Infinite Harmony (22 page)

“Ada, sweetheart, stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

But she couldn’t stop. The shock had finally worn off and the reality of everything that had happened was weighing down on her like a blood-drenched shirt. She clawed and tugged and pulled. The fabric clung to her skin, causing tiny shocks of pain to race across her skin every time she jerked a new section free. Finally it was gone and she was left with an unencumbered view of her chest. Two pink scars marred her left side. One sat to the right of her belly button, and the other was near her shoulder. The stab wound wasn’t completely healed yet, but even as she watched, the trickle of blood slowed until it completely disappeared.

The breath sawing in and out of her lungs grew more and more difficult to draw. Her hands slapped frantically against the pockets of her pants where her inhaler should have been, but they were empty. She knew she was panicking, that she needed to calm down and breathe, but couldn’t.

“Inhaler,” she gasped out, causing Scout, Jase, and Liam to start tearing the room apart in their search. Joshua, however, stayed as calm as always.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, pulling a lungful of oxygen in through his nose and releasing it slowly out of his mouth in demonstration. “In and out.”

“Can’t. Need. Inhaler.”

His eyes locked on hers. “No, you don’t. You just need to breathe.”

“But.” Wheeze. “My.” Wheeze. “CF.” Wheeze.

“You’re an Immortal now, Ada. You don’t have CF anymore.”

It was as if his words were magic. Almost instantaneously she could feel her lungs expanding, giving the oxygen all the room it needed. She greedily took in breath after breath, letting it slowly fill her lungs before releasing it the same way Joshua had. Once she finally calmed down, she wanted to giggle over how ridiculously easy it was to breathe. She watched in awe as her chest expanded—

“Oh my God,” she said, the heat of a blush warming her face. “I’m only wearing a bra.”

“Didn’t notice,” Liam said at the same time Jase said, “Looks like a turtleneck from here.”

Joshua was a little slower to answer, and the mischievous glint in his eye did almost as much good toward calming her as becoming fully oxygenated. “You’re still wearing your pants,” he pointed out with a disappointed sigh.

“And enough blood to trigger a federal investigation,” Scout added. “We need to get you and this room clean and fast.” She turned to her brother and squared her shoulders, putting on her queen persona. “Get a clean-up crew in here. Tell Robby I want this place blood and bullet free within the hour.”

Jase raised an eyebrow. “An hour?”

“An hour.”

Since it was obvious she would accept nothing less than total obedience, Jase nodded and headed out the door, his call to Robby started before he was out of the room.

“I’ll make sure no one gets within five hundred feet of here until their done,” Liam said.

“And I’ll make sure we won’t have any unexpected guests of the law enforcement variety,” Joshua added.

“Clean up first,” Scout said. “It’s much easier to convince people nothing is going on here when no one is covered in blood. Speaking of…” Scout turned back to Ada. “Where is the closest working bathtub?”

“There is one off the laundry room,” Ada answered. She started to stand so she could lead the way, but she overestimated her strength. Her butt was on its way back down to the floor when two strong arms caught her. Joshua lifted her as if she weighed nothing.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” she asked, winding her arms around his neck.

Joshua looked into her eyes as if the answers to all of life’s mysteries were hidden inside. “Yes,” he said with complete conviction. “Yes, I do.”

The main lodge was all that remained of the original Serenity Shores, which had been built in the 1960s. When Mr. Rudolph revamped the old cabin years ago to house the resort’s operations, he left the bathroom untouched. Ada normally cringed at the sight of the baby blue bathtub, but in her current state, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

She used the shower to wash the majority of the blood off her body, but standing was still a chore, so once the water rushing toward the drain stopped looking like it belonged in the Bates Motel, she filled the tub and eased down into the warm water. She knew she should probably hurry, Scout was right about that whole gunshots attracting cops thing, but she couldn’t find the energy or will to leave her temporary sanctuary.

Her brain was still trying to process everything. Nothing felt real. She kept expecting to wake up and discover it had all been a dream, but as the scars in her chest disappeared into nothing as if they too were being washed away, she knew it was all true. Dorian had shot her, and she had been dying when Joshua changed her into an Immortal.

Ada the Immortal.

That was something she might never be able to wrap her brain around. How had she, the girl who had spent her whole life dying, become someone who would live forever?

She was still sitting in the tub, staring into the vastness of forever, when Scout came barging through the door. Without saying anything, she unzipped her dress, slid it off, and tossed it in the trashcan. Then she stood in all her panty-and-bra clad glory staring at it as if she expected it to do something. After a minute or two, she jerked it out of the trashcan, glared at it, and tossed in into one of her duffle bags.

“Good choice,” Ada said, glad to see the garment saved, even if it was wadded up and stuffed into a bag.

Scout twisted up her lips. “Liam is sentimental. He’ll want to show it to our kids one day, bloodstains and all.”

Ada’s heart sank at the reminder she’d ruined Scout’s beautiful, and probably priceless, dress. She hadn’t done it on purpose, but the result was still the same. Because of her, Scout’s future daughter wouldn’t have the chance to come up with a creative reason to not wear her mother’s outdated wedding gown.

“I’m sorry about your dress,” she said, hoping the sincerity of her words was evident in her voice. “It was beautiful.”

Scout shrugged as if she genuinely couldn’t care less. “It was a just a dress, and one I didn’t want in the first place. Trust me, there was never a contest between it and your life.”

Ada blinked to keep her tears in check. It was stupid, but she didn’t want Scout to see her cry. She wanted to appear strong. Worthy. And so she took a few seconds to make sure all the emotions she felt were banished from her voice before she spoke again.

“Well, I’m still sorry,” she said, tone even. “And I’m sorry about freaking out. I don’t even know what came over me. That person, the one who wigs out at a little bit of blood, isn’t me.”

Pulling an X-Men shirt over her head, Scout said, “It’s been my experience that none of us know who we truly are until life throws a psycho killer and/or supernatural makeover our way. If you weren’t the kind of person who freaked out over getting both of those self-identifying moments in one day, I would genuinely worry about you.”

Ada’s fingers traced over the smooth skin of her chest and shoulder where mutilated flesh should have been. It wasn’t just her recent injuries that were changing. Most of the changes were invisible to the eye, but she could feel them. Her lips, which were constantly cracked, felt smooth and fully moisturized for the first time in her life. The stinging in her eyes she felt anytime there was pollen or dust in the air was gone, as was the slight ache in her back from sleeping on an old cot last night. And her lungs… God, her lungs. She had no idea that breathing could be like this. From head to toe, she was becoming the picture of health. Little blemishes she’d had her whole life were suddenly gone, which is why her attention kept getting snagged by the scar on her arm.

“This one isn’t healing.”

She had been speaking to herself, but Scout came over to investigate all the same.

“What is it from?”

“A PICC line.” The doctors had put it in her arm to make giving shots and IV medication easier. PICC lines didn’t typically leave big, nasty scars, but hers had become infected. It was an ugly reminder of how close she’d been to death once. “It’s been there since I was seven, but the scar from falling off my bike when I was four is gone already.”

Scout ran her finger over the raised skin, and Ada felt more than a little self-conscious about having someone touching her while she was stark naked and sitting in a bathtub, but Scout acted as if she hadn’t even noticed the lack of clothing. From the way she’d disrobed without a thought and was still running around in nothing more than a t-shirt and panties, it was obvious she was more comfortable with nudity than the daughter of a Baptist preacher.

“My first Change was a month after my accident. The one where everyone thought I had been attacked by a wild animal,” Scout said, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “I was still in pretty bad shape. I had attended graduation that night, and it had taken everything I had just to walk across the stage.” Ada hadn’t been there, but she remembered seeing the footage on the evening news. During the whole ordeal she’d thought it was cool that she knew someone famous enough to be on TV. “That night, I Changed into a wolf. It was…
traumatic
, to say the least. The next morning, when I turned back into a real girl with two legs and all that jazz, I was fine. Better than fine, really. I was strong and powerful. I could hear things from miles away. And all my scratches and bruises were gone. All of them, except this one.” She raised her shirt to display a set of scars stretching across her stomach. Ada had noticed them earlier, but now, really looking, she could tell they were where the animal - or Shifter, if she was understanding this story correctly - had clawed her.

“Sometimes I get in Alpha mode and everything else becomes a blur. Life stops feeling real. I lose myself. Then I’ll be changing clothes or climbing in the shower, and I’ll see it.” Scout’s hand glided over the ridges in her stomach. “It’s like a sucker punch every single time. One glance, and I’m back there in those woods, wearing Talley’s swimsuit coverup, watching my normal-girl life come to a screeching halt. They remind me of the girl I was before all of this crazy Shifter crap happened, the girl I still am deep down in my soul.” The corner of her mouth kicked up. “I never thought I would say this, but I’m thankful for these stupid scars. They keep me human.” She nodded at Ada’s arm. “Maybe yours is there to do the same.”

“What if I don’t want to remember that person?” Ada said, thinking of the sick little girl who always tried to wear a brave face for her family even when she was terrified the next breath wouldn’t come. “I want to start over. Be the person I was meant to be.”

“Then maybe you need that scar to remind you of who you don’t want to become again,” Scout said, walking back over to her bag where she retrieved a pair of leggings. “The thing with life is it isn’t random. There is always a reason for everything that happens. The hard part is figuring out what that reason is.”

The water was growing cold, but Ada still wasn’t prepared to leave the tub’s protective walls. Her thoughts remained a jumbled mess despite Scout’s help at unraveling the knot they’d wound themselves into. The idea that there might be a purpose for everything happening to her seemed ridiculous, but she took comfort in it. It was like when some senseless accident occurred and her dad would say, “It was God’s will. Trust in His plan.” It always sounded like a cop-out to Ada, but now she understood why so many people had clung to the refrain like a lifeline. When things go sideways and your life gets kicked in the ass, you need to believe in something other than a stroke of random bad luck. And while Ada wasn’t sure of the flavor of her luck, she longed for an explanation as to why her life was suddenly heading in a direction so foreign she couldn’t make sense of the terrain.

“Stop it.”

The command came from much closer than Ada expected, causing her to jump and let out a bark of panic. Showing a complete lack of mercy, Scout reached out and undid the plug, causing Ada’s liquid security blanket to abandon her.

“Wherever it is in your head you’re going, quit,” she said, tossing a towel in Ada’s direction. “There lies dragons, and you don’t want to chase dragons because you’re crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”

Ada scraped the over-bleached towel across her skin. “Doesn’t your brother own a t-shirt that says that?”

“Actually, I do. My brother is a thief, in addition to many other unsavory things.” Scout produced another shirt and a pair of yoga pants from her bag. “Doesn’t change my point. Stop thinking the crazy-making thoughts. You have a lifetime or ten to do the whole newly-minted supernatural angst thing. It can wait. Right now you need to be thinking about where to go from here. What comes next in the eternal life of Ada Jessup?”

Eternal life. She would get used to that at some point. Maybe.

“I don’t know,” Ada said, shrugging on the borrowed shirt. “My parents want me to go to Murray State and live at home, but even before this happened I was thinking about going away for school.”

Thanks to a lifetime lived as The Sick Kid, Ada was well acquainted with pity. It was the only way emotion some people ever spared her. There was a time in her life when it pissed her off, but she thought she’d moved past that a long time ago. Turns out, she was wrong, because the moment Scout turned her pity-filled eyes toward her, Ada wanted nothing more than to punch the girl in the throat.

“Ada, you know you can’t stick around, right? That you’re going to have to disappear?”

Something heavy settled in Ada’s chest. The familiar battle for air raged once again.

“Disappear?”

Once, when she was ten, the church youth group went on a trip to the zoo in St. Louis. She wanted to go see the monkeys, but hadn’t thought to tell her mother where she was going. Her parents didn’t let her have a phone until she was thirteen, so for thirty minutes she’d wandered around, enjoying her solitude, oblivious to the fact everyone was in a panic looking for her. She would never forget the absolute terror and heartache she’d seen on her mother’s face as the security officer guided her back to the entrance of the zoo. How much worse would it be if she disappeared and never came back now? Would her parents even survive it?

“I can’t do that. I have a life here. A family. I can’t just walk away and never see them again.”

“I’m sorry,” Scout said. “I really am. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be thrust into this world and have to give up who you once were, but I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice anymore. You’re an Immortal. Eventually, they’re going to notice you’re not aging. Heck, I doubt you make it a week without them figuring out you’ve been miraculously cured. And I get that your dad believes in miracles, but this? Do you really think he’s going to accept this? That he’s going to be able to deal?”

Scout was right, and at that moment, Ada hated her for it. It was ironic, really. She’d longed to break free of her parents for so long, but now that the choice was out of her hands, she wanted nothing more than to cling to them forever.

“But they’re my family. How am I supposed to  leave? How can I just walk away?”

The tears were flowing again, but this time she didn’t care. Her breaking heart demanded more of her attention than her pride. She was back to full strength, but she felt like collapsing onto the ground. She may have been heading there when Scout’s strong arms wrapped around her, holding her up.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she admitted, tears thickening her voice.

Scout squeezed hard enough to leave bruises. “You won’t be,” Scout said fiercely. “You’re one of us now.”