The whole world spun around in my mind. I saw the face of my mother, screaming with rage at Jeff. I saw my dad walk away and never even say goodbye. I saw my great-grandma lying in the hospital bed as her heart rate machine flat lined. I saw Alex, her face ravenous and evil. And I saw the face of Uncle Carl.
“Oh my God!” Beverlee screamed from the room. “Oh my God, someone help him!”
I stormed out of the restroom. Nurses came running inside, crowding around Uncle Carl’s bed.
Everything moved in slow motion.
I ran toward Beverlee, grabbing her by the waist and trying to pull her away so the nurses could resuscitate him. But it felt like I was under water, struggling to move, stuck in time. I heard Beverlee screaming, her body thrashing and frantic, yet I heard nothing at all. Surreal. Time is cruel like life. It slows down so that you can truly experience the worst moments of it. Only if you make it through them do you get to say ‘It all happened so fast.’
The next thing I know, Beverlee and I are standing outside the room. The door to Uncle Carl’s room burst open and he was rolled down the hallway in his bed.
We were forced to sit in the waiting area again. Beverlee was inconsolable. She stood next to a giant window overlooking the snow-covered streets. I left her alone. It was where she wanted to be. Alone.
Harry and I sat next to each other, my head resting on his shoulder. We stayed like that for an eternity. The clock high on the wall ticked and ticked. I heard water dripping from a faucet near the visitor coffee pot. The sizzle of coffee hitting the hot plate when a woman filled her cup. Intercoms with voices reverberating through the halls. Hospital gibberish. Secret codes for sickness and death.
Finally, a doctor came in.
“Mrs. Dawson,” he said, “I’m Dr. Derringer.”
He was smiling. In a time like this, a smile is the most important facial expression a family waiting can hope to see. Anything other, even the tiniest downturn of the mouth always means bad news.
The doctor shook Beverlee’s hand.
“Mr. Dawson is going to be fine,” he said.
That was really all I heard. It was all I needed to hear. Relief and happiness took over my ability to pay attention. The doctor went into detail with Beverlee about what happened: pneumothorax, bleeding in the chest. I was too happy to try putting the grim pieces together.
Harry looked up toward the double-doors.
Isaac, Nathan, Zia, Sebastian and Daisy entered the waiting room.
Panic mode set in. That elated feeling I had, fled at the sight of them. I paused, thinking, and then ran over to Isaac and pulled him off to the side.
“I won’t let you kill my uncle,” I whispered hatefully. Tears streamed down my face again. I wanted to be held by Isaac at the same time. All these mixed emotions were tearing my atoms in half.
Isaac grabbed me and pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapped protectively around me. “We’re not going to hurt your uncle.”
“But he was attacked,” I said, “I know he was attacked and by what.”
He whispered into my ear, “Your uncle wasn’t infected, Adria.”
I looked up at him. “How do you know that?”
“We can smell them; the blood, the infection. The only ones in this hospital are us.”
He hesitated a moment. “And one other on the first floor.”
“Who?” I said desperately. “Who else is here? Is it the one from the store?” My whole body tensed up.
“Shhh,” Isaac said, holding the back of my head. “No, it’s a new one. Probably the guy you told me about in your voice mail, David Shanks.”
I heard Harry’s voice behind me, talking to Sebastian and the others about what happened. My ears perked up. I hoped he wouldn’t mention any of the ‘forbidden information’. Harry was smart. I thought surely he wouldn’t.
“Isaac,” I said, “I have to tell you something.”
“Adria,” Beverlee said from across the room, “I’m going to see Carl.”
I left Isaac and walked over next to her. The doctor had already gone and a nurse was waiting to take Beverlee back.
“They said only I could go back to see him right now.” She hugged me tight. “I want you to go home, or leave with your friends and stay with them, but I don’t want you hanging around here, okay?”
“But—”
“It’s fine,” she urged me, “they’re not going to let you go back for a long time anyway. Go get some sleep and I’ll pick you up tomorrow and you can visit him.”
She turned to Harry then, who had walked up after me. “Do you mind taking Adria home?”
“Not at all,” he agreed.
Beverlee hugged Harry too and then Nathan, just before she slipped out the door with the nurse. I watched her go, feeling I should be with her. Isaac came up behind me and I felt his arms slip around my waist. Instantly, they comforted me. I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply of the air. I could detect the sanitized scent of hospital soap.
“He’ll be alright,” Isaac said.
I felt his lips press into the back of my hair.
“What did you need to tell me?”
I glanced over at Harry, hoping he didn’t hear Isaac’s question. Harry was too into listening to Daisy talk in her English accent about how much she hated hospitals.
“Dreadful tombs,” she said. “That’s what they are.”
“I’ll tell you later,” I told Isaac. “Can we just go?”
Zia stepped up with Sebastian at her side. She looked to see if Harry was listening and then leaned into me. “Girl,” she said, “you know you can’t come with us. Not right now.”
“So, I’m supposed to go home?” I said, purposely above a whisper. I dropped my voice just a little and added, ripping the words out sternly, “Zia, one came to Finch’s. He threatened me. Look what he did to my uncle.” What I really wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs.
I saw Harry look over, but I noticed that Daisy’s conversation with him was also her way of keeping him occupied.
“She can’t go home,” Isaac spoke up. “Not now; it’s worse than I thought.”
“He’s right,” Nathan jumped in. “At least we aren’t out to get her.”
Isaac let go of my waist and took my hand. “We’ll have to take our chances. I think I’ll be fine for another night or two, but after that....”
Nathan nodded.
“But I’m not fine,” Zia snapped, her voice still a whisper. “And neither is Sebastian—you know this!”
I wasn’t used to seeing Zia so incensed, so on edge. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she hated me, but she was only worried about what she and Sebastian might do to me.
“What about Harry?” I said to Isaac.
“Absolutely not,” Zia demanded.
“Look, he knows,” I said. “He was with me when the one came to the store tonight. He saw everything and I told him what he was.”
I thought Zia’s eyes were going to fall out of her head. Sebastian and Nathan even stiffened.
“I had to.” I let go of Isaac’s hand and stepped in front of him. “But I didn’t tell him about any of you. I haven’t told him much of anything really...only about Alex.”
“Don’t blame Adria,” Isaac said. “It’s probably better if Harry be a little more on his guard around here anyway.” He looked straight at Nathan as if trying to justify his words. “Viktor isn’t going to stop this. It’ll get worse.”
Something secretive passed between Isaac and Nathan. I saw it. Isaac knew as much.
Harry walked over and joined us then, though the conversation ended immediately.
“Ready for me to take you home?” Harry said.
“Thanks, Harry,” said Isaac, “but she’s going to go to our house tonight.”
“That’s cool,” Harry said, slipping his hands inside his jean pockets. He stood there in that awkward, uneasy way he always does when he feels out of place.
“Harry can come along,” Daisy said, smiling hugely from beside him. “If you want to, of course.”
Not even Zia could say what she was thinking. No one wanted to hurt Harry’s feelings, least of all her and Sebastian. But by the looks on their faces, it was a certainty that Daisy would never hear the end of it later.
“Sure, that’d be awesome,” Harry said.
“Good, it’s settled then,” said Daisy.
Uncle Carl crept up in my thoughts again, not that he ever left. Pain and guilt haunted me and likely would forever.
Isaac took my hand once more and led me out of the hospital.
All night I gripped my phone; worried I’d put it down somewhere and miss Beverlee’s call. Finally, after a couple hours I tucked it safely away back inside my cargo pants pocket.
“No call from her is probably a good thing,” said Isaac sitting with his back against the headboard of his bed.
I sat next to him, curled up in the bend of his arm; his chin rested upon my head. “Not true,” I said. “She didn’t technically even call me when he was in the accident. I called her first.”
“I’m sure she would have when she had the opportunity.”
That was probably true, but I couldn’t convince myself of it.
The Mayfair house was quiet for such a feral and populated haven. A few footfalls shuffled past Isaac’s room; voices faint as they faded down the hallway. Zia and Sebastian were in the basement. She stayed with him when Nathan had to chain him to the floor. I would never tread down there. The very thought of that place frightened me.
I moved from Isaac’s bed and went to look out at the snow. The wind blew lightly against the side of the house. It hadn’t snowed in hours, but what had already fallen would probably be there for days. It was quite beautiful, actually. Not some evil nuisance come to halt my life as I always thought of it before. The white glistened in the darkness, such a heavy blanket of glitter that was frail and soft. There is something mysterious and magical about snow.
Two shadows moved into the light from the porch below. They grew larger as they moved outward into the yard. Daisy and Harry, bundled in thick coats, walked side by side; tracks in the snow left behind them, disturbing the smoothness of it. I watched until they were no longer in sight.
“Isaac?” I said with my back to him. “Will they hunt Harry, too? Since he knows?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “They want you because of Alex. I think Harry will be safe as long as he doesn’t let anyone know what he knows.”
I stared at the footprints left in the snow. “He doesn’t even know Daisy is one. How is she so casual about it?” I turned around at the waist, my arms crossed. “What if she loses control and hurts him?”
Isaac shook his head. “Daisy has complete control of her transformations,” he said. “All of my sisters do, except Camilla. She’s the youngest.”
“Is that part of being a powerful female?”
Isaac nodded slowly in response.