Darkness Divides (Sensor #3) (3 page)

He put a hand on my head. “Can you feel me trying to heal you?”

“No, nothing.” It scared me to think I couldn’t feel his magic like I usually did—even if it couldn’t work on me. “It’s like I’m back to the way I was before my abilities started.”

They’d hit at puberty and stayed with me ever since. I’d gotten used to them. Now after this explosion I couldn’t track any supernaturals nearby. I could normally pick them up on my radar from half a mile away. My ability to sense emotion wasn’t working either. Micah looked disturbed enough that I should have been able to feel his worry emanating from him.

“Well, your immunity to magic is still fine. I tried a few things and nothing worked on you.”

Sable chose that moment to come running in through the cat door. She’d been outside all morning and usually didn’t come back this soon, but the explosion—or whatever it was—must have sent her fleeing home sooner.

“See?” I waved my hand at her. “I didn’t even know she was coming until she got inside.”

The shape-shifter kitty came and licked at my hands before running off upstairs. Her safe spot—when she was a small enough breed of feline—was under my bed. She wasn’t afraid of opponents she could see and fight, but the invisible stuff bothered her. That and lightning.

Micah started rinsing the washcloth out in the kitchen sink. “It’ll come back. Your brain hemorrhaged enough that it might have killed you without Lucas’ blood in your system. The damage has probably disabled your abilities until your body can heal itself…”

Panic almost closed my throat.

“Wait.” I put my hand up. “If I’m feeling this badly with nephilim blood making me stronger, how would it have affected Emily?”

Micah dropped the washcloth and twisted around. “Where’s your phone?”

“On the dining room table.” I nodded in that direction.

He raced over to it, moving back to me quickly to hand it over. I had the school number programmed just in case of emergencies. It seemed to ring forever before someone answered.

I didn’t even let the secretary finish her greeting. “Yes, this is Melena Sanders. I’m calling to check on my foster daughter, Emily Druthers. I’m worried about her after the earthquake and need to make sure she’s okay.”

I couldn’t say it was a magical explosion. Almost no one would know that but me, and humans wouldn’t believe it anyway.

“We’re still working on accounting for everyone. Please give me a moment,” the woman said, putting me on hold.

My fingers clutched the phone tightly until I remembered my strength. I eased off it a bit and closed my eyes. Please let her be okay. Maybe it didn’t hit her as badly since the school was over ten miles southwest of our home. It was a stretch, but I needed to tell myself something to keep from panicking.

A click sounded when the woman came back on the line a few minutes later. “Ms. Sanders, I’m sorry to tell you this. The students were changing classes when the earthquake hit and Emily took a spill down the stairs. A senior boy insisted on taking her to the hospital himself. A few members of our staff tried to stop him, but he had friends help him get away.”

Micah gripped my arm as I stood up. “Do you know the name of the boy who took her?”

The woman hesitated. “I’m told it was Hunter Maccormac. I don’t know the names of the others who went with him.”

I hung up.

“You have to go check on Emily and make sure she got to the hospital. The only person she has with her right now is that damned werewolf.” With Micah’s abilities, he could get there in the blink of an eye and make sure she was okay. “I’ll drive and meet you there.”

He shook his head. “You’re in no condition to operate a vehicle.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Someone pounded on the front door.

“Melena, let me in,” Derrick shouted.

Micah cursed. “Speaking of damned werewolves.”

I started to move for the door, but a wave of dizziness overtook me. Micah barely caught me before I hit the floor. He settled me on a dining room chair before heading over to get the door.

Derrick came barreling past him. The alpha werewolf was more rugged than handsome and had his long brown hair pulled back from a square face. He was several inches shorter than Micah, who stood at almost six and a half feet tall, but he made up for that in stockiness. His size had women turning their heads and most men backing away. It was amusing to go out with him in public.

Derrick came straight over to me and kneeled down to examine my face. “Charlie was over at Nik’s place and said the earthquake was some kind of magical explosion. He sent me to check on you.”

Charlie was a shaman. If anyone other than me could have picked up on what it was, it would be him.

“Don’t worry about me.” I pushed his probing hands away. “We need to get to the hospital to check on Emily.”

“You’re sure she’s there?” he asked.

“She better be. Will you take me or not?”

“Sure thing, sensor girl.” He helped me up. Geez, but I hated being weak during a crisis.

“Will you go now?” I gave Micah a pleading look.

The nephilim set his cold eyes on Derrick. He didn’t like the werewolf much and didn’t bother to hide his feelings.

“You better get her there safely,” he warned.

“Course I will.” Derrick grunted.

Micah worked his jaw. I didn’t need my senses to guess what emotions he was feeling.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, flashing away.

I let out a sigh of relief. If anyone could take care of Emily, it would be him.

Derrick gave me a full once-over. His eyes caught on the part of my snake tattoo sticking out above my sweatpants, but he just shook his head and looked away. “Let’s get some more clothes on you. Then we can go.”

I grabbed my keys off the table and handed them to him. “We’re taking my Jeep. I’m not sure my head can handle your rickety truck.”

His lips twitched. “Whatever you want, sensor girl.”

***

“She needs emergency surgery.” The doctor’s voice was grave.

“What?” My hands shook and a wave of dizziness threatened to overtake me again.

“Emily is suffering from massive hemorrhaging in her right temporal lobe. We’re fortunate that one of our neurosurgeons is here on rotation at the moment to do the surgery. We just need your permission to operate.”

The doctor didn’t try to sugarcoat it. The urgency in his voice was enough to tell me we had little time. I looked at Micah.

“But if we could get…” I couldn’t say it with a human doctor standing there.

Micah shook his head at me before turning to the doctor. “Give us a moment.”

He ushered me to a set of chairs and we sat down. Derrick hovered over us, glaring at anyone who got too close. In his wolf form, he would have made a great guard dog.

“Melena.” Micah’s eyes were as serious as the doctor’s. “There’s no way we can get a vampire here in time to give her blood and save her. It’s not quite noon yet and the sun won’t set for over ten hours. Surgery is the only option we have right now.”

Vampire blood had to be fresh to work. We might not be able to bring one to the hospital, but there had to be another way. “Can’t you collect some from one of them and bring it back?”

“You know the effectiveness of vampire blood begins to deteriorate the moment it leaves their body. Flashing it back here will erode it even further. I tried that once before under a similar situation and it didn’t work.”

I took a shaky breath. My head pounded fiercely and the noise from the busy emergency room didn’t help. The place was crowded with people who’d been injured in the earthquake/blast. More of them continued to pour in every minute.

“Isn’t it dangerous? What if she doesn’t survive?” The idea of sending Emily to the operating room didn’t sit well with me. And allowing them to operate on her brain? So many things could go wrong. They could cause more damage or kill her.

I’d gone most of my life avoiding supernaturals. Even their faster healing methods hadn’t appealed to me, but now—when I needed their help—they couldn’t do anything.

Micah’s eyes filled with sympathy. “It is dangerous, but we have no other choice. Emily is a strong girl and if anyone can make it through this, she can. You’re going to have to trust her to do that.”

My mind raced to think of anything else we could do to save her, but nothing came to me. As a sensor, Emily was immune to magic just like I was. Micah couldn’t help her with his healing powers. We were going to have to handle this the mortal way.

“Will you be there? Make sure they do it right?” I knew I couldn’t go into the surgery room. Even if I got Micah to compel the medical staff into ignoring my presence, it wasn’t something I could watch. It was one thing to cut an enemy’s head off; it was another to watch the girl I cared about have hers cut open.

Micah nodded. “I’ll be there from start to finish.”

I rubbed my face. “Okay, tell the doctor to do it.”

“Good.” He reluctantly turned to Derrick. “Keep an eye on her. The magic blast didn’t injure her as badly as Emily, and she should recover on her own, but she needs to take it easy.”

The werewolf jerked his head. “Will do.”

For the sake of current circumstances, it appeared these two had made a truce.

Micah moved away to talk to the doctor. Even without my senses, I could tell the poor man was intimidated. He took a step back as soon as Micah reached him. His tension didn’t last after the nephilim caught his eyes. His face relaxed and I knew he had to be under compulsion. Good. I didn’t want any nervous medical staff working on Emily.

Derrick settled down next to me. “She’s going to make it, sensor girl. Just have a little faith.”

I bowed my head and closed my eyes. “I’m trying.”

A few minutes later a nurse came over with some paperwork. I did my best to read it over and listen to what she was saying, but between worrying about Emily and the pain in my head it was hard to concentrate. My signature looked sloppier than normal as I scrawled it out multiple times.

Micah returned to let me know they were prepping Emily for surgery and that he’d be going in to observe. I watched him as he headed through the double doors and disappeared. Please let it go okay. I’d already lost too many people I cared about to lose one more.

Hunter wandered over to us. He’d been sitting with some other teenagers across the waiting room who looked like they’d been injured in the blast. There were a few spots of blood on the sleeve of this shirt, but I didn’t see any wounds on him. Had they come from Emily? I shuddered to think of what she must have looked like when he’d brought her into the hospital.

The young werewolf had changed since the last time we’d met. He’d shaved his black hair so it was only about half an inch long and packed on more muscle in recent months. Of course, he’d been in bad shape the last time I’d seen him thanks to a prank Emily had pulled on him. He’d nearly died as a result of it, but we’d managed to save him with Micah’s help. I was amazed he didn’t hold it against her and instead asked her out on a date. She’d refused, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to try.

He nodded at Derrick in deference to the alpha before sitting down next to me. “How’s Emily doing?”

My ability to sense emotions hadn’t returned, but I could hear the concern in his voice and see it in his brown eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken her from the school the way he did, but after finding out how bad she was I was glad he did. He might have saved her life.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “She’s going into surgery. It’ll be awhile before we know anything more.”

“I don’t understand.” His brows furrowed. “Wasn’t that Micah I just saw? Why can’t he take care of her?”

I stiffened. Since Hunter had been healed by Micah before, it gave him firsthand experience with the nephilim’s abilities.

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” I rubbed my forehead. This was not a time where I could come up with plausible lies. “He’s going to help as much as he can, but she has to have surgery to stop the hemorrhaging.”

Hunter reached out and grazed my ear with his finger before I could stop him. When he drew back, there was blood on the tip.

“Emily was bleeding from her ears too,” he said, his voice laced with suspicion. He looked around once before leaning in close. “She’s a sensor like you, isn’t she? That’s why Micah can’t heal her.”

A chill swept over my body. It was bad enough that all the sups in this town knew I was a sensor. Other than a few trusted individuals, no one knew about her. I grabbed Hunter by the throat and shoved his head back into the wall. “You just turned eighteen recently, didn’t you? Keep making guesses like that and you won’t see another birthday.”

He tried breaking my hold, and technically should have been able to, but I was too angry to hide my abnormal strength. Amazing how rage could make me forget everything.

“I…already…suspected,” he said through wheezing breaths.

Derrick grabbed my shoulders. “Melena, let go of him. I’m his alpha and I’ll deal with this.”

“Back off,” I said, glaring at him over my shoulder.

He gave me a warning look, but took his hands off of me.

I returned my attention to Hunter, loosening my grip a fraction. “What do you mean you already suspected?”

Hunter gulped in air. “Sometimes, I go up to talk to her at her locker and she says things to me before turning around to see I’m there. How else would she be able to do that? Your taking her in was another clue.”

I gritted my teeth. I’d warned Emily numerous times to not give herself away like that. We’d known her living with me might make some people suspicious, but most of them believed I’d only taken her in because her vampire mother ran off. She was supposed to keep up the image of a normal human girl with a dysfunctional background. That was sadly common enough to be believable.

Now she had to mess it up with this damned werewolf. Not that I could get that mad with her in surgery and fighting for her life, but something in Hunter’s eyes told me he wasn’t going to buy any other story I gave him. The next best thing was damage control.

“Have you told anyone about your suspicions?” I asked.