“Her back, Scott. Something’s wrong with her back.” I help as he searches for where the life’s draining from her.
He tries to lift her but is too weak. Nathan and I rush over to help him. Nathan lifts her upper-body forward for Scott, and I cringe at the sight of the biggest piece of wall plaster sticking out of her spine. If he pulls it out, she’ll lose more blood, and at the rate Scott’s healing her, there’s no way they’ll make it.
My hands cover my trembling mouth and muffle the cries I can’t hold in.
Nathan props Glen up with one arm as Scott’s lagged hands and mouth run over her. Scott pales, screaming again, realizing the same thing I do. Murmuring, he begs, and promises, and apologizes, and cries.
I bite back my wail, watching him fail.
Scott bellows in defeat.
I reach for his hand that’s now limp on the floor, wanting, when I open my mouth, to tell him to keep trying, but I cry out too.
Nathan grabs me with his free hand, turning me into his neck. “Tracey, I’m sorry I have to do this. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Just don’t be mad.”
With teary eyes, I ask, “Do what―”
rejuvenate
Nathan’s scent fills my nose as I dream. I turn over and find myself laid upon Nathan’s chest. His body’s tense and his breaths are short. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey, beautiful,” he drones.
I adjust to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
I prop myself up on my elbow. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
“No, everything is fine.”
The sun is up and bright, a little too bright for it to be morning and him having a west-facing window. “What time is it?”
He checks the nightstand. “Three twelve.”
“Why’d we sleep so late?” I ask, earning an odd glance from him. “Has Glen and Scott stopped by yet? It’s not like them to not bother us at least once today,” I say chuckling. My laughter slowly dies off as my eyes narrow. Something off-putting pinches the back of my neck. I scan the room and wonder, “I’m missing something.” I remember waking up. We had breakfast, but I don’t remember eating. In fact, I’m starving. I look myself over. I’m dressed in one of his shirts and a pair of his shorts. It’s not right. I had thrown on my own clothes this morning. Hadn’t I? “Nathan?”
Distress pulls his brows together, but it doesn’t relay in his voice. “Tracey, everything is fine. Just lay back down,” he says coolly.
“Everything is not fine.” I run through yesterday: we watched movies, fell asleep, Cindy was a Jackal. Wait, Cindy was a Jackal―a real one―and she tried to kill me today! “Cindy is dead?”
“Yes.”
Okay, I’m okay with that. Nathan fought Cindy, we won, and everything is fine.
No, no. . .
I go to the drawer Nathan packed with my clothes and pull out a T-shirt, trading Nathan’s shirt for it. His shorts are fine; they stay on me well enough to run in.
“Tracey, what are you doing?” Nathan asks, voice deeper than usual.
“My head is jumbled. Something is confusing me. I need to go for a run to clear it.”
He sits up. “No, Tracey. Just sit down for a minute. It may clear up.”
As I finish tying the bow on my left shoe, I slow. Double blinking, I squeeze my eyes shut, hearing my gasp. “No. No,” I whisper. Images of Scott flash in my head―blurry puddles of blood on the floor. A sense of hurt warps me. My heart skips re-experiencing something that’s evaded me. “What happened and why isn’t it clear?” I blink and another flash―Nathan telling me he’s sorry. Fearful of what could’ve happened, I shout hysterically, “What did you do?” I jumped to my feet. “What did you take from me? I know you did something!” I blink again, and the darkness screams. It is the most hurtful cry. My hands shake and I’m afraid to close my eyes.
Nathan just stands there; peace in his eyes but that worry line’s over his brow. “I’m sorry, Tracey. Please sit down.”
My hands heat and although I hate the thought of hurting him, he had better start talking.
“Tracey, I’ll talk to you. I just need you to calm down first.”
I blink and Glen being hurt from something fills my mind. “What happened to her? Tell me the truth!” I close my eyes to calm myself, and it all charges back like an angry swarm of bees. “Oh, Glen.” I collapse against the desk, sobs and tears escaping beyond my control. “Nathan.” I shake my head, uttering, “Please tell me she’s okay.”
He crosses the floor, and I fall into his embrace. “She’s not okay. Scott wasn’t strong enough to heal her.” My knees buckle, and he holds me up. “She’s alive. But critical. We had to take her to the hospital. I haven’t received an update yet, but when she gets a little stronger, so will Scott, and he’ll be able to heal her. Everything will be okay. Please stop crying.”
I pull out of his embrace. “Why did you make me forget? You swore you wouldn’t do that to me.”
He wipes my cheeks. “I didn’t. I’m not sure how that happened, but I did knock you out.” He takes a breath, then reveals, “I was in a bad situation that was getting worse. So much was crowding my mind, especially your crying, and it kept me from thinking straight. I couldn’t help both you and Glen, and I knew you would’ve wanted me to help her.” He goes to his closet, continuing, “Scott broke. The more he cried, you cried. I can’t take that suffering from you. That hurt is unbearable, and it clouds my mind.” He comes back out with his sneakers on, and a hoodie for him and a smaller one for me. “Let’s go for this run so we can kill some time.” From his desk drawer, he grabs two arm iPod bands with the iPods in them and hands me one. “I almost lost you today. You refused to let me kill Scott, and the only other choice I had was to help him. Thank you for that.”
I eye him skeptically. “It’s a bad situation,” he says. “But not one that can’t get better. If you want to be happy, you can be.” How he’s so calm with this is both comforting and upsetting.
“Can we see her now?”
“Not yet. But as soon as Scott’s at twenty-five percent, we’ll be right there. We just can’t see her in her current state. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t appreciate you putting me to sleep, and then when I wake up, you don’t immediately tell me what happened, Mr. Avoider. That wasn’t fair.”
He steps to me and my stomach flutters. “I’m sorry, baby.” He grabs my chin and tilts my head back. One thick laid eyebrow arches. “I’m sorry,” he says again. He kisses my lips that don’t return it. Leaning back, he fixes me with narrow eyes. I cave when he comes back. My sorrow and discomfort seep away, being replaced by his reassurance everything will be okay. I curl my arms around his neck, needing more contact. He takes my face in his large hands and rubs the bed of his fingertips along the back of my neck, furthering his ease. “We’ll be able to see her tonight for sure. My aunt’s on top of it, keeping me updated.”
“Hey, Nathan. Come with us to this—. Oh.” Someone walks in without knocking.
Nathan looks over my head, and I drop my arms. “Really? It’s a closed door,” he says without anger.
This guy, whom I’ve never seen before, stands in the doorway with an I’m sorry-not-sorry face. “You’re right,” he says, crinkling his nose. “I’ll try that again.” He leaves, closing the door behind him.
Nathan huffs a laugh. “That’s our cousin, Olar. He’s a free-spirited person and doesn’t care much about anything.”
Olar knocks, and the door opens. “Better?”
“Most people also wait to be invited in, but since you’re already in, what do you want?” Nathan asks. He pulls the hoodie over my head.
“You know, I do know how to put on my own clothes,” I say. His stare is blank as he pushes my arms through the sleeves. “Really!” I exclaim, snatching my arm away from him.
A smirk dints a dimple in his cheek. He lifts his hands and rakes his fingers through my curls. Grabbing an elas
tic from his wrist, he says, “Let’s get this hair up for this run.”
I swat his hands away. “Stop, silly. Give me that.” I snatch the elastic from him and head for the closet.
Before I can make it to the door, he’s in front of me, cutting off my path. “Where are you going?”
“To look in the mirror.” There’s the biggest mirror on the back of his closet door. It’s my dream mirror.
“Why?” Nathan asks as if it’s a crime to look at my reflection.
“To fix my hair.”
He points behind me. “Do that in the bathroom.”
I eye him suspiciously. Looking behind me, I notice Olar’s presence and watch what I say. Instead, I squint and look into Nathan’s, now, hazel-brown eyes. My vision hazes, and I’m looking at me through his eyes. It pops back to normal, snapping like an elastic band before I could peek inside his head. He winks. “You’re going to teach me how to do that,” I say, turning to the bathroom.
I strap the armband around my arm and scroll through the songs on the iPod. It has all the playlists and songs as I have on mine. He knows even the tiniest detail.
“So, that’s Tracey?” Olar asks once I’ve closed the bathroom door.
“Yeah. I’ll introduce you when she comes out. What brings you by?” Nathan asks.
I pull my hair into a ponytail, being nosy; my new hearing making that all too easy.
“There’s a party tomorrow. Wanted you and Scott to come. Y’all can bring your girls.”
I can’t even think about partying after the day I’ve had. I just want to make to Glen and see her okay.
“Nope, not happening.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not having Tracey around drunk Burdened Sephlems.”
“There’ll only be a few of us, and some of us are pretty good at not drinking.”
“Some of us?” Nathan snorts.
On my exit from the bathroom, Nathan says, “Tracey, Olar. Olar, Tracey.” He pushes his arm around my shoulder when I take his side.
“Wassup, Tracey? Nice to finally meet you,” Olar greets, his tone a cheerful relay of our happenstance.
I look at Nathan. He nods his permission. “Hi, Olar. Nice to meet you.” Crap! I snap my fingers. Again, with this permission thing. It’s not until after it happens that I notice it.
“Thank you for choosing my cousin.”
“Anytime,” I cooly reply with a shrug.
Nathan kisses my cheek. “I love it when you say that,” he croons, burying his face in the slope of my neck.
“Um, am I interrupting something? If so, I can come back.”
“Nah, you already interrupted. And no, we are not going to the party. I’d like to go a few days without killing somebody.”
I shoot him a harsh glare, shocked he said that.
“That won’t happen. Plus, you’ll have your girl with you. She’ll keep you down.” Olar gestures toward me. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Why are we thinking it will be bad?” I ask.
Olar turns up his nose, half-smiling. “My last party was bad.”
“Terrible.” Nathan lifts his head, interjecting.
Olar rolls his eyes. “Speaking of bad, thanks for what you did for me the other day.”
Nathan tenses up and drags, “Yeah. No problem. Where’s the party going to be?”
“Swain knocked out thirty-five-hundred square feet of the mountain a few days ago, so we’re going over there.”
“Swain knocked out a mountain?”
“Yeah. He got into a fight with a Mulen.” Seeming distracted, Olar looks toward the window. He’s taller than Nathan and built similarly, except his lower body is wider. His slanted face holds every possible piercing: nose, eyebrow, and both sides of his bottom lip, and one of those earring rods pierced through two holes in both ears. He either paints his fingernails black or doesn’t care about his Burdened nails showing.
“Watch this,” Nathan whispers in my ear. Olar’s lip ring wiggles and yanks downward, forcing Olar to jerk toward the floor.
“Ah!” Olar yelps. “Dammit, Nate!” he scolds, straightening his spine. “That shit is not cool! That shit is why I don’t mess with you.” He jabs an angered point at Nathan, laughing. “Excuse me, Tracey.”
“For what?”
“It’s disrespectful to cuss in front of a lady,” Nathan says. “That’s why he excused himself. He was raised that way. They just forgot to teach him to apply his etiquette lessons.” He changes his tone, saying to Olar, “Why do you always think I did something to you? That’s just you, taking in too much silver.”
“Not funny. I know it was you. Just be lucky your girl is standing in front of you.”
“Are you threatening me, Olar?”
Olar folds his arms and swells his chest. “As a matter of fact, Nate, I am.”
I scamper over to the desk chair and scoot away from them to avoid crossfire.
“Fine,” Nathan says with a single nod. “I’ll meet you in the yard in three hours.”
“Three hours?” Olar objects.
“Yep, Tracey and I are going for a run.”
“For three hours?” Olar knit his brows in confusion, trying to make sense of the time.
Nathan glances at me, and then turns back to Olar, nodding his head. “Yeah, that sounds about right. We’ve got some things we need to take care of.”
Olar grumps. “Where is Scott? I need to talk him into being on my side.”
“Scott’s down right now,” Nathan says in an even tone, but the hurt is visible in his eyes.
I hadn’t thought about how this may be affecting him. Whereas I’m more focused on Glen’s wellness, he has the three of us wracking his brain.
“Damn, Scott,” Olar retorts.
“Let’s go.” Nathan motions us toward the door.
Olar leaves first, asking, “Where’s Taylor or Little Nathan?”
Nathan shrugs, closing the door behind him. “Check downstairs. You staying over here tonight?”
“Yeah,” Olar answers as we head down the hall.
“Okay, we’ll be back later. And then we’ll handle that sudden confidence you have over being able to take me on.” He punches Olar’s arm.
“We’ll see,” Olar replies and disappears.
I freeze and stare with wide eyes and high eyebrows. The space he once took up in the hallway is now empty. “Where’d he just go?”
“His ability. Lucky bastard,” Nathan snorts.
“He can just vanish?”
“Yeah and go somewhere else. Not like from my house to his house. It has limitations, but it comes in handy.”
“That’s kind of cool. Looks like you have a little competition, Nate,” I joke, nudging his arm with my elbow.
A combination of fear and resentment for the words I let slip halts my steps. “Oh crap,” I mutter, wincing as I peek over at Nathan.
Laughing, Nathan says, “I’m not going to go demon and push you through a wall, Tracey.” He encourages me to continue with a gentle tug of my arm. “What happened earlier, with Glen and Scott, was way different.”
“Different, how?”
“Sorry, but your friend was out of line. She admired another man. Felt it and commented on it.” He shakes his head. “Scott’s not doing something right.” Pushing open the door to the yard, he adds, “I can’t figure them out.”
We stroll in the chilly afternoon air. I’m thankful for the hoodie making it comfortable. “Don’t stress about it.”
“No, Tracey. I have to stress about it. He nearly killed all three of us. That’s not normal for Scott. He’s always been in control. Always understood himself. Don’t take this the wrong way, but ever since Glen came around, he’s been almost as bad as I used to be.”
“How bad was that?”
“Don’t, Tracey.”
I roll my eyes upward. “Fine. I can’t believe it happened either. Glen never means any harm. Maybe she’s a little reckless, but she doesn’t
mean anything by it. She’s just, ‘say whatever comes to her mind,’ Glen. It what I love about her.” I push the gate from his backyard open and walk through it. “I hope she’s okay. Scott should’ve known she didn’t mean anything by her remarks.”
“Scott didn’t even think before he attacked. He did it. When he gets it back together, I’ll talk to him.”
“When was the last time you two spoke?”
“After we figured out what we’ll do about Glen. And we didn’t talk. I had to carry him into the new room they’ll be sleeping in since their previous room is now wrecked. He didn’t remember the details, just that he messed up and lost it. He was on his last limb, like Glen. It was weird, watching nothing being wrong with him, but the life draining from him.” Nathan takes a pause. “It hurt.” His voice cracks, and I flood with his distress filling every inch of me. A desire bursts through me to do nothing more than comfort him. He catches my notice and clears his throat. “Everything’s fine, though. Nothing for us to worry about.”
I move to his front and wrap his arms around me. “You know, if I was taller than you, I would hold you like this.”
He sighs, content. “He’ll be better later tonight. He’ll go heal Glen and break her out of the hospital.”
“Why break her out?”
“How would you explain her being near death at one moment and then walking and kissing Scott the next?”
I meet his eyes and scoff. “You think she’ll still want to be with him?”
He shrugs. “It’s not like she has a choice. She loves him, and she knows he loves her. And he does. She’s bound to him. If he tries to kill her a thousand times over, she’ll always stay and won’t stop loving him. He’ll know it happened, though, and may beat himself up for the rest of his life. But as long as he doesn’t kill her or get his shit together, that’s their future.”
Plight: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Sephlem Trials Book 1) Page 37