“Francis…” Brendan began.
“I’m part of this pack and I get to say my piece.” Francis looked ready to jump out of his seat at any second. I thought about the animosity that had always existed between us and knew this just added to his reasons to dislike me. The hard part was that he was right. Roland and Peter had both been hurt yesterday because of me. What if Peter hadn’t been able to heal himself? What if Roland had died on the spot or I hadn’t gotten to him in time?
“Last night proved what I’ve been saying for years: we need to stick with our own kind and leave everyone else to their own business. Now we have crocotta coming onto our land, something they have never done before. We have Mohiri hanging around like they own the place and we’ve been dragged into a fight with vampires and goddamn witch doctors over trolls who would rather tear your heart out than look at you. And it’s all because of her.” He pointed at me and I met his contemptuous stare quietly. “You all have always been soft on her because she’s the poor little orphan girl. But she’s not so little anymore and she’s not even human. She’s one of them for Christ’s sake so she should be with them. Since when do we welcome Mohiri into our homes?”
“Francis, that’s enough!” Judith admonished sharply from the doorway.
“He’s right,” I said loudly and everyone stared at me. “Everything he said is true – except about the trolls. Remy’s always been a good friend to me. I should have known better about the bile, and I should have said no when he asked me to use it. Just because he’s a troll doesn’t mean he understands people or how dangerous they can be.” I took in a shaky breath. “I understand if you hate me, but none of this is his fault.”
Roland laid his hand over mine after I finished my impassioned speech. “Sara, no one here hates you. Don’t mind Francis. You know how he is.”
Francis sneered at him. “Of course you stand up for her, Roland. You’ve had a thing for her since you met her.”
What?
I turned to Roland and a flush crept up his neck. “Maybe back when we were younger… but not for a long time.” He gave me a sideways look. “Oh, come on. All the boys liked you when you started school with us. Pete did too.”
The look on Peter’s face told me he wanted to pound Roland for pulling him into this. “Yeah, but after a while we decided that we didn’t want to fight about it.”
I made a choked sound. Judith coughed and disappeared into the kitchen again and I was sure I heard muffled laughter from the other room. I sank further into the couch, wishing it would swallow me up.
“See, that’s what I mean. You guys were always biased when it came to her. I’m not saying Sara is a bad person. But she’s not good for the pack. ” Francis leaned forward in his chair. “And I’m not the only one who thinks that.”
“It is not your place to say that,” Brendan said sternly and I thought I heard a growl beneath the words. “Max and I discussed this last night and we will decide what is good for this pack, not you or anyone else.”
“Fine,” Francis said sullenly. He stood and stomped to the door. “But if Maxwell agrees with you, why isn’t he here right now?” He slammed the door hard behind him.
No one spoke for a long cruel moment during which terrible doubts assailed me. Was it true? Did Maxwell share Francis’s sentiment? Maxwell could be a hard person sometimes – almost the opposite of his brother and sister – and his gruffness often made me feel like a little kid waiting for a scolding. I understood him a little better since learning he was the leader of a werewolf pack but it didn’t make me any less worried about his displeasure. If he was as angry as Francis implied, would he order Roland and Peter to stay away from me? As alpha his commands had to be obeyed no matter what my friends wanted. My heart squeezed painfully at the thought of losing them after everything we’d been through. My dad was gone, I’d lost Remy, and in a few days I had to leave Nate and my friends and everything I knew. I didn’t think I could survive another loss.
Brendan let out a long deep sigh and my fear grew at the grim set of his jaw as he looked at me. Brendan was the kind-hearted one, the peacemaker and they’d decided that he should be the one to tell me I was no longer welcome here. I braced myself for the blow and saying goodbye to the people who had been like a family to me.
“Max and I are not pleased with what’s been going on here lately, especially how reckless and foolish you youngsters have been. Last night, you never should have gone off like that without alerting the pack to what was going on. Because of that, we almost lost a pack member and that is inexcusable.” Beside me Roland tensed and hung his head as Brendan continued. “You two are young men now and should know by now to not go off alone, which means something is obviously missing in your training. That will be remedied soon enough, I promise you.”
He turned his attention back to me and I shrank away from the disapproval in his eyes. “We made some allowances for you considering your past and everything going on in your life lately. It’s a lot to deal with for someone your age. But you’ve shown a lack of good judgment and a reckless disregard for your safety that we never would have expected from you.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say past the lump in my throat.
“For all your mistakes you are a good person, Sara, and no one doubts your loyalty and courage. What you did here last night was nothing short of miraculous. You saved one of ours and the pack does not forget something like that. So where does that leave us?”
“I… don’t know.”
Brendan’s expression did not falter. “Max thinks you three need to be separated because you encourage each other’s bad behavior.”
“What?” Peter cried and Roland shouted, “No!” I didn’t say anything because I was not surprised. The ache in my chest grew and cold settled in my stomach.
Brendan held up a hand. “We talked it over and we decided that breaking up your friendship would be cruel
but
there will be some new rules if you want to keep it. To start: for the next three months, the only place you will see each other is at school. Every spare minute you boys have will go to extra training and trust me you’ll be too tired to get into trouble. There will be no more adventures like last night. You three pull something like that again and that’s it. Understood?”
All I could do was nod. I was so relieved that Maxwell hadn’t ordered me to stay away from the pack that I was afraid I’d start to cry if I spoke. Roland shifted like he was about to argue and I squeezed his hand hard to stop him. This was the harshest I’d ever seen Brendan, which said a lot about how serious he was and I didn’t want to push the matter.
Brendan was not finished. “There is one other thing. Sara, you need to tell your uncle what is going on in your life. We aren’t going to try to force you to do it but it’s not fair to him for you to be running around putting your life and maybe his in danger and keeping him in the dark about it. He deserves better than that. You’ve been on your own for far too long without supervision. I’m not saying that Nate is a bad parent, just that he is not informed enough to guide you properly and set restrictions when needed.”
“I’m going to tell him today when he gets home.”
“Good.” Brendan slapped his hands against his knees and stood. “The three of you have to work to earn back the trust you lost, starting now. Maxwell is coming over soon to talk to you boys and I promise it will not be pleasant. The Mohiri is outside waiting to give Sara a ride home.”
Roland tightened his grip on my hand. “Already? Can’t she stay a little while longer?”
“No, I need to go,” I said, already dreading the task ahead of me. “I should get home before Nate does.”
Peter made a feeble attempt at a smile. “It’s only three months, right?”
His words brought on a pang of anguish. I had to tell them I was leaving and it hit me just how hard it was going to be to say goodbye to them. We’d stay in touch somehow but it would never be the same as what we had here. It hurt to think of not finishing our senior year together, not sitting together at graduation or looking at colleges together.
“I… made a decision,” I said, unable to look at them. “I’m going to stay with the Mohiri for a while.”
“What!” Roland cried in disbelief.
“Nikolas doesn’t think it’s over with the vampires, and I-I think he might be right.” I told them about the sheik and Nikolas’s theory that vampires were working with the humans to try to get to me. And that the sheik might come after me if he thought I could heal his disease. “No one is safe as long as I’m here.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Peter argued.
“You can but what about Nate? He’d be defenseless if they came after him to get to me. Nikolas said I’ll be safe with the Mohiri, especially if there is a Master in the picture.” I looked at each of them, my eyes pleading with them to understand. “I don’t want to go, but I don’t think there’s any other way to keep Nate safe.”
“What about the trolls?” Roland asked hopefully. “They’re your friends, right? Won’t they help if you ask them?”
I shook my head. “Remy says the elders know about us selling the bile and they will forbid him from seeing me. If we’re lucky it won’t be a forever thing but I don’t think I can count on any help there.” I hadn’t even begun to process the pain of losing Remy’s friendship. I pushed it to the back of my mind because if I had to deal with one more loss right now I would break.
“Damn! Even trolls get grounded,” Peter said with a whistle.
We fell quiet for a few minutes until Roland finally said, “So, you’re going to tell Nate everything and then leave. I don’t think he is going to handle this well.”
I groaned. “He’s not going to take it well either way. And you know him – he won’t believe anything without proof.”
“I could come over and shift for him,” Peter offered and I let out a humorless laugh.
“Yes and give him a heart attack. I think seeing a werewolf up close and personal will be too much for him even if it is you.”
“Hmm, you’re probably right.”
“I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can show him an imp. Our place is full of them.”
“Probably not a good idea to tell him he has a demon infestation,” Roland pointed out dryly. “Especially with you leaving.”
This was going to be even harder than I’d thought. There was not going to be an easy way to break any of this to Nate but I needed to show him something or he’d never believe me. “I need a way to show him proof without scaring the hell out of him.”
“Okay, so no close encounters,” Roland thought out loud. “Maybe a picture of something… or a video.”
“You mean like a video of an imp?” Unless you got close enough to see their very sharp teeth, they looked pretty harmless. “How will he know it’s not a fake? It has to be something he can’t refute.”
Peter’s face lit up. “I have an idea. Give me your phone.”
“Please say something.”
Nate stared blankly at his hands clasped in front of him on the kitchen table. He had been sitting like that for the last five minutes.
My chest tightened. All day I had tried to prepare myself to talk to him while dreading his reaction. My worst fears had come to pass. He wouldn’t even look at me.
His face lifted and his troubled eyes met mine. “What do you want me to say? When you said you had to tell me something, I was worried you’d been suspended or something. Instead, you tell me this crazy story. If I didn’t know you better, I’d ask if you were on something.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in.”
He let out a strangled laugh. “Just a bit.”
I wanted to reach across the table and take his hand but I was afraid of his reaction. Anxiety and fear twisted my gut in knots. Nate was the only family I had; I couldn’t bear it if he pulled away from me now.
There had been no easy way to come clean to him so I’d just dived in head first, fumbling my way through the story that grew more fantastic by the minute. How do you tell someone you love that nothing in their world is as it seems and that they are surrounded by a whole other world of magic and people and creatures that should not exist?
Nate had listened quietly while I told him I’d always believed there was more to my dad’s death than the authorities had said. His eyes had grown wide when I explained how I had learned I could heal animals when I was little. When I’d begun describing how I met Remy and discovered that every mythical creature I’d ever heard of was real, his face had become a mask of disbelief.
Then the real hard part came. Using as little detail as possible, I told him about Eli, Nikolas, and the werewolves and what had been happening for the past month. His tight-lipped expression made my heart ache as I revealed what I’d learned about Madeline and the truth about my dad’s murder. I stopped there because I couldn’t go any further without hearing him say something, anything.
Nate let out a deep breath. “I’d think this was all a big prank if not for… You’d never make up stories about your father.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“I-I don’t know what to think. You have to understand that all this would be hard for anyone to believe.”
I nodded, grateful that he was still here talking to me. That was something at least.
He leaned back heavily and his wheelchair creaked. “You’re not telling me everything,” he said, studying my face.
I swallowed. “I didn’t want to lay too much on you at once.”
“You wanted to see how I’d react?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his brow and fixed me with the look of a person waiting to hear something they know will not make them happy. “Tell me.”
I told him about meeting David and everything that happened at the rest stop. He made a sound when I recounted our close escape but I kept talking, afraid that if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to continue. I told him about Remy and the missing trolls, our trip to Portland, and the rescue. I glossed over the worst of it because I didn’t think he could handle hearing the gory details, especially what I’d done to get the trolls out of the cage. It was asking enough of him to accept what I’d told him already. I finished by telling him about Roland being hurt and how I’d healed him.
He was quiet and still for a long moment and I feared I’d told him too much, that he was in shock. Finally, he ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Jesus! I… Jesus…”
“Are you alright?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I-I need some time to process this.”
I let out a deflated sigh. It wasn’t like I had expected him to be okay with everything right away, but I’d hoped… well I don’t know what I’d hoped for. It killed me to see how much I was hurting him. If I had been honest with him all along, he would not be looking at me right now like I was a stranger.
“I have something for you.” I pushed my phone across the table to him. “Peter thought it might help you.”
He stared at the phone without reaching for it. I stood and left the kitchen, almost running upstairs to my room. I stood at the top of the stairs and listened when he played the video Peter had made for him then I sat on my bed and waited for him to call me back down to talk about it.
When darkness fell, I climbed into bed and stared numbly at the ceiling until I could no longer keep my eyes open. I didn’t even bother to undress.
* * *
I didn’t get up for school the next day and Nate did not call for me to get up. It was ten o’clock when I finally dragged myself downstairs, bleary-eyed and feeling like my heart was encased in lead. In all the years I’d lived with Nate, we’d had our share of arguments but he had never let us start a new day without trying to sort things out.
His silence told me just how much I’d hurt him this time – not because of what I’d revealed to him – but because I’d been lying to him for years. Last night lying in bed it hit me just how much pain my confession had brought him. All this time, I’d carried the knowledge that there was more to my dad’s death and all I could think about was how I needed to know the truth for me, for my own closure. Not once had I ever considered Nate’s loss or grief or that he deserved to know the truth about his brother. I had to make things right. There was no way I could leave with things so messed up between us.
I walked into the kitchen but my stomach was tied in too many knots to even think about eating. Disappointment swept over me when I looked out the window and saw that Nate’s car was gone. I was hoping we could talk this morning but it looked like he needed more time to sort through things first.
To while away the hours until he returned, I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. Around eleven the school called and I let the machine pick up. I paused wiping down the refrigerator when it hit me that I was actually dropping out of school – and in my senior year. I should be thinking about college applications, prom, and graduation: normal things. But nothing in my life would ever be normal again.
My cell phone rang a little while later. It was Nikolas letting me know he and Chris were still in Portland with some of the other Mohiri, cleaning up after Saturday night and hunting down any vampires that got away. The werewolves, he told me, had offered to beef up their patrols in town today to watch over me and Nate until Nikolas got back. He said he would be back in New Hastings tonight so we could leave tomorrow morning. I listened and said “yes” and “no” where I was supposed to. I figured I should wait until he got here to explain that I could not leave town tomorrow, not until I made things right between me and Nate.
At two o’clock, restlessness drove me outside. I sat on the top of the stairs listening to the familiar sounds of the waterfront while I waited for Nate to return. But soon a cold damp fog crept in off the bay and sent me back into the warmth of the apartment. Gazing out through the living room window at the grey-shrouded waterfront, I felt more alone than I had ever felt before. All I wanted was for Nate to come home so I could ask him to please forgive me and tell me I hadn’t destroyed our relationship, that there was still a chance for us to be a family.
Half an hour later when I couldn’t take another minute of waiting, I heard a sound at the front door. I raced from the living room to greet Nate and to beg him to please talk to me. Halfway to the door I stopped short, my stocking feet skidding on the hardwood floor when I realized I hadn’t heard his car drive up or his wheelchair on the ramp.
The doorknob jiggled and my heart began to hammer against my ribs. Did I lock the door?
The answer was a soft click. The door creaked open a fraction of an inch and I stood frozen as whoever or whatever was on the other side prepared to come in.
I jumped as a low keening suddenly came from the door and it took me a few panicked seconds to realize that the sound came from the door itself and not from whoever was on the other side. The noise grew, rapidly rising in pitch and volume until I had to clap my hands over my ears to block out the piercing sound. Around the door the frame glowed red, throwing off sparks like the embers in a fireplace. In the center of the door the shape of an ashy hand appeared.
Screeching and the nauseating stench of scorched flesh filled the air as someone or something thrashed violently on the other side of the door. Seconds later the door slammed shut followed by the sound of someone stumbling down the stairs.
Freed from my paralysis, I scrambled to pull the deadbolt then ran to the kitchen window. But all I could see was the swirling fog that obscured anything more than a few feet from the building. My whole body shook and I gripped the counter with numb fingers. Something was out there, something that meant me harm and if it wasn’t for the troll warding, they would be in here now. The chill creeping along my spine told me it was still out there, hiding in the mist and waiting to try again.
I didn’t have to wait long. A minute later I heard a high-pitched whine downstairs followed by an inhuman howl of pain. I almost knocked over a chair as I bolted from the kitchen like a frightened rabbit. Whatever was out there was determined to get inside. The troll magic was very powerful and it would protect me as long as I stayed inside but it could do nothing to stop the fear knotting my stomach.
You’re safe. Don’t panic
. Nikolas would be here in a few hours. Nothing would hurt me or Nate once he was here.
Nate! What if he came home while that person
or thing
was outside? He wouldn’t have a chance.
I tore around the living room searching for my cell phone. My hands shook while I found the number Nikolas had put in my phone yesterday and listened to it ringing on the other end.
He knew something was wrong before I spoke. “Sara, what is it?”
“Something outside,” I wheezed before I regained my voice. “They’re trying to get in. The ward is holding but Nate’s not here. If he comes home and….”
My voice broke and I heard him swear then shout harshly at someone. “We’re coming. Stay right where you are and do not hang up. I’m going to stay on the phone until we get there. Do you hear me?”
“Maybe I should call Maxwell,” I told him, thinking the Knolls were a lot closer than Portland.
“No, stay on the phone with me,” Nikolas ordered. “Chris is calling them now.”
I heard a muffled sound then an engine starting. Nikolas’s voice sounded a little hollow when he spoke again and I realized he was using an earpiece inside his helmet. “I’m on the way.”
“Okay,” I said hoarsely, sinking down to sit against the wall farthest from the living room window. I pulled my knees toward me and laid my forehead against them as I prayed silently.
Please, please let him get here before Nate does.
The phone in the kitchen rang and I jerked upright. “What was that?” Nikolas asked.
“The house phone. Maybe it’s Nate,” I said hopefully, scrambling to my feet. I rushed into the kitchen and snatched up the cordless phone with my free hand.
Please let it be him.
“Sara Grey?” asked a thickly accented male voice.
“Yes?”
“I have your uncle.”
My legs started to fold and I leaned heavily against the cupboard as the cell phone in my other hand clattered loudly to the counter. I could hear Nikolas shouting but my whole body was riveted to the phone in my hand.
“I will make a trade – him for you,” the man continued in a businesslike manner. “If you care about him you will do this because I have no qualms about ending his life if I don’t get what I want.”
“I’ll do it,” I cried, gripping the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “How do I know I can trust you to let him go?”
He laughed coldly. “You do not, but he
will
die if you do not come to me. I will give you ten minutes. After that his life is forfeit.”
“No! I’ll come.”
“Good girl. Go outside now. Someone is waiting to bring you to me.”
The click on the other end was like a cell door slamming shut. I was trapped. If I didn’t go, Nate would die. If I tried to stall until help got here, Nate would die. If I went, Nate might still die.
No. That is not going to happen
, I swore as I laid the phone on the counter. Because I would die before I let anyone hurt him.
“Goddamnit, Sara, answer me!” yelled a furious Nikolas.
My hand was oddly steady when I put the cell phone to my ear again. “I’m sorry Nikolas, I have to go,” I told him flatly, guessing that he had heard enough of my conversation to know what I was going to do.
“Do not leave that apartment,” he said in a tone that few people would disobey. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Whatever it is, we can take care of it.”
“It’ll be too late.” I was already running upstairs to change. “They have Nate and they are going to kill him if I’m not there in ten minutes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but I will not let Nate die because of them.”
“Sara, think about this. They are not going to just let your uncle go once they have you. If you do this you could die.”
“He’ll die for sure if I don’t go. I’m not going to hide here and do nothing while he’s killed. I couldn’t live with that.” I picked up my coat and knife and went back to the kitchen. “You were right, all I do is put the people I love in danger. It has to stop now.”