Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (64 page)

“I thought you’d be human.”

“And… would that be a bad thing?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

He laughed. “I know a girl who once would have jumped at the chance to make me human.”

“She left.” I motioned to the door, then thought better and jerked my head to the window. “I think she jumped off a lighthouse.”

“Good.” He slipped his hand under my hair to cup the back of my head. “Because I like this girl better.”

“Me too,” I said absently, looking down at the headless torso of my true father.

My David seemed to come back to me then, realising at the same time that I had a baby in my arms. “Look at you two.” He kissed the soft blonde fluff on the baby’s head. “I can’t even begin to describe how… it felt like my skin had fallen off my body,” he explained, touching his stomach, “like my insides had been drained of blood by a noxious gas when I saw the car drive away today.”

“You got here pretty quick,” I noted.

“Drake helped with that.”

“Hm,” I said, pressing my lips together, nodding. “And it looks like Public Relations will have a bit of a time explaining why a castle was bombed in a quiet suburb in the middle of the afternoon.”

“They’ll probably spin some story about an eccentric billionaire hosting a weapons demonstration for the Navy.”

I laughed, the end of it slipping away weakly when I thought about the damage to the castle—how mad Drake would be. If he were alive to celebrate this victory. I just couldn’t quite make myself believe he was actually gone—that all the worry and the stress Safia caused all these centuries was over. That we finally had no one to run from.

David’s face mirrored exactly what mine should have, and as the golden sun set on the bloody white field outside, the rays turned his skin orange, making his eyes almost transparent.

“It’s okay to be happy, Ara.”

“I know,” I said, burying my face in his bloody chest so I wouldn’t have to pretend. “I think I’ll just need some time to process.”

“All we have now is time, my love.”

***

When I left this castle, I never thought I’d see David’s room again.

Everything was exactly as I left it, even the spiders, all squished into the floor, and the flakes of webs around them from the secret safe. The only thing different in here now was that my baby lay in the middle of the bed, instead of in my belly, and Drake was gone—no longer a part of this world, this castle.

I left the baby asleep, swaddled tightly in her blood-stained blanket, and spent a few minutes in the bathroom, cleaning myself up with the cold water in the basin. It would take a long time to truly wash off the blood of this day, I knew that, but I could wash it off the surface of my skin for now, and hopefully, like everything else, eventually the deeper scars would fade.

By the time I finished cleaning up, the chamber door swung open and Falcon’s broad smile met my sad face. He held up the diaper bag and jerked his eyebrows toward it. “Figured a certain little princess might be pretty hungry by now.”

“She went beyond hungry a few hours ago,” I said, taking the bag. “She’s asleep now.”

“Mix it up and stick it in her mouth,” he said, closing himself in the room with me. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

I sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed, feeling suddenly quite at home, and dug around in the bag for the powdered milk and the small bottle of boiled water.

“I was about to bring up one of the pink jumpsuits that were in the shopping bag in the trunk, but Em said you’d need to wash it before the baby could wear it—something about sensitive skin.”

I smiled, tipping the powder into the water. “She’s right. There’s chemicals on new clothes that can cause allergic reactions. Not all kids are sensitive. Harry was.”

“Right.” He nodded absently, looking around then as if he didn’t know what to say. Which was incredibly out of character for him.

“What is it?” I asked, letting my shoulders drop, my hands resting in my lap with the bottle half-shaken.

“What’s what?” he asked innocently.

“There’s something you don’t want to tell me. What is it?”

His
shoulders dropped this time. “Are you… I told her no, but… are you up for a visitor?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Tell her she can come in.” I already knew exactly who he meant. Em must have been out of her mind worrying about the baby.

But when he opened the door and called into the hall, I felt the presence of someone else, and it confused me for a moment, because it wasn’t possible. At least, I didn’t think it was, until the small framed girl, who everyone had always said looked very much like me, but with darker features, stepped humbly into the room, averting her eyes from mine.

I nearly dropped the bottle as I stood. “Morg!”

“Ara. I’m so sorry for everything I—” she started, but I ran into her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, hugging tightly.

“I thought you were dead! I said. “Forever dead!”

“Drake… I mean…
Dad
, he didn’t give up on me,” she said.

I pulled back a little and looked into her eyes, comparing them now in a whole new light to mine. “So he told you—that he’s our father?”

She nodded sadly.

“Did David tell you that I had to ki—”

“That Drake’s dead?” She nodded again, her brow crinkling, I noticed, in the same way mine did when I was sad. But the sadness turned to despair and she covered her face, sobbing into cupped palms.

“I’m sorry.” I reached around to rub her back. “But, in a way, you’re lucky, Morgana—because, even though you didn’t know he was your father, you spent more time with the real version of him than I ever did.”

“That doesn’t make me lucky, Ara,” she sobbed, “That just makes it hurt more.”

I looked away, not wanting to feel that pain too.

“He did warn me before we came,” she said, her voice shaking and odd-sounding under the weight of grief, “he told me that he may need to lock himself away with Safia forever—that he may not return in order to keep us all safe.”

“We owe him our freedom,” I said softly, one hand on her shoulder. “He will be celebrated as a hero—everyone will know what he sacrificed for us.”

“The whole story?”

“All of it.”

Her mouth quivered; she tried to hold it back, but a warm smile broke through and lit up her whole face. “I thought you’d turn me away—that you wouldn’t even see me.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Rightly, I should.

“I don’t know if I can ever make it up to you—all the trouble I caused. I—”

“It’s in the past,” I said, leading her into the room, shaking the bottle again as I walked around the bed. “You’re family, Morg. And I never wanted you dead.”

She gave me ‘a look’; so did Falcon from where he stood on the sidelines of this conversation.

“Okay, maybe I wanted to wring your neck. But not truly.” I slid my hands under the baby’s head and bottom, and lifted her into my lap as I sat up against David’s pillows. “I was mad at you—even hated you. But you didn’t deserve to die. And if you’re sorry,” I added, “then we can put it all behind us.”

“I’m not sure David can,” she said, climbing up to sit beside me, giving Falcon a questioning look as she settled on the pillows; he nodded to say it was okay. “He was there when I woke up, but he won’t talk to me.”

“Give him time,” I said in a softer voice as the baby took the bottle like a hungry lamb. “He doesn’t forgive as easy as I.”

“Drake warned me of the same,” she said, resting her head near my shoulder as she leaned in to look at her niece. “She is
amazing
, Ara.”

“I know, right?” I said. “I made her myself.”

“With a little bit of help from me,” David said, pushing the door open.

Morgana tensed, sitting up away from me and the baby.

David’s evil eye swept over her, changing as it landed on Falcon. “The helicopter’s arriving in five. We need you down there to help move Jason.”

“Helicopter?” I gasped. “What’s going on?”

“The IVRS got word—”

“About Jason?” I asked. “How?”

“People talk,” Falcon said simply. “And there are enough Lilithian, Human, and Vampirian officials crawling over this place now to fill a stadium.”

My wide eyes moved to David.

“There’s a big mess to clean up out there,” he informed. “Not just the blood and the bodies, but the ‘bureaucratic’ mess, too.”

“So what does the IVRS want with Jason?” I asked.

“They want him back—at full capacity,” David said. “They won’t let anyone else handle his treatment. They’re moving him to a state-of-the-art medical facility in New York.”

“And… what if they can’t help him?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. In the meantime, I need Falcon.”

Falcon looked at me. “Anything you need before I go?”

“I’m fine.” I cast my gaze down to my suckling baby. “We’ve got everything we need right here.”

“I’ll stay with her in case—”

“The hell you will, Morgana!” David snapped his fingers, pointing at the door. “You can stay with me until I decide what to do with you.”

“Hey!” I cut in. “Leave her alone. You’ve done enough to punish her already.”

“You said if I helped you find Ara, you’d give me my freedom—“

“Not to be alone with her—“

“David, we’d never have found Ara without Morgana’s magic,” Falcon added. “She’s earned forgiveness in my books, and Ara’s. She’s not going to hurt either of them.”

“I swear,” Morg said with wide eyes. “She’s my
sister
, David. That changes everything!”

David clearly bit his teeth together inside his mouth, not wanting to enter this debate in front of others.

“I can take care of myself,” I stated. “Go take care of things out there.”

“We’ll be talking about this later, Ara,” he said through his teeth.

“Ooh, I quiver with fear.” I rolled my eyes. “Just go. You’re making me tense and that’s not good for the baby. She can feel it.”

His fists balled up by his sides and his jaw set as he turned and followed Falcon, closing the door quietly behind him.

Morg sunk down on the pillows, looking dead ahead at the roaring Cerulean fire, her thumbnails clicking over each other. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She stayed quiet for a moment then, watching me feed the baby, her eyes travelling back to the door with her thoughts. “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“That I’m your sister and I’ve been with your husband—in this bed.”

“Ew!” I sat up off the pillows a bit. “Morgana!”

She laughed. “I’m sorry. I
did
actually intend to express genuine curiosity. It wasn’t meant to taunt you; it just came out wrong.”

“Well, now that you mention it.” I sat back again, but I didn’t really want to. “That is a bit disturbing. But, I guess I’ve slept with
his
brother, so we’re kind of even.”

Morgana laughed—a sound I was sure I hadn’t heard from her all that often. “I like that you have a sense of humour about it.”

“What else can I do?” I shrugged my shoulders loosely. “Fighting or crying about it won’t change things. I think I just need to start fresh and forget the entire past.”

“I like the sound of that.” Morgana settled back comfortably on the pillows. I took a good look at her then, comparing us to Drake, and I wondered how I had never seen it before. She had my chin and the same hairline as me, and even our hands were alike. But as I looked a bit closer at the ring of dirt around her neck and the remaining bloodstains on her arms and cheeks, some of the things David did to her before he killed her became clear. I actually felt a drop in my stomach and a foreign sense of anxiety, as if I wished I’d been there to protect her.

“When did you wake up—from death?” I asked.

“I don’t actually know.” She toyed with her fingertip, brushing some dried blood out from under it. “They told me one of the Knights found me wandering the kill suite corridor early this morning, my head barely attached to my shoulders, and when Drake came back to rally the men and rescue you, he and David were brought down to see me. It took a few gallons of Drake’s blood to wake me up, but I healed really fast.”

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, what made you heal so fast?”

“Maybe it was Drake’s blood.” She rocked her mouth in contemplation. “I’ve had it plenty of times in the past and it always healed me faster than any other vampire.”

“Is that because he’s your father, do you think?”

“Maybe.” Her face lit up with the thought of it. “It would make sense.”

And that just made me wish even more that he was here. I wondered about that moment she woke up then—her mind still lost in the past, on a scary evening when David beat her and killed her. I wished I’d have been there as they woke her, and I made a mental note to steal the memory from David later. I was glad Drake was there, but I imagined David might have been very cruel in those first few moments.