warned before leaving the room again.
I sat down in the blue chair next to the bed, tucking my feet beneath me, making sure I was nowhere near the wires and tubes. I stared at Mom for a long time, wishing she would wake up.
She didn’t.
But I did begin to feel my heart race and my hands shake. I was upset, but not like this. I realized that it must be Sam. Something must be happening.
Sam? What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?
A few moments passed as I waited anxiously to hear his voice. I stood, ready to rush from the room if needed, but then his voice flooded my brain.
Sorry, sweetheart. Logan was just telling me again about finding your mom. It made me upset.
I was so relieved that I fell back into my chair, looking back at Mom.
She’s so still.
But she’s alive, baby.
She was and that counted for something. She would be okay. She would.
Yeah, yeah she is.
Be with her. I’m okay now. Come out when you’re ready.
I love you, Sam.
I needed to say the words, to hear them in return. To know that beyond this horrible thing there was something good.
I love you, too.
An hour later my legs were asleep and the bruises on my back were throbbing. I stood and, being extremely careful, leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I love you, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
Guilt weighed me down.
This was my fault.
I took one last glance at her before exiting the room. Haunting words followed me out the door and I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the beginning of something terrible.
When everyone around you is dead…
Chapter Twenty-One
Heven
Night cloaked the farm as I stood out on the porch, leaning against the railing and staring out into the darkness. Usually, I could see the land and the trees, and it calmed me. But tonight, there was hardly a star in the sky and the moon was hidden behind dark clouds, so I could only see as far as the porch lights illuminated. I was hoping to see a shooting star, some kind of sign that everything was going to be okay. But no stars rained down, the sky was hidden and everything remained unchanged. Just like my mother. We spent hours at the hospital before Gran convinced me to come home and rest. I wasn’t tired. I couldn’t rest until everything was right again.
When would she wake up? What would she say? And where was Henry? His absence did not go unnoticed by me, although it seemed to by everyone else, except Sam, of course. When I asked Gran about him, she looked at me like I was crazy.
“Why would Henry be here, honey? He and your mother only had one or two dates.”
But that wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t. He was at Mom’s house all the time and at all hours of the night—I talked to him. I didn’t argue with Gran because her aura told me that she believed exactly what she was saying. Had someone influenced her memory?
Could a witch be capable of that?
I guess I couldn’t quite hide my dismay over it all because Gran began making noises about how tired I must be and sent us home. She stayed at the hospital, keeping vigil over my mother.
I looked back up at the sky, searching for answers to all of my questions, but I knew the answers weren’t in the sky. A noise from the kitchen brought my attention back to Earth and to another problem that was more troublesome than the rest.
Sam.
From the minute I left my mother’s hospital room and found him pacing in the waiting room with Logan I knew—I
felt
—that something was wrong. When I asked him about it, he seemed all too relieved when my phone rang. It was Cole and I took the call to tell him about my mom. Then in the car, I could sense that he didn’t want to talk and with Logan within earshot, I didn’t press. The back door opened, but I didn’t turn around, just continued to stare out into the nothingness of the yard.
His arms wrapped around me from behind and I leaned into him. I listened for Logan but I didn’t hear him, he must still be inside.
“Thinking about your mom?” Sam asked, his voice right against my ear.
I nodded. “Do you think this happened because I lost the scroll? Do you think my mom’s accident was my punishment?” The words kind of whooshed out of me and I hadn’t really realized that I had been thinking that until I said the words out loud.
Sam’s arms tightened around me. “I don’t think you’re being punished, Heven.” His voice was hoarse with pain.
I turned in his arms to stare up at him. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I hate to see you this way.”
“That isn’t all there is,” I said gently. “Did something happen with Logan? Did he say something to make you upset with me?”
Sam made a sound in the back of his throat. “I’m not upset with you. You didn’t do anything wrong, Heven. Unlike me… one mistake after another…” He said the last part almost as if he was talking to himself.