Shattered (the Spellbound Series Book 2) (19 page)

              Each of us turns to Emma, who’s still aiming the pistol at Eve with silent tears streaming down her face. “You may be forgiving enough to give her a few more weeks,” she says quietly to Nick, “but I’m a little more impatient.”

              Nick races over to her, and throws her gun to the ground before wrapping his arms around her tightly. He looks like he might start crying, too, but he manages to keep it together. “It’s over,” he murmurs to his sister.

              “It’s over,” she agrees after a strangled sob.

              “What happens now?,” Nick asks. “Are we ever going to tell Mom and Dad?”

              “They wouldn’t understand. They don’t even know I’m a hunter, or that there’s anything other than vampires out there.”

              “So after all this, I still won’t have a family…”

              Emma holds Nick tighter, and a single tear finally passes through his long lashes. “You’ve got me,” she murmurs to him. “You’ve always got me.”

***

              The car ride back to Jenna’s is a somber one. Emma opted to clean up at the warehouse, claiming that the mess was her problem since she made it. Jenna explained on our way out that the best way to take care of the bodies was to burn them. “There’s no way to get a positive I.D. on ashes,” she said. “Best to leave as little of a trace as possible.”

              She now sits up front with the driver, with her head leaned back on the seat. I’m leaning on Nick’s shoulder, my arms wrapped around his middle as we fight through the seemingly never-ending traffic. I press a button on the armrest, and the soundproof partition goes up, giving Nick and I a little privacy. Once I’m sure we can’t be heard, I look up at Nick, and ask the question that’s been on my mind since we left. “What made you decide not to kill her?”

              Nick thinks about his answer for a long time before he speaks. “When Eve came after my youngest sister, I held her tiny body as the last of her life bled away. And I promised I’d never be a killer like the monster who made me. I nearly forgot that promise when Navarro handed me her file, but I remembered tonight. And I think tonight was when it was most important to show the difference between me and what Eve wanted me to become.”

              I nod, and lie my head back on Nick’s shoulder. I suppose most people would take Nick’s actions as cowardice, but I know better. Anyone lesser would have taken the chance to get their revenge. Nick saw that it would lead him down a dark path, and he chose the harder one. He chose to stay his hand. And I think that’s part of why I love him so much; he’s strong enough to make the right choices, even when they’re the hardest ones imaginable.

              I look up at Nick again, this time with a different intent. “I’ve decided something.”

              “Hmm?” Nick looks at me curiously, but doesn’t move.

              “I’ve decided I want to keep the baby.” Nick opens his mouth, but I press on. “I know you’re going to say I’m too young, and that we should look at other options first, but I know what I want. I want to be the mother of
your
child. There’s no way anything you had a hand in creating will ever be something I could give up, or destroy. The world needs more people like you.”

              Nick gives me a worried look, but it passes as he breaks into a smile. He mutters, “Okay,” before lifting my chin and kissing me. I look into his eyes, and he looks back into mine, and I wonder if he’s just as satisfied and terrified by my choice as I am.

20

              It’s decided that I should have an ultrasound done, which Nick schedules with my consent. He seems radiant in the two weeks leading up to the appointment; maybe he’s hoped I would keep the baby all along, but hasn’t been willing to say so. Despite our shared excitement, I wish he would let me out of his sight more often. I have a project to work on that he can’t be around for. He would want to stop me, just like everyone else would if they knew.

              I’m a little uneasy with going to the doctor after my trip to the clinic devolved into a disaster, but having Nick along for the ride helps keep me calm. We’re in the waiting room for roughly ten minutes before we’re called into an exam room, and greeted by a Dr. Fell. She gives me a basic once-over with a stethoscope and some other tools that I never learned the names of, then leads Nick and I to where the procedure will take place.

Nick stands by while I lay down on an oddly comfortable looking bed on a raised platform, with some machinery hooked up to it. Dr. Fell has me lift up my shirt, and squirts some blue gel on my abdomen, spreading it around with a gloved hand before taking some strange device and placing it against my gelled skin. A computer screen hooked up to the device comes to life, and displays an image that I can’t make sense of. Dr. Fell examines it with rapt attention, and observes, “You seem to be about eight weeks along, with a healthy embryo growing inside you. Just one, it looks like.”

“Can you determine the gender?,” Nick asks.

“Sex,” Dr. Fell corrects. “And it’s a little early in the development to tell. If I had to guess…”

“Please don’t,” I groan from the bed. “I’d rather it be a surprise.”

Dr. Fell smiles knowingly, and motions Nick closer to whisper her prediction in his ear. He smiles, and looks at me proudly, even though I’ve done literally nothing yet.

I’m advised to take some prenatal vitamins, as well as to avoid strenuous activity, alcohol, cigarettes, and pretty much all controlled substances. I nod along with the doctor’s orders, though I can’t promise I’ll be able to avoid the first item on her list. Then, I’m handed a black and blue picture of the budding life inside me, which I still can’t make heads or tails of. I even turn it sideways to see if I’m missing something, but I have no idea what to look for. I shrug, and hand it to Nick for safe keeping as we leave.

We step onto an elevator, and press the button for the ground floor just before the doors close. I lean into Nick as we descend, content with the results of the ultrasound. As long as the baby’s healthy, I’m happy. On the sixth floor, the elevator comes to a halt, and the doors open to allow in the last person I expected to see today. Alyssa steps onto the elevator, holding a bag of Skittles and looking exhausted. Almost simultaneously, we ask each other, “What are you doing here?”

“Just a routine checkup,” I lie, glancing at Nick to make sure the sonogram is out of sight. “How about you?”

“I’m here for Lily.” My eyes widen in shock before Alyssa explains, “Her mother had a stroke last night, and she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Oh man… How is she?”

“Unconscious, I just told you.”

“No, smartass, I mean Lily.”

“Come and see.” Alyssa steps off when the doors open on the third floor, and we follow her down a labyrinth of corridors to a room overlooking the parking lot. At first, I think the room is empty; the only occupants appear to be a vacant bed and a blue curtain. Alyssa pulls the curtain aside to reveal the woman hooked up to several different machines, oblivious to the world around her. A clipboard by her feet reads
Charbonneau, Marie
, followed by incoherent handwriting that I assume details her condition.

“Are you sure she had a stroke?,” I ask as I step closer.

“Yeah,” Alyssa answers. “Why?”

I can’t explain it, not without sounding insane. But I’m sure Alyssa must feel it too. With my new sense, I can usually get a reading out of the people around me, even the faint spark of light produced by normal human beings. But with Lily’s mother, I feel nothing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she were hollow. An empty vessel. “It’s nothing,” I say after a pause. “Just a feeling.”

Lily walks into the room as I finish speaking, wiping her eyes on the heel of her palm. I thought Alyssa looked like she’d had a rough night, but Lily seems downright disheveled. Her normally perfectly straight hair is clumped in some places, her eyes are bright red and swollen, and dried mascara marks where tears once streamed down her cheeks. I’ve never seen anyone look so completely devastated in my entire life. Not in person, at least.

Lily doesn’t acknowledge that any of us are here, at first. She takes the seat by her mother’s bed, and speaks softly to her. “I’m back, Mom,” she whispers. “The doctors still aren’t sure why you won’t wake up, but you’re in stable condition, okay? You’re going to be fine. You just have to get up.”

“What happened?,” I ask quietly.

Lily finally looks up at Nick and I, and answers, “I found her lying on the kitchen floor last night. She wasn’t moving or responding, so I called the ambulance, and they brought us here. The doctors say she had a stroke, but I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Alyssa and I share a glance, and she says, “Some stroke victims go into a coma following the incident. I’m sure a lot of them even make a full recovery afterwards.”

“She better.” Lily sniffs, and grasps her mother’s hand tightly. “She’s the only family I have. If I lose her… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

The room goes silent at Lily’s words, and I stare at the ground, away from everyone else. I’m getting a little teary, and I don’t want Nick and Alyssa to notice. Seeing Lily and her mom this way makes me think of how close my mother and I are. She’s the one family member I have any close ties to, and I can’t imagine life without her. I would cease to function if anything happened to her, my whole world would shatter around me. So, unlikely as it is, I’m the only one in the room who can truly sympathize with her.

I’m no doctor, and I may end up having offered Lily empty words, but I put a hand on Lily’s shoulder and tell her, “She’s going to be fine.”

Lily bows her head, and for a split second, I’m worried she’s about to start sobbing. “I really hope you’re right, Heather,” she whispers. “I need you to be right.”

***

Soon after we leave, Nick and I go our separate ways. He has to go to work, and I head home. I love him, but I need some time to myself. There’s work to be done.

I race to my room as soon as I can, and pull out the large box in the back of my closet. In it are the Doc Martens I bought, the bangle I stole from Jenna’s collection, and some other items I’ve pulled together and altered for my project. I pull out the hoodie Jenna gave me so I can add the finishing touches to it.

I grab my mom’s sewing kit from the closet in the hallway, and carry it back to my room so I can work in private. It takes a while to thread the needle, but when I finally succeed, I lay the hoodie flat on the ground, and start sewing the new addition onto the back. Miraculously, the design is perfectly centered, and I sit back to admire my handiwork once I knot the loose thread. Finally, the outfit is as complete as I could ever have hoped it would be.

I don’t have any plans for the night, so I suppose it’s as good a time as any for my first night on the town as the new me. I change into a black undershirt, then cover it up with the hoodie, zipping it up just enough that the tiniest hint of chest is showing. I then change into skintight black leather pants with a stripe of burgundy running down either side. The boots come on next, the black leather shining dully in the light of my bedroom. I slide on the golden bangle, and add a pair of fingerless leather gloves to the equation. Finally, I pull a hard plastic mask over the top half of my face, and cover my head with a hood that ends in a sharp peak.

I inspect myself in the mirror, pleased by what I see. I’ve removed the sleeves of the hoodie so my arms can breathe, but they can easily be sewed back on for the winter months. A stripe of burgundy extends from the peak of my hood, and diverges at my shoulders to run down my sides. I turn to inspect my back, and am amazed at how well I applied the sewn-on angel wings now adorning my shoulder blades.

I’m ready. I put away the box of excess materials, and check over my looks one last time before I take my leave. I close my eyes, and focus on the image of the tallest building in the city. Milliseconds later, I’m buffeted by a gust of wind to the face, and brace myself against the glass pane behind me as I materialize on the roof of the Empire State Building. Technically, I could have done this anywhere, but I needed the most central location I could think of for the next phase of my plan. And besides, there’s still a hint of sunlight streaming between the buildings, and I’d rather not be spotted before I’m ready to be seen.

Once I’m secure in the fact that I won’t fall to my death, I close my eyes, and focus on expanding my second sight. At first, I only latch onto the flickers of life within the building I’m standing on, but before long, I can feel everything around me for miles. There are so many people in this city, it could take forever to find what I’m looking for. I try to narrow down my search to the brightest beams of pure light, hoping I’ll see a large gathering of them. Finally, I feel a large congregation of spellcasters roughly forty blocks north of me. And there’s no Caelestia clan meeting tonight, so I assume that these people must belong to the Lost.

I open my eyes, determination flooding my veins and warming me against the cold wind blowing around me. I’ve found my target. I vanish, and reappear on the roof of a much shorter building, stumbling a little when my feet touch the ground. I peer over the edge of the roof to see what’s happening on the streets below.

Just as I’d predicted, there’s a group of black-clad spellcasters in an alleyway between the building I’m standing on and the one adjacent. They’re circled around a lone spellcaster, one that I vaguely recognize from a meeting some time ago. He casts around him desperately, looking for an escape route, but there are at least twenty of the Lost with their sights set on him. A heavyset woman with bright blue hair asks my clan member, “Any last words?”

The man glares at her, and mutters, “We were friends once, Laura. What happened to us? To you?”

The woman with blue hair shrugs, and replies, “Nothing happened to me. You just chose the wrong side.” She then raises her glowing palm, and releases a lightning bolt aimed straight at her old friend. I throw a shield around him just before Laura’s spell makes contact, then unleash a burst of energy at her feet. As one, everyone on the ground looks up at me. I step up onto the edge of the building so that I’m in full view.

A heavily tattooed man steps forward, and asks, “Who the hell are you?”

That gives me pause for a second. Who the hell
am
I? I hadn’t considered giving a name to myself, and I don’t think I’d be able to come up with a good one on the spot. I suppose I’ll have to work on that later. Right now, there’s a man in trouble who needs me.

I push off the roof, and freefall sixty feet before slowing my descent gradually enough that I won’t break my legs on impact. I land in a crouch, and lift my head up so I’m staring the man who spoke in the eye before I utter the three most cliché words in the history of masked vigilantes.

“Your worst nightmare.”