Chapter 102

Ardal

My vision is spotty as it slowly returns. I gasp for air, my heart hammering from the flood of cortisol and adrenaline.

Suddenly, the screams begin.

“Mommy’s a vampire!” Milo’s shrill terrorized cry pierces my ears.

I fight to stay awake, dragging myself out of the foggy dream realm.

“No, I’m not,” I croak, as I come into full consciousness.

The noise dies off around me as six sets of eyes watch me like hawks. Kadeem steps forward, his gaze falling to my chest as it heaves, rising and falling rapidly.

His eyebrows knit together in suspicion and he places his hand over my thumping heart.

“I don't believe it," he says breathlessly, before tentatively taking my scarred hand in his own - the one with the mark Jack had branded me with using magic.

"That's a cow," I say sarcastically, quickly scanning my surroundings for hints of him. "Long story."

Kadeem hesitates for a second, emotion reflecting in his stormy eyes. He pulls me into an embrace then, our heartbeats racing in unison before my little monsters dogpile us with hugs and kisses till I can barely breathe.

"Okay, off," I laugh between breaths, pushing them gently away. Then I notice my healed leg and reel back in shock.

"Look," I exclaim. "How did that-"

But Kadeem cuts me off. “I'll explain it when we hit the road," he says determinedly.

I watch as he struggles upright, the pain evident in every movement he makes.

His body is drenched in sweat and his jaw is clenched tightly, as though he’s trying to hold back against any signs that might alert the children and me to how bad his injury is.

"Kadeem fed you to a vampire!" Lottie blurts out.

He looks at her sternly before turning to face me again, a resigned expression on his face. “Long story,” he says grimly.

But I freeze and look down at Lottie. “What?”

“Yes,” she shouts, emphatic. “It was the worst thing I ever seen!”

A look of guilt crosses Kadeem’s face, even as he growls, “I will fill in the gaps, but we need to hurry before something else appears in these trees.” His voice is as commanding as it is weary.

We make our way to the van, while I listen to the kids recount the gory details. They seem relieved to share it with me, their voices taking on an excitable, giddy tone.

None of it sinks in. I listen the way I might to the details of someone’s nightmare. It’s too fantastical, too horrible to believe.

Kadeem pulls himself along behind us, his breath labored with pain, and we make our way through the dark, our footsteps padding the path of the forest floor.

I stop when we get to the vehicle and pull Erbao aside. He is uncharacteristically quiet.

“Are you alright,” I ask, kneeling down.

His lip begins to tremble. I wrap my arms around him, planting a kiss in his hair as he tucks his head against my neck.

Kadeem starts the engine and I let him go. I give all the kids hugs and kisses before they step into the van.

I open the front door, hesitating before I sit down in the passenger seat next to Kadeem.

“Are you sure it’s okay - to leave without Jack?”

“He’s safe,” Kadeem says, face unreadable.

I climb in and we make our way through the woods, headlights illuminating our path. Kadeem stares intently ahead, guiding us along the narrow, winding way.

Finally, we’re out of the thick of it, and the kids are asleep. We come out onto a bumpy, dirt road.

Though the kids have given me every painful blow-by-blow - the deal Kadeem struck, all of it - I wait to hear it from Kadeem, who casts his eyes in the rear view mirror at the sleeping kids before he launches into the events of the night.

His tone is robotic, but something in his voice is strained. Holding no punches, he spins the story in an exacting, almost excruciatingly matter-of-fact, detail. It spirals me into a skin-crawling level of fear.

“What if I am a vampire,” I whisper, hardly daring to say the words aloud. “What if I burn up when the sun comes out, or get thirsty for blood?”

Kadeem eyes me. “I haven’t seen one yet with a beating heart and functioning lungs.”

“And you think it’s this is what kept me from turning,” I ask, looking down at the mark on my hand.

“What else could it be?”

“When Jack’s mom and sister turned into vampires,” I say, hesitating over the last word, “It killed their wolf selves, but preserved them as people - sort of,” I say.

I bite my lip nervously, but I feel my own wolf with me, alive and strong.

“At least according to Jack,” I continue. “But they still have to drink blood and can’t go out into the sun.”

“I don’t know how that’s being preserved, then,” Kadeem snarls, as we lurch over a bump on the dirt road. “I saw enough of his mother. She looked like a normal bloodsucker to me.”

He says the word “bloodsucker” with such disdain, I flinch.

Then his head whips over to me as it finally clicks in his brain. “That was the doctor’s miracle cure for Erbao?” His eyes are fiery, incredulous.

I nod slowly.

Kadeem grits his teeth. “That sick son of a bitch,” he says, gripping the steering while the car sputters onto a gravel road, kicking up a stream of gravel that rattles through the tires.

“Kadeem,” I say cautiously, “If Jack could give Erbao the rune, too, then -“

“No,” he says sharply, shutting me down in an instant.

“You have no right to tell me ‘no,’” I spit back at him, struggling not to yell.

Despite a feeling of fierce anger at him, my cheeks are coloring with shame, because I know full well Erbao’s as much his as he is mine.

“You weren’t there,” he growls deeply. “Not consciously anyway. You have no idea what it was like. If you did, you would never put your son through that.”

My stomach drops and I gulp audibly at his words.

“Plus, you don’t know for a fact something wouldn’t go wrong,” he says, “Nor do you know if there will be any side effects from all of this.”

Fear prickles the back of my arms, followed by a crashing realization for how lucky I am. Overwhelming gratitude gushes through me that I am not only alive, but seemingly, myself.

“Thanks,” I say, swallowing back tears. “For saving me.”

Kadeem won’t look at me. His eyes are on the road, and as we spin over gravel in the dark with only the moon and the high beams to light our way, his tired face is hardened in an angry mask.

“Don’t thank me,” he says, agitation clear in his cutting tone.

I’m thrown off-balance, suddenly very lonely in a van of seven. My only company is the sound of the kids’ heavy, slumbered breathing and the gravel crunching under the car tires, sometimes flying up and hitting the van with a loud “pop.” Kadeem is faraway - walled off and unreachable.

When the first rays of sunlight streak across the sky, I tense, terrified I’ll immediately burn to a crisp, but nothing happens.

Kadeem stares bleary-eyed at the road. I offer to drive, but he gruffly declines. I finally let my eyes close.

We’re going home but I’m unsettled by it. Because in a few short days, nothing - and everything - has changed.