Broken: Hidden Book Two (14 page)

“I can’t eat it, Molly. It’ll just go to waste.” Then he looked up at me. “Stop worrying,” he repeated.

“Right.” I smoothed his blankets, feeling more helpless than I’d felt in forever. I hadn’t told him about the Grosse Pointe shifters. The quarantine. The doctor. “We’ll be back soon.”

“Have fun,” he said, closing his eyes again. I left his room, closed the door behind me, tried to keep the worry off of my face so I could at least give Shanti a nice birthday dinner out.

Shanti and I left and drove to the restaurant. She looked out the car windows like a tourist, like someone seeing the city for the very first time. Dahael and Bashiok sat in the back seat, and we had AC/DC on the radio. We passed a tattoo parlor, and I noticed Shanti staring at it with interest.

“Can vampires get tattoos?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. I’ve met a few that have them. I think the key is making sure there’s no one else getting tattooed at the time. Blood, you know,” I said, and she nodded.

“Yeah, that could be tempting.” She paused. “You have one, right?”

I nodded.

“How does a chick with a healing ability have a tattoo? Wouldn’t it just disappear?”

“The trick was keeping myself from healing while the tattooist was working. Once the ink was in, it was in,” I said.

“Hm.”

“Why? Do you want one?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said, looking out the window again. We arrived at the restaurant, and ordered, and stuffed ourselves like absolute pigs on ribs and macaroni and cheese and cobbler. I watched her as she studied the people around us. She tried not to watch a young couple snuggling in the booth across from us, but her eyes kept darting that way, and I could feel longing, sadness coming from her.

“Hey,” I said, nudging her leg with my foot under the table. “That’s not impossible for you, you know.”

“Right. Because people are just lining up to date someone who can kill them.”

“Vampires are hot,” I said quietly, smiling. “And you’re an amazing, smart, beautiful young woman. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding someone to love you.”

“And if I do? And he doesn’t stay? If he realizes it’s just too crazy being with someone like me?” she asked.

“You cry. And you mourn a little. And you are grateful for the memories you made,” I said softly. “You realize that what you had was worth the pain.”

She was watching me. “I’m sorry, Molly.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. There’s no reason to be. There’s one thing I can give advice about,” I said, laughing a little. “Don’t be afraid to love, on the off chance that there might be pain.”

“You mean, don’t do what you’re doing with Brennan?” she asked, quirking her eyebrow at me.

“That’s different. I am still messed up over Nain. I can’t give Brennan what he deserves. And he understands that.”

“Right. Except that you actually very obviously love Brennan, even if you still love and miss your husband, and anyone who spends more than five seconds with the two of you knows how disgustingly perfect you are together.”

I frowned, couldn’t quite look her in the eye. “It’s complicated.”

“You two are complete idiots,” she said. “If this is what love does, maybe I’m not in such a hurry after all,” she said, shaking her head. I handed the waitress the money for our meal, and Shanti stood up and stretched. “I think I want a tattoo. Can we go?”

I sighed. “Sure. Happy birthday, you insufferable little brat.” She laughed, and we headed back to the tattoo parlor we’d seen on the way over. I handed her a flask of blood I’d brought with me, and she guzzled it in the car before we went in.

I used a tiny bit of mental persuasion, and the two waiting customers decided to leave. We watched as the tattooist finished with his current customer.

“What are you getting?” I asked as she watched the process.

“A cross. On my wrist, I think,” she said.

“Nice.” I remembered the way she’d prayed when I found her what seemed like a lifetime ago, the way she’d said she believed that God sent me to her.

“You should get one too,” she said.

“Not this time,” I said.

I held Shanti’s hand as the artist created an ornate cross on her left wrist. She hissed at first in pain, but she was all right after a while.

We drove home, and I was relieved that she seemed much more content than when we’d left. We went into the loft, and Shanti hugged me before heading up to her room.

“Happy birthday, kiddo,” I murmured, hugging her back. She grinned, and once she was gone, I headed into Brennan’s room to check on him. His breath was shallow, his forehead almost searingly hot. I got a cool cloth and pressed it to his forehead. He didn’t even react to my touch.

I watched him. And I sat by his bedside. Just after dawn, my phone rang. The doctor from Toronto who was quarantined along with the Grosse Pointe shifters.

“Angel,” he said, his voice hoarse, his breathing ragged across the connection.

“Doctor. How are the shifters holding up? Any progress?”

“I’m afraid, the opposite. We lost two last night. Everyone’s condition, including mine, is worsening. I don’t know how to fix this.”

I closed my eyes, fought back the panic rising inside me. “I am sorry, doctor,” I said, feeling the weight of two more deaths on my conscience, the impending doom of more. Almost paralyzing fear for Brennan.

“This seems very localized. I have been in contact with other doctors across the globe. No one else is seeing anything like this.” He broke off in a coughing fit, and hung up with a strangled, “I am sorry.”

I hung up and watched Brennan. “I will not lose you,” I said to him. And I laid on the edge of the bed next to him, and put my arm around him, over his chest, and watched him sleep.

Chapter Eleven

I felt helpless. I stayed by Brennan as much as I could, and he eventually told me to go beat someone up, and I left him. I wasn’t happy about it, though. I ended up making my way toward Grosse Pointe. Bash and Dahael were in the back seat, and Ada rode along with me. As we drove, she joked, and told me about things that had happened at different sites throughout the city as we passed them. Her cheerful, warm nature was a soothing balm, and I was glad she’d offered to come with me.

I glanced over at her. “Thanks for coming, Ada,” I said.

She grinned at me. “Of course. I keep thinking I’m missing something with Brennan’s illness. I’ve never seen anything like it, but there’s a feeling to it….I can’t describe it.” She shook her head in frustration. “Anyway. Maybe by checking over a few more of the shifters, I’ll get an idea of what’s happening.”

I nodded. Then I gave her a sly look. “Distract me. Tell me about what’s going on between you and Stone.”

She laughed, and it was girlish and embarrassed, and I laughed a little, too. “Oh. You know…” she said, laughing again. Happiness washed over me, from her. Contentment. Love.

I couldn’t help smiling. “You are so cute,” I said.

She laughed again. “I ignored my feelings for him for so long,” she said shaking her head.

“How long?”

“Oh, at least fifteen years.”

I glanced at her, and she shrugged. “I wasn’t ready. He and my husband had been friends, and it just felt wrong.”

I looked back at the road in front of me. “Yeah.”

“I regret that now. I could have had years of this happiness. I could have been loved, had a warm man in my bed at night instead of feeling so alone.” I could feel her eyes on me.

“I don’t need a lecture, Ades,” I said, studiously keeping my eyes on the road.

“I’m not planning on giving you one. Hear me out on this: I knew Nain for over fifty years. Yes, he loved you. Adored you. Died trying to make sure you lived on. Do you really think he did all of that so you would be miserable and alone forever?”

“It’s like disrespecting his memory to even think of loving someone else,” I said quietly.

“Honey, I adore you, but that is just crazy. And you even saying that reminds me that you loved him, and he loved you, but the two of you really didn’t know each other that well.”

“He was jealous of Brennan when he was alive. We got into it at least once over him,” I said, confiding something in Ada that I’d never said to anyone else.

“Yes. He was a demon. From what I understand, demons tend to be pretty territorial, yes?”

I nodded.

“Okay. But he was also, at his core, a good man. And you know that. Would he have wanted you to be miserable to satisfy some territorial bullshit on his behalf? Especially now that he’s gone? He was the main one who told me I should give Stone a chance. And my late husband was one of his best friends when he was alive.”

“I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, or what I’m supposed to do, or anything,” I said, jamming the car into park after I’d pulled into the driveway at the shifters’ main residence. We sat there for several seconds.

“You’re a good woman, Molly. You’re the strongest, most caring, responsible person I’ve ever met. Stop thinking so damn much. And stop talking yourself out of what you know is right.” She stopped, sighed. “You know, as well as anyone, that life is crazy. We only have right now. You have a good man by your side, one who would try to move heaven and earth if he thought it would make you happy. Life is fleeting, even for us supernatural freaks. You know this.”

We were quiet for a bit. I took a breath. “We should go in.”

“All right,” she said, reaching over and patting my hand. We got out of the car and headed up to the porch. I rang the bell, and a young male shifter opened the door. When he recognized me, his eyes got huge, and he bowed, thumped a hand over his chest. I said hello, tried not to grimace. For some reason, the other supernaturals in the city had started adopting my imps’ show of respect as their own. It freaked me out, more than a little. I did not deserve the respect or trust they had in me.

“We were hoping to see a few of the ill shifters,” I said softly to him. “I understand you’ve had losses. I am so sorry,” I said.

He looked up at me and nodded. “We lost two of our younger shifters last night. Children. We thought this thing would take the elders first, but the young seem to be succumbing more quickly. We lost another just a little before you arrived. He was in his thirties,” he finished, walking up the stairs, leading us to the second floor. I asked him to describe the symptoms, and he did, recounting the same symptoms Brennan was showing. My gut twisted with worry. Shifters bowed, thumped their chests in deference as we passed, and I tried to make a point of saying hello, shaking hands.

“Anastasia’s mother? How is she?” I asked, remembering the first shifter who’d contracted the illness.

Our guide shook his head. “She seems worse the last day or two. Her breathing is worse, and she’s mostly delirious.” He stopped, looked at me. “Based on what we saw with the ones we’ve lost, once they hit the delirious phase, it seems to progress rapidly. It’s as if their innate strength as shifters gives out at that point, and it overtakes them.” I could feel the helplessness, sadness from him. “When the doctor first arrived, we were hopeful. A few more of us had started showing symptoms. She seemed better at first, when the doctor gave her the first dose of antibiotics. But then it was all downhill.”

“Have any of you tried shifting to stall the symptoms? I know Brennan is more resilient when he’s in his animal form,” I said, feeling stupid not to have thought of it before.

He nodded. “We thought the same thing. If anything, it makes it worse when we shift. It seems to speed up the process.”

He showed us into a long room that seemed to be being used as a sick room. Six small cots lined the walls, nothing else in the room. “We have four rooms like this. We’re trying to keep the sick shifters together, away from the rest. The healthy shifters are all living in the other house, and the sick have been moved here.”

I looked at him. “So, you…?”

He smiled grimly. “I started showing symptoms yesterday morning.”

I nodded. I watched as Ada checked over the ill, talked to them in low tones. After a while, she turned to me, eyes bright with tears. She shook her head. She walked over to me. “This is beyond anything I know. Whatever this is, it is like nothing I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen a lot. I’ve healed a lot. I thought maybe getting an idea of how other shifters were responding would help me, but they all have symptoms identical to what I’m seeing in Brennan.”

The young shifter nodded. “It’s kind of creepy how exact the symptoms are. With the flu or something, you might see similar symptoms, but some will be worse in some people and not so bad in others. Two people can have the flu, but be experiencing varying levels of discomfort. This? You can almost set your watch by it: cough, fever, loss of appetite, sweating, chills, increased sleep, festering sores on the chest, delirium, infection of sores, death.”

I looked around, and felt my fear about to drown me. Beating up monsters? I could do that. Living through massive explosions? Fine. There was not a damn thing I could do for this. There was no one I could rough up to make this better, and there was no one I could kill to end it. I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration and fear. All I could think about was Brennan.