Kindred (31 page)

“Miss Lancaster?” the nurse says as she stands to the right of the bed jostling the IV machine, where I notice at the end of the tube in the bend of my arm, a needle is sleeping underneath the dressing tape. “You really took a fall. How are you feeling?”

I close my eyes and squeeze tight as if to reset the scene, but when I open them again and let them blur back into focus, everything is the same.

“W-Who are you talking to?”

It still hasn’t completely hit me yet that I’ve been impaled by needles.

The nurse presses a few buttons on another machine and leans over me, adjusting tubes here and there until she comes to the one laying at the base of my nostrils, feeding me oxygen.

“
You
, silly,” she says, smiling at me all bubbly-like. “How are you feeling?”

I’m thoroughly confused and as I’m still trying to fully wake up, knowing that some kind of drug is trying to force itself the rest of the way out of my system, I realize that she really did just call me Miss Lancaster.

As if this isn’t strange enough, the way the nurse leans away from me and looks toward an area of the room I still can’t quite make out, the bright and bubbly smile dissolves completely from her face. I stare harder toward the shadowed area, letting my eyes focus, but still coming up short.

The nurse looks back at me and she’s smiling again.

“I’ll leave you to your family now,” she says, patting my leg. She flicks the fluorescent light off that had been shining directly over my bed and exits the room.

I stare speechless at the door when it closes softly behind her. When I’m able to tear my eyes away, I look over to see Isaac standing on the other side of my bed.

“Isaac!” I start to get up from the bed, but he catches me before I’m sitting completely upright and gently pushes me back down.

“God, I am so sorry,” he says and I can hear trembling in the back of his throat.

I still don’t understand anything. Not what happened, or how I got here, or even where I am, but more than anything I want to understand what Isaac is sorry for. Why does he look so pained, struggling with everything in him to keep from breaking down in front of me?

“S-Sorry for what, Isaac?” I reach out my hand to him and he takes it, kissing the tops of my knuckles and then pressing the back of it to the side of his face. “Sorry for what?” I repeat softly.

“For putting you through this,” he says, “and for letting it go on as long as it did and not telling you.” He isn’t struggling to say these words; they come out plainly and resolutely as though he has already gone through all of the reluctant motions beforehand.

“Putting me through what?” I look to and from his eyes and his hand holding mine, the way his thumb constantly brushes over my knuckles. “Isaac?”

He looks right at me, his gaze impenetrable. “Do you trust me?”

I want to ask him why he would even ask me that question but instead, I just nod a series of tiny, rapid nods.

He studies my face for a second longer, searching for the certainty of my words and then he nods as well, squeezing my hand a little tighter below.

Genna Bishop steps out of the shadows.

The blanket covering me crushes under the weight of my fist. I look between Isaac and Genna, finding no immediate explanations. I start to move from the bed again, but Isaac stops me again; the dressing tape over the IV in the top of my hand pinches my skin as I pull backward. The heart rate monitor starts beeping faster beside me.

“Isaac! She’s in the room,” I say, pointing, “The Praverian. She’s behind you!”

His face remains calm and poignant and when he doesn’t bother to turn and look, I know he’s aware of her presence already.

My head snaps back to look only at Isaac for answers, but I keep Genna in my peripheral sight.

“She’s here to help us,” Isaac says and my face squeezes into an unbelieving knot.

“
What
?”

Genna steps closer, the shimmering blackness of her hair draping over her shoulders like silk, her sparkling emerald-colored eyes brilliant as she pushes her way through the shadow. “He’s right,” she says but I don’t believe her. “I’ve been trying to help you all along.”

I realize I’ve been shaking my head no, over and over, the closer she draws.

“
Helping
me?” I demand, my face twisted into outraging distrust. “Every time I’ve blacked-out, you’ve been there! You’ve been
feeding
from me!”

I pull my hand completely from Isaac and back myself against the head of the bed. The heart rate machine has reached ninety-six. Annoying little tubes dangle from both arms, preventing me from running out the door, but I’ll rip them out if I have to. I’ll rip them out.

“Isaac, what’s going on?”

“You said you trust me,” he says carefully, putting his hand up to stop Genna from coming any closer.

“I
do
, but…,” I can hardly take my eyes off Genna for two seconds. “Why is she here and how can you see her?”

“She’s allowing me to see her,” he says. “Please, Adria, just calm down and let us tell you.”

Genna keeps her distance. She moves to the end of the bed near the mounted television. This room is identical to the one my mom was in. Everything from the placement of the television and the restroom to my right, to the off-white color of the walls and the color of the bedding.

“Wait…how long have I….”

I can’t do this anymore, sit here in a place I’m unsure of, unsure of what happened to put me here, unsure of how long I’ve been out and unsure if Genna had anything to do with it. I just can’t do this.

Isaac reaches out for my hand again, waiting first perhaps to see if I’m going to push him away. But I can’t. I need him right now. He’s the only one in this room that I trust.

He pulls my hand up and kisses my fingers, softly shutting his eyes for a moment.

“You know I wouldn’t be here with her if even a fraction of me thought she might hurt you.”

I look across the room at Genna, cautiously studying her, the way she stands near the wall with her dainty hands resting at her sides, the way the corners of her eyes are soft and thoughtful. I remember the day with her in the library, the way everything seemed so surreal as if Genna and I didn’t belong, but I’m not getting those strange feelings now.

My heart rate begins to slow and I turn my attention back to Isaac who sits so close to me that I can smell the natural scent of his skin and feel the warmth coming off of his body.

“I’m listening,” I say.

Isaac breathes deeply and lets go of my hand, rising into a stand and pushing his hands down into his pockets.

“Ten hours ago,” he begins, “I had been trying to call you; found out from Beverlee where you went after I couldn’t get you on the phone. I was on my way to the airport when I got a call from Nathan.” He glances briefly back at Genna. “He found Genna, and come to find out, talking her into not feeding from you wasn’t even an issue—.” Isaac stops abruptly, looking away from me and off toward the wall. I get the worst feeling from his sudden silence and the way his face reads, like he can’t bear to finish the sentence.

Genna steps up then, nodding at Isaac with a look of understanding that I wish I could share and then she begins to speak.

“While I was with Nathan and Isaac, explaining everything to them, Isaac’s phone rang and we all thought it was you. It was the hospital here in Georgia. Apparently, they called the last number you had dialed, trying to locate any of your family members. I hopped a plane with Isaac and here we are, your brother and sister, Genna and Isaac Lancaster.”

I shake my head, confused.

“That was my doing,” Genna says. “Right now you don’t need your real family knowing what’s happened to you. I manipulated the nurses taking care of you, to make them think you’re someone else and Isaac and I are the only family members they needed to contact.”

“But why?” I’m desperate for swifter answers, but as usual I seem to be learning more and more and nothing makes sense to me.

“Because what’s wrong with you isn’t something that any doctor can fix,” Genna says carefully. I’m looking right at her, but I don’t see her face as my mind is lost deeply in thought trying to piece these unfinished bits of information together to create something whole.

I feel the bed move as Genna sits on the edge next to me. I look up quickly, letting my mind clear and I start to recoil, but she puts her hands up in a surrendering fashion. “I’m not going to touch you. I promise. At least not unless you start freaking out and I have to calm you down.”

I don’t say anything. I just look at her, waiting for her to go on. Isaac is watching me, the pain and uncertainty in his eyes is unbearable to me, but I can’t go into that yet. I need these answers.

“Wait…,” I say as I grasp a sudden realization, “if you haven’t been feeding from me then why have I been sick and blacking-out?”

The silence in the room is making my heart beat faster.

Genna takes a deep breath. “Because something else is causing it, Adria.”

I swallow hard and look first into Isaac’s eyes, but I look away when I feel the guilt start to stab me in the heart over and over again. I wipe the first tear away and hold back the rest for now, but I know that any minute a storm of tears are going to barrel from my eyes. Isaac knows about the Blood Bond now. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.

I wipe another tear away.

And another.

“I fed from you once,” Genna says. “It was months ago when you were so distraught over your sister’s betrayal. Your depression made you vulnerable to me, but when I took your essence that night, I felt something that I’ve never felt from a feeding before. I still don’t know what it was, but I knew I had to watch you. I sensed that you’re connected to us in some way.” Genna never takes her eyes off me and as her words both comfort and scare me at the same time, I can’t speak. I just listen. “Then one night, days after your time in Viktor’s prison, I tried to feed from you again when you were vulnerable again, to see if I could understand your connection to us, maybe get a glimpse into your purpose, but I saw nothing. It was what I
tasted
that opened my eyes to grief, that made me need to help you more than I needed to use you for my own curiosities.”

I feel my lips beginning to tremble. I can’t look at Isaac now at all, but I sense that he’s unable to look at me, either.

I stare down at my hands, which have been crushed into fists this whole time, as though Genna’s words are the highest and scariest rollercoaster ride and I’m not strapped in properly.

“You already know….” Genna says softly, probably reading my mind.

I look back at her and I start to say something until I realize I don’t know what it was that I was going to say. And then I finally look at Isaac and the tears start to stream. “Isaac…I am so sorry. I’m sorry I never told you.”

His hands come out of his pockets and he moves over to me, a look of concern and of pain rests in his face.

Genna moves from the bed to let him take her place and he leans toward me, his hands cupping my cheeks and he kisses my forehead first before pulling back and holding both of my hands, his thumbs pressed softly against my palms. “God…Adria, you have absolutely nothing to apologize to me for.” He’s choking back his own tears and while I’ve never seen him this grief-stricken before, I can’t get past my own grief and guilt and shame to tend to his. “Why would you think this is your fault? Baby, it’s my fault. Only mine.”

I shake my head no, tears burning the back of my throat. “Don’t do that,” I say, squeezing his hands now, “don’t try to take the blame and turn it around on you where it doesn’t belong, for my sake. Don’t
do
that!”

He starts to speak, likely to defend his decision, but I stop him.

“I should’ve told you about Viktor,” I say. “I never should’ve kept any of it from you. That he’s still alive because Aramei’s still alive…that
I’m
still alive.” I rupture with sobs, my whole body shuddering uncontrollably. “I should’ve told you what he did to me, Isaac!”

He can’t speak at all. His face has become frozen, unable to blink as he stares at me with shock and confusion. I wait for it, for him to let go of my hands and rise from the bed so that he can leave me sitting here in a pool of guilt. But he doesn’t. He grips my hands tighter. I can’t read his face, but I’m crying too hard to be able. I can’t see through my own tears and I can’t wipe them away because he’s holding my hands so securely that I can’t lift them. “I’m so sorry…,” I say one last time, feeling my breath drain out of my lungs with heavy abandon.

“No…
no
,” Isaac says, looking deeply into my eyes, “…Adria, Viktor didn’t do this to you…
I
did.”

23

I DON’T EVEN FEEL when my hands slip away from Isaac’s. I can’t hear my heartbeat, or hear my breath. The beeping machines next to my bed are muted. I see two pairs of eyes looking at me, but for what feels like an eternity, I can’t actually see either of their faces. It seems that the world has stopped spinning on its axis. Time has stopped altogether and the only thing left moving anywhere is my subconscious, churning inside this vulnerable shell that is my body.