I kept pacing the street, even after speaking to most of the occupants of the cottages, making sure everyone was okay. I regretted how angry I had been, how cold, but they seemed to have forgiven me, although they weren’t as comfortable with me.
Anka invited me inside, and I wondered if she felt sorry for me or resented me for bringing so much trouble to her door.
“You seem so lost,” she said, pushing me into a seat at her table.
Lucia was teaching Dita and Leah how to embroider, which struck me as odd. The three of their heads together, as they concentrated so hard on what they were doing, and looking so unbelievably innocent, shocked me into thinking straight. If I hadn’t run from Wesley and my grandmother, I wouldn’t have met any of them, the people who were keeping me on the right track.
Anka made me some tea, a strange smelling, oddly coloured cup of stuff that I held my breath to drink. Her brews were getting weirder.
“You are feeling out of sorts,” she stated, watching me carefully.
“Just tired,” I said.
She nodded, but her keen gaze never left mine. Anka was a strange person. She was so set in her own ways and ideas, and yet she was willing to open up her home to complete strangers, including a part-hellhound female who was positively terrifying to anyone but Anka. I often heard her bossing Val around, and yet she had allowed her husband to beat the shit out of her.
In some ways, Anka and I were similar. We had both changed, yet we were still shadowed by our pasts. I wondered if Dita’s father was still around, but I didn’t want to dredge up any bad memories, and I strongly suspected Mrs. Yaga had done something to keep him away. If he came knocking, Val would make sure he couldn’t hit anything ever again.
Lorcan let himself in, but Anka didn’t blink. She wasn’t terrified anymore, despite all of the danger in our lives. While I had been off doing whatever, everyone else had grown closer. They were all a family, and I was the outsider looking in.
I knocked back the rest of the cup of tea. “I should go. Thanks, Anka.”
I stood, and it seemed as though nobody was paying any attention, but when I made to leave, Lorcan grabbed my arms, and Anka lightly punched my wounded side. I doubled over with pain, but Lorcan supported me.
“Oh, my God! You arseholes!” I snapped, my eyes watering. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“The question is what’s wrong with you?” Anka said. “I gave you painkillers. A strike from me would only have hurt the worst kind of wound, something we should all already know about, and yet we have to slyly test you to find out the truth. Girls, out of here.”
A guilt-stricken Leah escorted Dita out of the room. I tried to smile reassuringly at the younger girl, but she looked horrified.
Anka lifted my shirt and opened my bandage to take a look at my side. “Oh, Ava. What have you done to yourself?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I got chewed up by a gang of beasts,” I said, shrugging off Lorcan’s grip. “I’ve been in quite a few fights since then, and you attacking me isn’t exactly helping.”
“I barely touched you,” she scoffed. “We needed to know how bad it was. Leah told us what happened at the children’s home. You never train, and Desmond warned us about you.”
“Oh, well, if Desmond says—”
Her eyes sparked with anger. “You need help, Ava! I gave you my strongest painkillers in that tea. You need blood.” She frowned. “Your body craves it. Do you not?”
I leaned against the counter, yanking my top back down. “I always crave it. It’s something I’ve learned to get used to. I can control it now. Better than ever.” I thought of the young man I had tasted. “Mostly.”
“But you’re ignoring what you need,” she protested.
“I’m never drinking blood again,” I said firmly. I didn’t trust my self-control, so I could do nothing but abstain.
Lucia slammed her palm on the table and ran over to Lorcan. She gripped his hand, and he frowned.
“Because you drank from Peter?” he asked. “That’s why?”
“No,” I said. “Because it does nothing my body can’t do in time. I don’t need it to live.”
“But you need help,” Anka insisted. “I think your wound is infected. At least let me clean it for you.”
I eyed her warily, but she folded her arms and gave me a stern look.
“Ava Delaney, you aren’t going to let a little bite kill you, are you? Let me clean it up and see what I can do.”
“I thought you couldn’t do anything,” I said, confused.
“I’m a mother,” she said with a smile. “I can fix anything.”
I made a face at Lorcan and kicked his ankle before following Anka up the stairs.
“Lorcan, fetch Margie for me,” Anka called over her shoulder. “Tell her to come straight up.”
“What the hell do you need Margie for?” I asked.
She turned through the door of her bedroom. “She’s been teaching me. Her grandmother had some talents as a hedgewitch. Taught her an awful lot about medicinal qualities. We’ve cooked up a number of things while we’ve been here. It’s all natural, Ava. No need to look at me like that.”
I rolled my eyes. She hadn’t even been looking at me.
“Lay on my bed,” she directed. “I won’t touch you until Margie gets here. I’m just going to look and see, okay?” She spoke to me as if I were a nervous child.
I lay on the bed, sighing with frustration. She stepped into the bathroom, and I heard water running in the sink. Drying her hands with a towel, she came back into the room. She carefully removed the bandage and gazed at my wound with furrowed brows.
To my shock, she brushed my hair from my face. “Why won’t you let us take care of you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You keep separating yourself from everyone. We’re not going to hurt you, Ava. We’re not going to leave.”
Her eyes were so kind, and her words hit that soft spot I had been protecting. To my horror, tears sprang to my eyes. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand, trying to keep a sob at bay.
She knelt next to me, never taking her eyes from mine. “You need to stop this. You need to let yourself feel. Your wound is festering, but not as much as your heart. You can talk and feel. Show it. Why do you hide all of this pain?”
“I need… I need to show them I’m strong,” I gasped out. “Don’t let them know, Anka. I can’t let anyone see how weak I am. It’ll scare them, freak them out.”
“You can’t keep secrets like this.”
“Please, Anka. I have to be strong. If I don’t have that, I have nothing left. I’m no use to anybody if I can’t fight.”
“Nonsense,” she replied. “You’re more than a warrior.”
“Am I? Because there’s nothing else I’ve done right. People know I fought against the beasts and won. They know I wasn’t afraid to walk next to werewolves. If they find out I can’t even help myself then—”
She tapped my temple. “You have your brains.” She laid a hand over my heart. “You’re brave, and you care.” She took my hands. “You are not alone. There’s more to you than just this one thing. Why would you think otherwise?”
“People are here because they think I can protect them from the all of the Big Bads in the world. If I show weakness, they’ll lose hope.”
“Weakness? Showing pain is normal. Showing you have a heart is normal. It’s been more disturbing to watch you distance yourself and pretend you don’t care. More disturbing to never see you upset at the boy leaving. You cared about him like a mother. I know this. I saw you with him. And now he’s gone, and you hold it all inside for nobody to see. That won’t help you heal.”
“What are you on about?” I asked, struggling to take a proper breath as I failed to tamp down those feelings threatening to burst loose and ruin everything.
“She’s talking about the physical manifestation of your pain,” Margie said, walking in with a bag. She smiled down
at me. “Now let me see what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
She jerked her head back when she got a close look at the black festering mess of my side. I had been holding it in for so long that I had forgotten how bad it was. The pastes I had been using did a good job of covering the smell of rot, but without the bandage I couldn’t hide the odour.
“We’ll need to cut back to the good flesh,” Margie murmured to Anka, “let the healing begin again.” She sat on the bed next to me. “We’re going to patch you up, Ava. In every way possible. And you’re never to use anything that man gives you again.”
“What man?” I asked, wincing at the idea of them cutting into my wound.
“Eddie Brogan,” Margie said. “Whatever he has given you has not helped, and while I can’t prove it, I am certain that was the purpose. Do you trust him?”
I laughed, feeling a little hysterical. “I don’t trust anyone.”
Chapter Fourteen
Margie and Anka cut away the rot—literally and figuratively. At first, I bit down on my lip so hard it bled. I couldn’t scream, though I wanted to. The pain, physical and emotional, seared through me so violently that I thought I would pass out.
The women distracted me by asking question after question after question. My life was dying, burning away into poisonous gas that suffocated those around me. I tried to explain how I was feeling, but even I wasn’t entirely sure where the doubt was coming from.
I missed Emmett so badly it hurt, but a tiny part of me was relieved to be free of Peter for a while. His pain and his anger had been all-consuming, and some days, I had struggled to breathe from the stress of trying to stop him from losing his mind completely. The guilt of wanting that freedom was worse than missing Emmett.
Something else bothered me more. Gabe had been right about me. While the beasts had been biting me, gnawing at my life and sucking away my soul, he had held my hand. But I had been tempted to let go, to give up. I’d had a taste of a life I had always imagined—a partner, a child, a real family—and it had been taken away. There wouldn’t be anything like that for me again. The taste had given me an ache for more. And yet I knew, deep down, that I couldn’t keep letting Peter take his frustration out on me. I knew I wasn’t equipped to deal with his issues when I still hadn’t dealt with my own.
My past was looming over my shoulder, and I could hardly breathe with the panic of it. Wesley. It had always been Wesley. His influence on my life had made me see him as a hero, and not a Byronic one. He wasn’t the alpha male that nature dictated me to desire. He was the kind one, the beautiful one, the sensitive one, the one who would always be there for me, no matter how much I hurt him.
And I would hurt him. I already had. That was why I had run from my home. No matter how bad things were with Nancy, I hadn’t run from her. I had run from Wesley, from the guilt and the shame of hurting him. And he had come back, forgiveness and light, as devoted and capable as ever, and I had been free to go back. Nancy would have taken me back. In her worst moments, she probably needed me there. Wesley didn’t need me, but he was happy for me to need him; he wanted to be my hero again. I had seen it in his eyes. He loved taking care of victims, and there I was, making myself a victim again. There I was, taking back all of the progress I had made when I had already learned I didn’t need a hero.
So I had gotten Phoenix to take Wesley’s memories away. It had been a punishment of sorts, a lesson for me to never be a victim, to never let somebody take care of me, to never be the weak person I had once been. Wesley was free, and I would always remember our past while knowing it was lost to him forever. That was what I deserved.
There had been a time, before Peter left with Emmett, when I liked who I had become, when I saw that I was fighting for something real. My fight had never been solely about what was best for the world. It had always been about making a real future for myself. And for that one moment, I had seen a future where it was possible for Peter to love again, where both of us could leave the trauma of our past lives behind. I had a moment. But that moment was over.
Margie left Anka to stitch me up.
“The embroidery will help Dita,” Anka said. “She’s learning how to use the smallest stitches to the greatest advantage.” She sounded proud, but I was confused.
“You want her to do this? Patch up the broken?”
“You’re not broken,” she said sharply. “Don’t let the doubt drown you, Ava. You escaped it once. You can do it again. And yes, I want her to be useful. There might be a time when the fighting is over, but we don’t know when that will be. She needs to be useful, or she will be forgotten. Nobody will remember to protect her.”
I sat up, groaning at the pain in my side. It was even worse than I realised. I knew blood would help my skin heal, but I wasn’t going back there. I would do that one thing for myself. “I’ll protect her,” I said. “I would never forget Dita.”
She gazed at me keenly. “I see through you. You gave up when that boy left. Who will be there for Dita when you decide to roll over and let them take you?”
My breath hitched in my throat. She was right. Christ, she was right. Emmett hadn’t been the only one who needed me. So many others did, and I was failing them, slowly and surely. I had failed myself.
I lay back down carefully, and she finished the stitches. I yawned, suddenly weary. Even my bones ached. We weren’t in the home stretch yet, but we would make it eventually, I realised.
“I swear to you that I won’t give up until there’s nobody left,” I whispered. “When nobody else needs me, I’ll rest. Not before then. If I have to drink to do that, I will. I’ll do whatever it takes, and Dita’s going to live a long, happy life. Okay?”
She gave a jerky nod, but tears shone in her eyes as she put a fresh bandage over my newly sewn wound. She saw death coming, and I had been welcoming it. Not anymore. I would keep going even if it killed me. And when that moment came, I would go out kicking and screaming. I wouldn’t go gently.
I hadn’t gone through all that I had just to give up when things got tough. I hadn’t lost a limb. I had lost a child who hadn’t even been mine, a child who was safe and well and happy, and more importantly, alive. I had been ridiculously selfish and self-centred. It was time I made things right. I needed to convince everyone I was in it for the long haul.
“Anka, I think I love you,” I said.
She huffed out a sound, but her lips curved upward. “Have we healed you?”
“I’ll get there. Thanks for the stitches. Don’t suppose you have anything for the pain? Something that won’t put me to sleep.”
Her smile broadened. “Asking for help? I may die of shock.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Carl,” I said, managing to get to my feet without wincing. The pain was always present, but I could forget about it when I tried. I had to forget about it to press on. I had gotten through an entire battle with the pain cutting into me, although the adrenalin from the fighting had helped. It would come again. That was almost a certainty.
“You should rest,” she scolded, watching me carefully.
“Someday,” I promised, taking another murky-looking cup of cold tea from her and knocking it back. “Delicious,” I lied.
Downstairs, Margie was studying Dita’s embroidery, looking pleased with herself.
“Back from the dead,” she muttered when she glanced up at me.
“I’m never going to be perfect,” I said, and they all looked at me, except for Dita, who was busy struggling to thread a needle. “Some days, I’m going to be a nightmare to know. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. It just means it was a bad day. I’ve been thinking about how we can help Esther. Lorcan, how do you feel about pretending to be Phoenix for a while?”
He looked confused, but then a smile lit up his face. “I can totally do that.”
“Good, be ready.”
Lucia looked at me plaintively.
I shook my head. “You’re staying here. We can’t risk you g
etting hurt. I know your visions haven’t been reliable lately, but they’re still important. So stay here and keep yourself safe. All right?”
She made a face, but I remained firm. Taking Lorcan directly to the Council was a massive risk but one we had to take. We were a family. Families helped each other. And we were all willing to help Esther, even if it meant dealing with her half-crazed brother, the very one who had orchestrated my death, the one whose fault it was that my side was still in a state. I would pay him back eventually. But maybe I wouldn’t kill him. For Esther. I would try really hard not to murder him in front of her anyway.
For an hour, Lorcan and I discussed the logistics of getting him into the Council’s Headquarters without running into Phoenix or Fionnuala.
“That’s it,” Anka said at last. “I’m sick of war talk. Out. Out!”
Laughing, Lorcan and I left, and while I updated people on the phone, he told some of the rebels our ideas. We ended up having a massive discussion outside with six of the rebels, including Ry.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so bossy,” I told him, pulling him aside.
“Not bossy. Assertive,” he said. “You’re in charge for a reason. I let myself get caught up in the excitement, but you were right. I should have known better. You can rely on me. No more mistakes. I won’t let you down again.”
“It’s not you letting me down that I’m worried about,” I said. “I don’t want any of you to get hurt. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
He smiled. “I don’t want to die either. Now pay attention. The fae boy looks serious.”
Grinning, I turned my attention back to the group.
“I think we have a good chance of pulling this off,” Lorcan was saying.
“But we need an escape plan,” Ry said.
“He’s right. We need to prepare for failure, too,” I said. “If Esther’s Circle help us, then that’s a start. Elathan will be there, but I’ll get lost down there. The tunnels all look the same to me.”
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