“Carson is alive. I let him live for you, you know, so don’t ever say I didn’t do you a favor. I know you care for him, and you have to get better so you can make sure he doesn’t screw everything up for us.”
He stopped and watched her face. Still no reaction.
“You see, I’m relying on you to get better so you can keep up with him. You know we can’t have some mortal walking around knowing as much about the clan as he knows. If you don’t get better, I might have to hunt him down and kill him after all,” he said, then immediately regretted it.
Maybe she couldn’t take hearing anything stressful right now. But if he knew Lauren at all, he knew she’d get pissed off and fight before she’d give in.
“So get better, so you can watch over that damn mortal. He’d be devastated if you died.”
Sebastian kissed her limp hand, then stood and kissed her forehead, too. “Get better, cousin,” he said. “Please get better.”
LAUREN WAS IN THE MIDDLE of a black place. She felt as if she was suffocating from the blackness. There was nothing to see, nothing to touch, nothing to breathe. A sense of panic rose up in her, and then she realized she could breathe after all.
Her lungs still worked in the blackness. In, out, in, out. She simply had to will them to work, and they did.
But she could see nothing and feel nothing, except for a piercing pain in her chest. It would not go away, instead grew more and more intense.
And then, nothing.
Blackness.
Later, Sebastian’s voice. Some part of her watched him talking to her, only half hearing the words. Some part of her sat above them both and felt a heavy sadness that would not go away. She wanted to comfort him, to tell him that all his fighting on her behalf was for nothing and that he should let her go. But she could not.
Later still, more blackness.
And then a fading to brown, to red, to pink, to white. She felt lighter than air, and the pain was gone, or else she simply had entered a place where she could not feel.
She saw herself lying on the bed, and Sebastian was beside her again. He was talking to her, but she heard no words. Her sadness was gone, and she felt only light. She felt as if she had become white light, and she was floating, filling up the space with lightness. There was no longer any part of her connected to that old body, that dying self.
She regarded herself curiously and wondered if she was dead.
Later still came the nightmares, the horrific images of the moments before the bullet had grazed her heart. She saw Carson, with the gash on his head and, she sensed, other injuries not so easily apparent. She saw Sebastian killing the two men who’d been chasing them, and she saw the bodies tossed into the surf. She saw herself, bleeding on the sand, her body lifeless.
She felt as if she was trapped in a nightmare she could not wake from, and she wanted to scream, to pull herself away from the pain and the fear and the sadness. She imagined that she was crying out and thrashing on the bed, and then she could hear her own voice, a dreadful moan. But she didn’t know whether she was asking for life or death.
16
THE PROBLEM with giving up his fast-track career, Carson discovered, was that he then had to figure out what the hell to do with himself.
“Catch!” Macy called out, and Carson held up his hand and caught the set of keys careening toward him.
“What’re these for?” he asked.
“Can you lock up the office when you’re done?”
“Sure, where you going?” he asked as he saved the file he was working on.
“Griffin should be back in a minute, and we’ve got an off-site meeting with a potential new client.”
Macy and Griffin’s receptionist had quit a week ago, leaving them screwed until they hired someone new. Carson, suddenly free of a job himself, offered to help them out in the interim.
He hadn’t mentioned the fact that he didn’t feel like being alone and useless right now, not when he had no idea what had happened to Lauren, and no one to even ask if she was okay.
He’d thought of driving back to L.A. to find Sebastian and demand to know the truth, but part of him was too afraid to make the trek right now. What if the news wasn’t what he wanted to hear? What if she hadn’t survived? Part of him had to know the truth, and part of him was too much of a goddamn coward to face it right now.
He’d only started feeling halfway himself again a few days ago. After hitchhiking back to San Francisco thanks to the mercy of a truck driver who hadn’t been too put off by his scruffy appearance, a trip to the hospital had confirmed he had a concussion, was in need of sixty stitches, and had suffered various other minor injuries.
He’d been bruised from head to toe, had a fractured rib, and two of his fingernails were missing. The hospital staff had eyed him warily when he swore he couldn’t remember what had happened, and they’d forced him to file a police report, but he’d avoided revealing any details about Lauren or her family, or the men who’d been after them.
“What’s wrong?” Macy asked.
“Hmm?” he said, jarred out of his thoughts.
“You spaced out there for a minute. You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
Carson shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
Macy came back from the doorway and sat on the edge of the desk. “Griffin and I are worried about you. That’s the real reason we’re letting you work here, because, frankly, you suck as a receptionist.”
She smiled at him, but he could barely muster the energy to smile back.
“Are you sure that head injury didn’t do any permanent damage?”
Griffin came into the office. “Hey, gang’s all here. What’s going on?”
“I was just telling Carson that we think he’s turning into a nutcase,” Macy said.
Griffin smiled. “I thought we weren’t supposed to use the word nutcase around the n-u-t-c-a-s-e.”
“Funny, asshole. I’m fine. I’m just suffering a…you know…broken heart or whatever. Cue the violins now please.”
He turned back to the computer monitor and opened a Web browser, intent on looking busy so they’d leave him alone.
“Is that really all it is?” Macy asked. “You weren’t probed by aliens or anything while you were gone?”
“That would have been preferable to being dumped, but no, no extraterrestrial probings occurred.”
“Damn,” Griffin said.
“Don’t you two have to be somewhere?” Carson asked, glancing meaningfully at his watch.
“Nah,” Griffin said. “I forgot to tell Macy, the meeting’s postponed an hour.”
“It’s about time you fill us in on what really happened with Lauren,” Macy said. “She’s my best friend, after all. I think I deserve to know what’s going on with her.”
Carson sighed. He’d been bracing himself for the inquisition, and he knew he couldn’t make any more excuses. It was time to make up a really good lie.
“Far as I know,” Carson said. “Lauren’s fine. She swore me to secrecy about her whereabouts and the reason she had to disappear so quickly from the city, but I can assure you when I left her, she was her usual self.”
“I don’t get it. Why’d you show up back here looking like you’d had the hell beaten out of you?” Griffin asked.
“I told you, my rental car broke down on the way to Carmel for a little soul-searching getaway. A couple of guys robbed me and kicked my ass when I was trying to hitchhike to the next town.”
“Did these guys have, you know, green skin, weird bulbous heads, long probing fingers?”
“Shut the hell up,” Carson said, but he couldn’t help laughing. It felt good to laugh at something, even if for a moment.
“Did Lauren give you any idea when we’d hear from her again?”
“No, I think she’s gotta lie low for a while. But she told me to assure you she really is fine, and she’ll be in touch as soon as she can.”
Macy was twisting her long blond hair around her finger,
and her mouth formed a thin line, but she seemed to accept his answer this time. “If you say so, but if I don’t hear from her soon, I’m going to hire a P.I. and start tracking her down myself.”
Carson shook his head. “I don’t think you want to mess with Lauren. She seemed adamant that we leave her alone for now.”
At least he’d gotten through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms since being apart from Lauren. His hands had stopped shaking, he hadn’t needed a cigarette in days, and he was down to three cups of coffee in the morning. He even slept on occasion, though not for long, and not without nightmares.
Memories of his time in captivity had started coming back to him. Snapshots of unpleasant and painful moments, torture, his pretending to cooperate with his captors to save himself, only to be tortured even more, and then find that he still had managed to lead Lauren right into their hands.
He would never forgive himself for that.
“There you go again, spacing out,” Macy said.
He looked up at her and saw the worried expression on her face.
“Why don’t you skip the receptionist gig and come with us to this meeting?” Griffin asked. “We could use your creative expertise.”
Carson shook his head. “I’d love to help you out, but my advertising days are done.”
Griffin shrugged. “Okay, but the offer stands—you can come work with us any time you change your mind.”
“I think I’ll stick with playing computer games,” Carson said, and navigated to an online game site.
Coloring flashing blocks and mindless Ping-Pong computer games were about the most challenging things he cared to manage at the moment.
“Okay, I guess we’ll head on out and beat the traffic,” Griffin said, and he and Macy left the building.
Alone, Carson stared at the computer screen without really seeing it. This was the part where he was supposed to be putting his life back together and moving on. This was the part where he was supposed to be relieved to have survived.
But all he felt was miserable. All he felt was that he should have been the one to die.
“COUSIN?”
It was Sebastian’s voice. Lauren had been hearing it for what seemed like forever, but now she could hear it more clearly. She opened her mouth and croaked a reply.
“Sebastian,” she said. Her voice sounded as though her throat had been stuffed with dry leaves.
She opened her eyes and saw a soft overhead light. Next to her, she could hear the beep of some kind of medical machine, and she could hear Sebastian’s voice again.
“Lauren, you’re going to be fine. I’ll get you some water,” he said.
She watched him leave the room and come back not with a glass, but with a syringe of water. He put it to her lips and told her to swallow as he gently pressed a little at a time into her mouth.
“The doctor said your throat would be dry, and you’d be hungry, but that you should not take in too much food or drink at once.”
Lauren swallowed the water. It felt good against her parched throat.
“What happened?” she said. “Where am I?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at her. It was rare for Sebastian to smile, and it surprised her, even in her current groggy state.
“We’re at cousin Dmitri’s house. I’ll explain it all soon enough. For now, you should rest.”
“Carson,” she said. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
Sebastian’s smile disappeared, but she sensed none of the hostility she’d come to expect. “He’s fine. Don’t worry about him.”
“Thank you for not hurting him,” she said. “He’s someone I care very much about.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
But she didn’t think he really knew. Not the full extent of it. She herself hadn’t known, until they were on the beach together, and she sensed her life was about to end.
At that moment, all the pretense had fallen away, all the surface crap that didn’t matter vanished, and she’d been filled with one solid, unmistakable emotion.
“You were shot in the heart, but it looks like that vision of yours wasn’t quite true.”
She smiled weakly. “I think I did die,” she said. “But I guess I couldn’t have known I’d come back to life.”
“Thank God you did.”
“How long was I dead?”
“Dmitri doesn’t know for sure. Apparently it wasn’t long, or else you’d have suffered serious brain damage, according to him.”
“Wow,” she whispered. “Close call.”
“Can you remember anything?”
She nodded, not really ready to talk about it.
He smiled. “Do you feel brain damaged?”
“Not any more than usual.”
“I’m supposed to ask the nurse to come in and check you out. I guess she’ll ask you some questions and stuff to make sure you’re still playing with a full deck.”
“Thank you,” Lauren said. “I know you saved me, and I know you were with me here the whole time.”
He said nothing for a while, and then, “I could not have lived with myself if I’d let you die. I hope you can forgive me for screwing up your vision.”
She smiled, but tears filled her eyes. “I forgive you, of course. I didn’t want to die.”
But she hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted to stay alive until she’d felt Carson’s body, alive against her, shielding her dying body from the gunfire.
“Your sister’s going to be overjoyed to hear from you. We’ll call her in a little while, once you’re feeling able.”
Corinne. She missed her baby sister so much right now. She wanted to see her. “Can she come here?”
“I don’t think it would be safe, but we’ll get you two together as soon as we can. She was devastated when she heard you’d been shot. I think you were right about that part at least—she might have finally gotten the reality check she needed to understand it’s time to stand up to The Order.”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to die for her to get the message.”
“Me, too,” Sebastian said, grasping her hand in his. “We all are. How did you know I was with you all this time?”
“I could see you—I could see us both at times. I was sort of watching the whole thing from up above.”
“Wow,” he whispered. “Maybe you can tell me more later.”
“How long was I unconscious?”
“For almost a week.”
She wanted to demand he find Carson for her, bring him to her immediately, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. If she cared at all about the mortal, she would stay away from him for good.
“I’d better go get the nurse,” Sebastian said, and he left the room.
Lauren tried taking a deep breath, wincing only a little at the pain in her chest. She looked down at her injured body, covered in a crisp white sheet, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that she was alive.
Maybe a near-death experience was what it took to make her understand what mattered in her life. And if so, she was grateful for the bullet that had pierced her chest. Growing within her, she knew, was a will to overcome her injuries, overcome her fears, and overcome anything else that stood in the way of witches never living in fear again.
Lauren would be there to see the uprising. She would be there to help lead it. She would never again live in fear.
17
LAUREN SPENT NEARLY two weeks at Dmitri’s house recovering. There was nowhere else for her to go for the time being anyway. But finally, thanks to the witch trait of accelerated powers of healing, she was strong again, and she was restless, and she made preparations to leave. Sebastian wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but he’d already mother-henned her half to death.
She wasn’t sure yet where she would go, but she knew she had to leave. Standing on the front steps of Dmitri’s house, she felt a hand on her arm, and she turned to see Sebastian.
“If you continue, cousin, you’re signing up for your own dea
th for real this time,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not free to wander around anymore. You have to be more careful than ever.”
“I’m not going to keep living in fear of The Order.”
“It isn’t just them. Aunt Leda told me the elders have put a death order on you if you’re found consorting with a human again.”
Lauren blinked at the news. Her body took a moment to register it, and then she felt the weight of her burden settling in her stomach. Her family was supposed to love her and protect her, not order her death. Or, at least, that’s what normal families did. Not for the first time in her life, she wished like hell she hadn’t been born a witch.
She jerked her arm out of Sebastian’s grasp. “And what? I survived getting shot just so you can carry out my murder like a good little soldier?”
Sebastian leveled his cold gaze at her. “I would never harm you, Lauren. You should know that by now. But you’re putting me in a difficult position. My job is to protect witches, and you’re making it hard for me to do that when I’m having to expend all my energy on this goddamn mortal boyfriend of yours.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll get away from you. I can go on from here without your help.”
“Lauren, think about this. Is your life worth sacrificing for some mortal?”
“It’s not about that anymore. It’s about me being able to control my own destiny.”
Sebastian sighed. “I’m a supporter of the uprising as much as you are, but there are some rules we have to agree to live by if we want to survive.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you’re starting to sound like my mother.”
“Sorry, but head games aren’t going to work with me. Like your mother, I’m worried about you.”
“There are some rules I don’t agree with, and I’m not going to spend any more of my life trying to avoid breaking the elders’ archaic rules.”
“There’s nothing archaic about not mixing with humans. You’re going to dilute the power of the witch clan if you mate with a mortal and produce children.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
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