Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Voices sound around me, and I don’t know what’s real or what’s a dream. The familiarity of the house comforts me, and I blink a few times, seeing Mabel’s face. Someone takes off my boots and then Xavier takes me upstairs, laying me down in bed.
“Rest,” he tells me and presses his lips to my forehead. Darkness pulls me under, and the next time I wake up, I’m alone and the pale light of dawn glows through the windows. The metal blinds will roll down in just a few minutes.
“Wren?” Mabel’s voice comes from the corner of the room. She zooms over, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’re awake.”
“I am. I think.” I sit up and brush my hair back with my hands. “Ugh. I feel hungover.”
“Xavier said to offer you water.” She gives me a glass of water and I drink it all.
“Thanks. Where is he?”
“Downstairs, talking to Theo and someone from the VC.” She takes the empty water glass and puts it on the nightstand. “He said to tell you not to worry but we need to keep up appearances so that everything is normal.”
“Right. Our brand of normal,” I quip. “Where’s Toni?”
Mabel smiles. “In one of the guest rooms. Theo told him to sleep. He’s okay, though.”
“Gotcha.” I slowly get up and wobble my way to the bathroom. Xavier must have taken off my pants and put one of his t-shirts on me. My left hand is bandaged again, and there’s a little Band-Aid over the prick on my right palm. Fuck, I’m a mess.
“I heard what happened,” Mabel says when I come back into the bedroom. “I’m really sorry, Wren.”
“Me, too. I just…I…honestly, I don’t even know what to say. The whole thing was a setup. Vivian was willing to risk both her children. And then Antonio…it’s like she didn’t even care,” I scoff. “They let him die.”
“But he’s still here,” she says, though I hear the question in her voice. “He’s awake now. I was watching him sleep to make sure he was okay.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“When my babies were so little and new in this world, I used to sit for hours just watching them sleep, making sure their tiny little chests were still rising and falling. I’d heard stories about babies who just stopped breathing in their sleep.” She gets a faraway look in her eye, making her appear more human than half the humans I actually know. It’s a bit of a mind-fuck thinking about Mabel as a mom. She had a lot of children, and she’s outlived all of them.
Well, the ones who weren’t turned into vampires.
“I’ll take you to him,” she says and gets up, holding out her hand.
“I would like that.” I pause, looking at her. “You’re a good friend, Mabel.”
Tears brim her eyes. “I try to be.”
I follow her down the hall, going past Devon’s room. His door is closed and I have no idea where he is or if he knows what just transpired. Mabel knocks on the guest room door, waits a beat, and then opens it.
“Hey, Toni,” she says, calling him by the nickname I’ve used. “Wren is awake.”
The bedside lamp is on and Antonio gets up and rushes over to me. He’s wearing new clothes and his arms have been bandaged.
“You can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” he asks as he pulls me in for a hug. Tears fill my eyes as I hug him back. I almost lost him for good. Though Leo has always felt more like a friend, Antonio has always been there for me. He’s never treated me any differently than his other sisters, and his no nonsense attitude when it comes to hunting worked in my favor many times, reminding everyone that I was in fact a superior hunter because of my powers.
“I’ll be in my room if you need anything,” Mabel says as she steps away, closing the door behind her.
Antonio and I break apart and he lets out a heavy sigh, looking at me for a moment. “They filled me in on everything. Mabel…she’s…she’s odd.”
“She’s Mabel. You can trust her. You can trust them all, actually.”
“You made a deal with a demon.” He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wasn’t going to let you die.”
“I was already dead.”
My lips part, but no words come out. I stare at my brother in the dim light, feeling my heart pound inside my chest. “Do you remember anything?”
“After I died?” He looks down. “No. There was…nothing.” He shrugs. “Nothing I remember at least.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing,” I tell him. “I don’t believe we die and then there’s just nothing.”
He shrugs. “Guess I’ll find out next time.”
“Too soon.” I slowly move my head back and forth, lips curving into a small smile.
“You made a deal with a demon,” he repeats and looks me in the eye. He doesn’t have to say it for me to know exactly what he’s thinking. I can’t bullshit Antonio or tell him a half truth. I’m not the only one in the house who knows about hunting demons anymore.