Darkest Day (23 page)

“For wha—” Nothing but air left my gut on that spasm. I wanted to lie back, but feared I’d end up in something disgusting, and if it got in my hair, I’d be hurling for months.

“She gonna live?” Suze’s voice carried from somewhere outside my immediate area.

“She will,” Alina said from farther away. “Remember, Mackenzie, when actually ill, has quite the response.”

Another seize of my stomach sent me forward, head between my knees, though nothing but air released. Death really would have been better. “Alin—” I coughed and gagged as I reached out for her.

She laughed—from the hallway, I realized as I tore open my eyelids again and found myself in my own room. Blinking, I managed to get both my eyes working and peered around. Everything I thought I’d seen before had disappeared.
The awesomeness of having a fairy as a mother.
On my laugh, a gag brought up a bubble of something that exited on a trail of curling white air. “Alina! I’m steaming!”

Her form reappeared in the doorway. “Ah, then the element has cleared.”

“What … element?”

“One more moment, darling. You’ll be feeling much better ver—”

My hands slid against my dress, illuminating the little lightbulbs in my brain.
The prom. The dance. The drink. Maddie.
“Where’s Winn?”

“And she’s all better.” Alina chuckled.

“Where’s Winn?” I searched for my phone but didn’t find it, or my bag.

“He was going to follow me here, but I said ‘doc’s’ so maybe he didn’t know where I was going?” Suze said from downstairs.

“He’d have known, since Mom always has to fix me up.” Another cough marred my speech. I stood, my legs wobbling beneath me.
Not a hundred percent, then.

Alina took my hand, holding me steady. “You know, Mackenzie. You needn’t call me that now that you are aware of—”

“I know.” I waved her away. “But you’re still my mom, too. I just really want to know where Winn is.”

“Perhaps he went home to change first? Would you like to do the same, darling?”

“Yeah, but please,
please
would you find Winn? It can’t take two hours to get out of a tux.” A glance at the clock showed me the big, bright red numbers of 11:03. I remembered seeing nine at some point. I slipped my hand free of Alina’s, testing out my balance. “Okay. Think I’m good.”

“Very well, then.” Alina withdrew clothes and laid them on my bed, also free of any signs of my previous activities. “Once you’re done, I’ll be in the living room and will have something to quell the rawness of your throat. We can discuss what happened tonight as well and get the Council involved.”

“No.”

“No?” Alina asked.

I shook my head. “I know you technically work for them and all, but seriously, I can’t deal with them right now.” Taking a step that, thankfully, didn’t make me want to vomit or keel over, I said, “I just want to find Winn.”

“I know, darling. Suze?” Alina called over her shoulder. “Would you please find and escort Mackenzie’s young man here.”

“On it!” The house shook on his exit.

Winn

I’d unzipped her but had enough sense not to wait for anything else. Slipping out of the room, I stood in the hall. A door beneath us opened and closed. Downstairs, voices once again rose until another door whined and slammed.

“Winn,” a male voice said. “Can you come down here?”

I pivoted toward the sound and traipsed down.

A man held out his hand toward me as I reached the first floor. “How are you?” He tilted his head.

How am I?
How am I?
How
am I?
My head still spun with some sort of confusion I couldn’t place and a need not to look stupid. “I’m fine,” I finally managed to say.

“Winn!” Maddie’s voice called from somewhere near the stairs. “There you are.” She skipped over to me and took my arm. “Why’d you leave?” Her hand reached up and touched my forehead. “He’s got a slight fever, I think, Dad.”

I do?

Her dad motioned me to the couch. “Your pupils are slightly dilated.”

Maddie took my hand and directed me toward the center of the room and sat with me.

A light crossed over my eyes as the doorbell chimed.

“Who’d be calling at this hour?” Maddie’s mom went toward the sound, to the doors right in front of us.

Maddie jumped up and ran behind her, reaching the handle first. She opened the door, keeping it close to the frame, and her mom crossed her arms over her chest. “We don’t accept solicitations at this hour,” Maddie said, closing the wood panel again. “Geez, Mom. You really have to learn not to answer the door so late. People come out at all hours.”

“Maddie!” On a huff, her mom grabbed the handle, and the door swung open to a giant of a man, at least seven or more feet tall, hulking on the porch.

Mac

It took too many steps and way too many wobbles for me to get from upstairs to downstairs in my house. As soon as I hit the landing, Alina took my elbow and guided me to my favorite red chair.

“Still a bit weak, darling?”

“More than I want to be, yeah.”

“You’ve always reacted poorly to these situations. Not your fault, of course.”

I snorted. “No, that probably comes from having a human dad.” I kicked my legs over the arm of my chair, relaxing into it as much as possible, given the hairs on the back of my neck had been raised for as long as I’d been conscious. Winn’s absence did not make me happy.

“You’re spending time with this man, your father, I believe, yes?”

“Yeah. You’re not going to say anything to the Council, are you?”

Alina shook her head. “Of course not, darling. Your mother’s secret was hers to share, and now it’s yours.”

“He’s pretty cool, you know.”

She clasped her hand over her knee. “Very different than Lucas, I presume?”

My laugh burst out. “Yeah. Very. He has no interest in biting my neck for blood. Where is dear old dad, anyway?”

Her lips squidged together.

“Alina?” I asked in a way to let her know I knew she held back.

“He’s indisposed.”

“Which either means he’s eating people, or he’s doing something else you don’t want to tell me about.”

“Perhaps.” She pushed up as if to stand.

“Please don’t leave.”

She re-sat. “I thought I might bring you something to drink. To settle your stomach.”

“That’d be great, but I’m worried about Winn and … stuff.”

“You’ve grown far fonder of this boy than I ever expected months ago.”

“I know. What am I going to do when I have to … you know?”

“You’ll do whatever’s right. Perhaps talk to your father about how he was able to say goodbye to your mother.”

I hadn’t done that. In all the times we’d met, I’d focused on Zoe, but not on him and how exactly he managed without my real mom. “Yeah, maybe I will.” My entire body did one big shiver.

“You’re truly worried?”

“Yes.” I pushed up, every muscle aching with the movement. “I need to do something. Search or … something.”

“At nearly midnight?”

With effort, I stood. “Yes. Time doesn’t matter to me, remember? Winn’s missing, Alina. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he is. He’d be here. I know he would. Tonight was our night.”

“Oh.” Her hands covered her lips.

“Oh?”

Her lips curved even behind the fingers in front of it. “Nothing, darling.”

“Not nothing. What was the ‘oh’ for?”

“You wish me to share?”

“Uh … yeah. That’s kinda obvious, right?” I squinted at her.

“By your night, I believed you to mean something altogether more important. A joining, perhaps, of two to one?”

Shit. She did know what I meant.

She stood and glided her way to me. “I believe, my darling, that you should know one thing about such a decision.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Such a binding between human and non is quite often … permanent.”

Winn

“Suze!” Maddie’s mom said. “What’s going on? Is something wrong? Has the—uh—is there a … meeting?”

I stood as did Maddie’s dad.
At nearly midnight? Wonder what she does.

His face angled down toward Maddie’s mom. “No, Moira. Uh, actually—” He tilted up. “—Winford! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“No!” Maddie screamed, a three-year-old’s tantrum of a sound.

The giant-man tromped his way toward me.

I backed up and into the couch, scrambling my way over as he moved faster toward me. Flipping over the back, I landed first on a sofa table and second, with a thud, on my butt on the floor.

“Leave him alone!” Maddie’s screech came.

“Enough, Madeline!” Moira said. “What the hell is going on? And I want the truth this time.”

Big-dude stood over me as I pushed backward, heart pounding, sweat beading on my forehead. He reached out a hand. “Help up?”

His eyes held such a softness I wanted to accept the gesture, but at the same time, my mind whirred with all the scenarios I expected I’d find myself in. Drugged. Crushed. Dead. I went even farther.

“Now, Madeline.” Moira’s voice came a decibel lower than the monster of a man standing over me with his hand still extended.

“About what?” Maddie asked.

“Why has Winn’s Guardian been searching for him? Why is he here? And don’t give me a load of crap about him and Mackenzie breaking up.”

“What?” Big-guy said, craning his neck around. “They didn’t break up. Mac sent me to find him, and I traced his scent all the way here.”

He’s a Bloodhound? How—why—would he follow me?
Pushing with my hands knocked me into a piece of furniture I hadn’t realized I’d been near.

“She’s been throwing up her guts for the last two hours and didn’t know he didn’t make it.” One chubby finger pointed at me, even though the man faced the others.

A huff. The stomp of feet. The push of chair legs on hardwoods. All sounds filled my head, adding a layer of dizzy to my confusion.

“Last chance, Madeline,” Moira said.

“Yeah, last chance,” Dude said. “’Cause if you don’t tell me, I’m going to go get Mac.”

22

Winn

“Okay, okay!” Maddie threw her hands up. “Look, I don’t know what happened to Mac, but Winn was in the parking lot, and I thought something happened, and he acted all confused and stuff—not like normal—so I brought him here.” She turned toward her dad. “Because I thought you could help him, if something was wrong.”

Staring back up at the man in front of me I realized he had horns sticking out of his head.

Horns?

I am seriously going crazy.

My inner warning bells—the same ones that had been ringing since the moment Maddie showed up in that parking lot—didn’t go off as I studied his head, face and those horns.

“You okay, smart boy?” the man-thing asked. “’Cause if you ain’t, Mac’s gonna be super mad at me. I mean like, really, really ma—”

“He’s fine.” Maddie’s voice grew closer.

Not knowing how to answer increased the headache. I looked up to the man.

He tilted down to me, his eyes narrowing. “Gimme your hand.”

I did, a calm coming over me as I gripped.

“No, Winn. Stay here. Dad can—”

“Sorry, blondie, but if he was confuzzed, you shoulda taken him to the hospital.” Back to me, the big guy said, “This is going to hurt … a little.”

I nodded.
I’m accepting pain? What is going on in my head?
Still, I didn’t fight him even as his arm tightened around my waist.

“Wait!” Maddie said.

My body lurched forward and everything within me squeezed, as if going through the eye of a needle.

Mac

Light exploded in front of my eyes. “Suze!” I yelled, knowing he’d have caused it. “You really couldn’t find a way not to—”

“I’m big in this world. I generate lots and lots and lots and lots of energy, Mackie. It’s gotta go somewhere, and you don’t like farts.”

I rolled my eyes as the spots faded. The brightness dimmed, and along with it came Suze, Winn in one arm. I launched myself to Winn.

Suze spun him backward. “Before you say anything … I didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Alina asked from inside the room.

“Something’s wrong with the boy.”

That stopped me. “What’s wrong, Winn?”

Suze pirouetted Winn until he faced me. A glassy-eyed gaze fixed back on me.

I snapped in front of his face.

Suze nudged him, and he moved, his eyes fixed on me but in a far-off-in-lala-land way.

“Did he get sick coming through?” I asked, and received a head shake from Suze. “So what’s wrong?”

Lines creased his forehead. His head tilted a little.

“Winn?”

“Yes.” He said it like he needed to confirm his identity not answer that I’d asked for his attention.

“Who am I?”

He hesitated for a moment before saying, “Mackie.”

“Oh, my god! What happened! Why in all of hell’s damnation did he just call me Mackie?”

Winn’s head angled the other way, so proper and stuck I expected I could push him over with my fingertip.

“Alina!” My jiggly legs barely held me up. “Stay here.” One finger pointed at Winn and back to Suze. “Here, you got that?”

Suze nodded.

“Alina!” I turned and forced myself to stop since she stood right there. “I should have added bells to your feet a long time ago.”

She smiled.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I am unsure as of yet.” She moved to Winn and took his hand, holding it within hers. “Did you drink or were you given anything to drink?”

“I was,” I said. “Someone spiked the punch.”

“Yes, but yours was something only a non-human would have had issue with. Did anyone else at school experience any paralysis, or loss of consciousness?”

With my hands on my hips, I said, “I don’t know … I was unconscious.”

“There is that. Winn, do you remember?”

His head tilted a little.

“Tell me your last memory,” Alina said.

Winn gaze tracked through the house. “Showing up here.”

“Before that?”