She tore at the dirt around Mimi, reaching for her body, hauling her out of the clump of heavy rocks, unsettling the ground with the force of her pull. She dragged Mimi to her and began tearing at the duct tape over her mouth, ripping it from her hands and feet while Harry did the same with Fletcher.
Mara frantically put her fingers to Mimi’s throat, feeling for a pulse. Her skin was ice cold, her lips almost blue, and then she was yanking off her prison garb, removing Mimi’s sodden clothes with swift hands. “We need to warm them!” she yelled above the howling wind.
Skin-to-skin contact, wasn’t it? Mara began to rock, whispering into Mimi’s ear. “C’mon, princess. Please, please wake up for me,” she sobbed. “Coconut needs you. Uncle Harry needs you. I need you. We’ll have hot chocolate and marshmallows with Carl, if you’ll just wake up!”
Nothing. Mimi remained lifeless, her bare arms icy cold. God only knew how long they’d been down there. Fear ripped through Mara, bringing hot tears to her eyes while the freezing air tore at her exposed flesh.
No, no, no. This would not happen. She hugged her tighter, curling Mimi’s small body into her own as she rocked. “C’mon, sweetie. Time to wake up now. We have so much to do. I need you to help me pick out the color purple for your room. There are so many shades. We want the right shade, don’t we? And we can’t let Uncle Harry pick it. Look what he did to your room the last time.”
Still nothing but Mimi’s thready pulse ringing in her ears. Panic began to take over. She had to force herself to keep it together. “Wake up, Mimi!” she whispered fiercely, leaning back into Nina who’d come to sit behind her, throwing her hoodie over Mara’s shoulders and pulling her flush to her chest.
Nina began to rock, too, reaching around Mara and squeezing Mimi’s limp hands. “C’mon, pretty girl. Auntie Nina misses you. You haven’t even met Charlie yet. She told me just the other day she needed a new friend. I need you to be her friend. You love Dora the Explorer, right? If you don’t wake up, I’m gonna have to watch it with her. I don’t like Dora. Help a mommy out, huh? So wake up, Mimi! Wake up!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Harry haul Fletcher’s half-clothed body to his bare chest. Wanda was there, throwing her coat over his shoulders before pulling Jeff with her while Marty brushed the dirt from his nostrils.
Wanda pulled Jeff to her like he was a rag doll. She opened her shirt, never once stopping at how awkward it was to have a fully-grown, strange man who wasn’t her husband, naked and in her arms. She began rubbing Jeff’s arms, speaking to him in words Mara couldn’t hear, her fear Mimi wouldn’t wake up pounding in her ears.
“Fletch—it’s Uncle Harry. Wake up, buddy. I need you, Fletcher. I need you so much, pal. Please, wake up!” Harry’s frantic plea, gravelly and raw, tore at Mara’s soul.
Scooting near Harry, she huddled against him, both of the children on their laps, their heads bent as they whispered to them. Tears fell, but Mara couldn’t be sure if they were hers or Harry’s.
And the wind howled while Nina knelt in front of them and sheltered them from the chilling cold, clamping her hands on their shoulders, kneading their flesh to keep them as warm as a vampire could.
Marty came up behind them, stretching her arms across their backs, rocking, whispering prayers, soothing.
Mara’s heart crashed as they rocked, her hand reaching for Harry’s. No, God, please, please no.
He clamped his hand around hers, pulling her and Mimi tight to him.
And they rocked. They rocked while Nina spoke hushed words of encouragement. While Marty, tears falling from her face to Mara’s naked back, pressed closer, rested her head in the space between Harry and Mara.
“Uncle Harry?”
All of their heads shot up. Eyes met, wide and in wonder.
Fletcher, sleepy-eyed and drowsy, looked up at Harry and Mara. “Where are we?”
Harry gathered him up, hauling Fletcher’s weak body to his chest, burying his face in the boy’s neck. His shoulders shook in silence as Marty stroked the top of Fletcher’s head. “Oh, thank God. Thank God,” he husked out, his voice tight and raspy.
Fletcher didn’t fight him. Instead, he snuggled closer, letting his cheek rest on Harry’s shoulder with a weak sigh.
Mara froze when Mimi stirred, reaching for Nina’s hand to help keep her upright.
Nina flopped to the ground, her beautiful face a mask of relief. She tugged on one of Mimi’s curls. “Well, look who’s awake? ’Bout time, little lady. You sure are lazy,” she teased, running her finger along Mimi’s pert nose.
“Mara?” she whispered against Mara’s skin—the most beautiful whisper in the world.
She gulped, fighting the onslaught of tears while Marty dabbed at her cheeks, silent tears of her own coursing down her face. “Yes, Mimi?”
“Where’s Uncle Harry?”
Mara’s breathing hitched, but she fought the lump in her throat. “He’s in Africa, playing with the elephants. You want me to tell him you called?”
Mimi giggled—it was weak and it was thin, but it was a giggle. That was all that mattered. “He is not.”
Mara nodded, fighting a cringe when the wind tore through her flesh. “Is, too,” she said, smiling down at Mimi’s beautiful, precious face, fighting the urge to squeeze her hard.
Mimi reached upward, her hand slow and shaky. She touched Mara’s cheek with a finger and smiled sleepily. “Do you think Uncle Harry would let us have an elephant?”
Harry pulled Mara and Mimi closer, cupping Mimi’s rounded cheek with a smile, his eyes glinting in the dark. “He will not, Miss Mimi.” With another shuddering breath, Harry let his head fall back on his shoulders and blinked his eyes for a long moment before finally lifting his head.
The sound of a helicopter roared above them, lights shone down, coming from all directions in the sky.
Harry looked at her, his teeth beginning to chatter. His eyebrow rose in question.
Mara rolled her eyes, fighting the violent shudder of cold ripping through her. “Keegan. He can smell Marty from a hundred miles, and he’d rent a jetliner to get to her, if that’s what it took.”
Nina knelt beside them, looking down at Fletcher and Mimi. “Hear that, dudes? That means it’s time for you to go to sleep now. So close your eyes.” She ran light fingertips over their eyelids. “And dream sweet dreams for Auntie Nina.”
Both children took deep breaths before their eyes fell closed and they slumped against Mara and Harry.
Harry looked to Mara again, though it was with complete trust, melting her heart. “Should I ask?”
“She’s erasing their memories. So they’ll never remember . . .” Mara closed her eyes trying to regain her composure. If she let the horror in—even just a little—she’d close her eyes and never open them again.
“So they won’t remember that fucking loon and what she did to them,” Nina finished for her. “Kids should stay kids for as long as they can. I’m just doin’ my part to keep it that way.”
Harry reached up, grabbing Nina’s hand, pulling it to his cheek, his words trembling. “Thank you. Thank you. I’ll never, ever be able to thank you.”
She squeezed it before she took a swipe at his head. “Shut the fuck up, nerd, and let’s get these monsters and your lady love the hell home. I’ve had enough drama for today. Carl’s waiting, and I need me some zombie-time.”
Just as the helicopter landed, and Keegan burst out of the door, Jeff woke up.
His eyes were wild, even if his body was weak, when he realized he was in the arms of a semi-naked woman. “Who . . . the . . . hell . . . are . . . you?” he screamed at Wanda. “And why are we . . . naked?”
Nina strutted over to Wanda and looked down at Jeff. “She’s Wanda, I’m Nina, and I bet you don’t wake up naked to a broad as hot as this very often, do ya nerd? Sorry you won’t be able to enjoy it longer.
Shhhh, Jeffie, it’s night-night time.” Nina quashed his protests by leaning down and repeating the act of erasing his memory.
Keegan ran toward them, his long legs covering the area in seconds. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. His face said it all. There was worry, fear, a million questions on it when he looked at Leah’s lifeless form, and Guido, his teeth chattering, his body quaking.
He gathered Marty into his arms, pulling her close and breathing deeply as though he hadn’t taken a breath until she was with him again. “You worry me, honey,” he muttered, fierce, possessive. “Stop damn well worrying me.”
Marty reached up and tweaked his jaw, following it up with a kiss. Her words shook on the way out, the fear of their nightmare obviously catching up with her, too. Collapsing against him, she said, “Don’t ask questions. For now, just take us home, and let’s have the kids checked by Dr. Field.”
As everyone made their way to the helicopter, and Sloan, waiting inside, began to pull each of them in, covering them in blankets, Harry handed a sleeping Fletcher and Mimi over to him and turned to Mara.
He drew her to his chest, his hands like ice, his words hushed. “Thank you. I’d have never found them without you. Jesus Christ, I don’t know what I would have done . . .”
She put her fingers to his lips, letting the tears of relief slip from her eyes. “Then don’t. Don’t wonder. Please don’t or I’ll make the Crypt Keeper erase your memory.”
He chuckled, his mood shifting instantly. He swung her up into his arms. “Would I forget the other night?”
She grinned, burrowing closer, breathing—just breathing. “You mean when we . . .”
“Yeah. When we,” he teased.
“You might.”
His arms stiffened around her, tightening. “I never want to forget that, Mara. Not ever.”
Nina slapped his shoulder from behind, Guido in her arms. “Then shut the fuck up and get in the damn helicopter, or I’ll make you forget the dates for the next Trekkie convention.”
Harry laughed, sliding Mara into the helicopter. “God, she’s mean. So mean.”
Mara giggled, pulling her legs in and holding her hand out to him. “The meanest.”
He took it, settling in beside her. “Will you come with me when this doctor checks on the kids?”
Mara fought the burst of joy exploding in her heart, but she kept her reply simple before she pressed her lips to his. “Wouldn’t miss it—not even for my very own TARDIS.”
* * *
HARRY stood beside Mara as they watched Mimi and Fletcher sleep—safe, warm, loved. Carl slept on the floor on a blow-up mattress, Coconut curled up in the crook of his stiff arm. When they’d arrived back at her cottage with the children, Darnell told them Carl had been fidgety all night, nervous and jumpy in a way the demon said he’d never seen before. Until the kids were carried in and put in bed, that is.
He’d then dragged the mattress Nina’d been sleeping on in the closet and placed it next to the bed, covered the children and lay down next to them, patting Fletcher’s hand before nodding off to a sound sleep.
After they’d arrived at the hospital, while Dr. Field examined the children, the council had questioned Mara, deciding to let her go for the moment, but leaving the discussion about her serum still a question.
Nina, Marty, and Wanda had taken a sleeping Jeff home, straightened up his house, and Nina erased all traces of Leah and the torture she’d so clearly put him through during the time of his captivity from his memory. Whatever had happened, maybe after seeing what they’d seen tonight, it was better they didn’t know.
Guido, the hero of the night, received more than one kiss of gratitude from the women of OOPS, which he’d accepted humbly before heading into surgery. Except Nina. She’d slapped him on the back and told him the next time she said create a distraction, yell or some such shit. Don’t jump on a crazy bitch with a gun. Because she’ll use it.
Guido had shaken his head. He’d done it for a reason. For all the wrong he’d done, for all the money he’d taken from others when he knew he couldn’t provide the service he’d promised, had left him empty. Just this once, he’d wanted to do something selfless.
Yet, his simple act of loyalty had helped save the children, and that was something none of them would ever forget.
“I’m afraid to leave them,” Harry murmured against the top of her head.
Mara nodded, her throat tightening up. The sight of them vulnerable in sleep, the complete abandon as they sprawled out in all their innocence, made Mara send up a silent prayer of thanks: for friends like Nina and Wanda—for Marty and Keegan—and Guido, too. “Ditto.”
“I was so scared we’d never find them.”
His gruff confession made her smile. She loved that Harry wasn’t afraid to say it out loud. “But we did. That’s all that matters.” She squeezed his now-healing hand, tucking it close.
“You didn’t turn me.”
“Phew. What a relief, right? All that shift-shaming was wearin’ me down,” she teased.
Harry chuckled, pulling her from the entry to her guest bedroom and closing the door. He led her into the bedroom and patted the bed where he sat down, his eyes lined with weariness. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. How could you have known Leah was the one who’d turned you by scratching you? You have nothing to be sorry for.” Mara still couldn’t reconcile the Leah she knew and the one she’d seen waving a gun in her face tonight. It would be a long time before she was able to connect those dots. Her cluelessness. How completely unaware she’d been of Leah’s insanity.
Harry ran a hand over his eyes. “I didn’t even remember all the details of that lunchroom incident until Guido talked about it today. I knew Leah and Astrid were there, but . . . Right up until that point, I thought he was going to tell us it was—”
“Astrid,” Mara finished for him with a nod. “Me, too. She’s pretty moody and temperamental, very possessive of me. It made complete sense she’d be the culprit. Especially after she behaved the way she did when we told her we were pretend lovers.”
“Speaking of that,” he wiggled his eyebrows.
Mara fought a sigh of happiness, full of hope. “Not before we talk about a couple of things. First, I want to apologize to you for being so offended by the notion you didn’t want to be one of us. I get why. Because of Mimi and Fletcher. I realized it after I told you how old I was.” She turned to him, cupping his face. “You’ll outlive them. I wouldn’t want that for my children either.”
His hand circled her wrist, bringing her palm to his cheek and planting a kiss on it. “But being one of you tonight was a gift. If not for these ears that can hear Nina grousing under her breath here at the cottage when I’m at Pack, I would never have heard Mimi’s breathing. If not for my uncanny eyesight, I wouldn’t have seen those straws.”
Mara’s breath hitched on its way out. “If not for Leah, none of this would have happened.”
“But then I never would have known you fantasized about me all day long, if not for Leah.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Oh, stop patting yourself on the back. It wasn’t all day long. Couple hours, tops,” she joked.
“You liked me all that time, and you never said a word.”
She wiggled an admonishing finger. “Not true, Mr. Emmerson. I said a word, or ten drunken words to be precise, at the Christmas party last year. You just didn’t take heed.”
Harry scratched his hair and grinned. “Have I mentioned I’m not so good at hints—flirting—especially when they come from women as hot as you?”
She giggled, with ease, with joy. “So you thought I was hot, but never said a word either? You’re just as much to blame.”
“I suck at striking up conversation—especially with a woman.”
“Stalemate then. But look at us now, all small-talking.”
&n
bsp; His face took a serious turn, but he put his arm around her, sliding her near. “What will the council do now, do you think?”
“What can they do now? Officially, there is no serum. If you did drink it, it clearly didn’t matter because you were already a werewolf. The only turn that counts is Leah’s.”
“Then they can’t still have a trial over a serum we don’t even know really works, can they?”
“I’m sure the council will investigate. It’s what they do. But they’ll never get the formula out of my head. I didn’t give some of the factors that Keegan pointed out the importance I should have, the serious thought I should have given creating a child in a cup, for gravy’s sake. I didn’t even know what I’d do if it worked. How I’d explain it to everyone. But the council’s right when it comes to someone getting their hands on it. Someone could really make a mess of things. Maybe sell it to someone. It’s unthinkable. So no more serums for brainy Mara. My baby-making days are over.” The words brought with it great sadness—the loss of a dream.
Harry kissed the tip of her nose. “I don’t think you should give up, honey. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe you can go to the council with the idea of a surrogacy plan in place for others just like you who want babies but haven’t found their mates. The idea that pack members pick out someone you have to live with for the rest of your life is nuts. I’m totally against it. But if you were up for it, I’d help you with all the details of surrogacy for paranormals. We’ll map out a, for lack of a better word, business plan, and present it. And maybe, if things go well between us, you won’t need to create babies in a lab,” he finished on a grin.
Her heart throbbed with excitement at the proposal Harry was making. “And Mimi and Fletcher? How will you explain what happened to you someday?” This troubled her a great deal.
Seeing him tonight when the children’s lives hung in the balance made her more sure than ever the next toughest road of all would be explaining Uncle Harry’s new lot in life.
He smiled, but it was tentative. “I can’t promise if there were ever a way I could change this, that I wouldn’t. The idea of being left here without the kids . . .”
The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Page 29