A nurse approached us with a clipboard. “You’re the gentlemen who brought in the teenager and the premature childbirth?”
“Yes, how are they?” My stomach clenched.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. I’ll try to find out. But we need their information. Do you know their names? Are you next of kin?”
“Their names are Naomi and Jonathan Winters. They’re brother and sister. They’re… friends of ours.” I almost claimed kin status, but if I did, her parents would likely have me thrown out when they arrived. There was no way to keep their parents out of this. “Their mom and dad live in, um…” I dredged Naomi’s memories. “They live in Burgundy, about two hours from here.”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
I faltered, and Westley took over. “A woman with a knife. Trying to mug them, maybe. I don’t know, she didn’t seem right in the head. She ran off.”
“We’ll contact the police.” The nurse jotted on her clipboard. “I’ll try to find out how your friends are doing.” She bustled away.
A small eternity later, a man in scrubs came into the waiting room. I stopped pacing, sick with sudden fear.
“Your friend Jonathan is out of surgery,” he said. “He has a fractured arm, and a moderate concussion, but it looks like he’ll be all right.” He seemed a little shaken, and I wondered what effect Westley’s blood donation had had on the surgery.
“What about Naomi?” I asked.
“We haven’t been able to stop the labor. And we’re having… trouble controlling the bleeding. She fell down a flight of stairs, you said?”
“Pushed.” I tried to keep the snarl out of my voice. “She was pushed.” I took a calming breath. “Can I please be with her? I’ll stay out of your way. Please. I — I need to be with her.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible.”
A tense, wide-eyed nurse poked her head into the waiting room. “Doctor.”
“Excuse me.” The doctor rushed off.
I started to pace again, trying to keep up with my own heartbeat. There was blood on my hands and chest where I had held her against me for the shade. The weight and shape of her, limp and bleeding — was that going to be my last memory of her? Didn’t matter; it was unlikely that I’d outlive her by much. Good.
The spinning in my head came to a cold stop. Oh, crap. I meant that.
I sank into a chair, unable to draw in a complete breath.
Westley, I realized, was praying, with Emily’s rosary — usually worn under his shirt — now wrapped in his hands.
I’d gone to church as a child. Several churches, actually; my parents thought of themselves as theological explorers, of the many-paths-to-God type. Buddhism, Wicca, Shinto, Judeo-Christianity of all varieties, and their Tenebri variations; I’d seen bits of what felt like truth in each of them. But Claire had scorned religion, and when she was gone, there didn’t seem much for me and God to say to each other. I was already damned from every angle I could think of.
Hesitantly, I clasped my bloodstained hands together, as I had when kneeling by my bed as a boy, and closed my eyes. I know I don’t deserve a thing from you. I have a lot of nerve even asking. But I’m not asking for me. Naomi tries to do right by you. And now she and her baby need your help. Please help her. I held my breath to keep sobs at bay, but that didn’t stop the hot trickle from my eyes. Please don’t take her away from me.
.
They let me in to hold Naomi’s hand when it became clear the baby was coming. She didn’t wake up.
Her son weighed a little less than three pounds, but he was strong enough to cry — a tiny, thin wail like a punch to the gut. He was fragile and bony as a baby bird. He was also covered in blood.
NAOMI
I had a bad dream, Mommy. A vampire bit Jonathan and then I was falling, and it was dark and bright and dark again. There was a kitten that cried like a baby and a good vampire saying please please please but I don’t know what he was asking for. The Dread Pirate Roberts hissed at his cell phone You promised me you would wait. And then you and Daddy came and made everybody leave, and I cried because the good vampire was gone.
DAMON
Naomi’s mother was small and thin with a pinched face. Her red hair was cut unflatteringly short and threaded with gray. She thanked me and Westley for saving her children’s lives, and then, under threat of calling security, had a nurse escort us from the room.
“You go on home,” I told Westley. “I’m going to stick around.” The shadow of the IV pole was a rather tight fit, but only inches from Naomi’s shoulder.
“Was that necessary, Penny?” said Mr. Winters, sitting down by Naomi’s bed. Though his hair was solid white, he didn’t look that old — or didn’t until he looked at Naomi, pale and motionless in the bed. She looked strangely flat without her Wonder Tummy.
“Those boys were trouble. All that black leather. I am grateful to them for bringing the children here, but that doesn’t give them the right to impose on us at a time like this.” She stroked Naomi’s hair back from her face, brushed it down over her shoulders, straightened the covers. Her hands looked older than her face, brittle, quick but nervous. She turned to Jonathan, unconscious — but with much better color than Naomi — in the other bed in the room, and performed the same primping on him. Then she stood between the two beds, looking from one to the other, and dissolved into tears.
Her husband rushed to her, but she raised a hand to keep him back. “No, I’m fine, Burt, just give me a moment.” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and took a deep breath. “There. Falling apart isn’t going to help, is it? I’m all right.” Her face folded again, this time into sharp lines more than sad ones. “How could she not tell us she was pregnant? I’ll bet you anything Jonathan knew—”
“And how would you have reacted, Penny?” Burt said wearily.
“Such a nightmare, getting mugged by some crazy homeless woman — in this quiet little town! Only Naomi could end up in this situation, she seems to attract the absurd, the bizarre, the inappropriate… Oh, my poor baby…” She couldn’t swallow the tears this time, and permitted her husband to put his arms around her.
My attention abruptly left Mr. and Mrs. Winters as Naomi stirred — twitched her fingers, wrinkled her brow.
“M-mommy?”
“I’m here, baby, I’m here.” Penny took Naomi’s hand, held it to her chest, while Burt put a hand to her shoulder.
“Mommy… Daddy… hey…” She opened her eyes for only a moment, without focusing them. “Damon? Where’s Damon?”
It took everything I had not to step out of the shadow.
“Who, honey?” Penny asked.
“The boy in the leather jacket,” Burt murmured. “I can go see if—”
“Damon had to go, honey, but it’s okay, Mommy and Daddy are here. Jonathan’s here, too, he’s asleep.”
“What… about… the baby?” She dragged her eyes open again and twitched a hand toward her belly — her flat, empty belly. Her face crumpled with confusion and fear. “Where’s my baby?”
“He’s fine, honey, he’s in his little crib in the nursery.”
“But he’s… early…”
“He’s okay, sweetheart, he’s going to be just fine.”
Actually, the doctor had said that the baby was underweight even for a preemie. He was in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, hooked up to an oxygen tank. But, watching the tears slide down Naomi’s face, it was hard to blame her mother for lying.
“Where’s Damon?” Her eyes drifted closed again.
“He had to go, honey.”
“No, he — he wouldn’t go… would he? He came, right? I Called him…”
Her parents glanced at each other, frowning. Naomi’s phone was out of service, as none knew better than they.
“He left me?” She seemed too weak even to cry properly, tears welling over with no force behind them.
That’s it. I shaded to a spot just outside the door and ste
pped through. “I’m here, Naomi.”
Her parents whirled, Penny going stiff all the way down her spine.
“Damon!” Naomi reached out, and I pushed past the glaring parents, meaning only to clasp her hand, but once I touched her I couldn’t stop. I pulled her to me as gently as I could in my haste, pressing my cheek hard against hers. She was crying in earnest now, but from relief, arms twined weakly around my neck.
“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m here.” Nothing had ever felt as good as holding her, still warm and breathing.
“I thought you’d left me.”
“No.” I kissed her, much more gently than I wanted to. “No. I’m never leaving you again.”
NAOMI
“She needs to rest,” Mom said, her body language screaming Get your trashy felonious-looking self off my daughter.
“Yes, she does,” Damon sighed, and settled into the bedside chair, keeping hold of my hand. I couldn’t stop looking at him. Worry for the baby, for Jonathan, for my parents’ reactions — all seemed to, not disappear, but wait patiently for a better time, as long as Damon was here.
“I think she’ll rest better if you go now,” Mom said.
“I don’t.” He kept his eyes on me, as if Mom barely existed.
“What happened?” I asked. “Is Westley okay? And Jonathan?” I tore my eyes away from Damon to look at the other bed, where my little brother lay still.
“Jonathan’s going to be fine,” Damon said. “Westley… saved him. He’s okay, too. He went home.”
“I want to see my baby. It’s a boy?”
“Yes, it’s a boy. He has red hair, like you.” Dad smiled. “We’ll take you to see him soon. Right now, you should try to sleep, let your body heal. You lost a lot of blood.”
I glanced at the needle feeding red fluid into my arm. “That seems oddly appropriate.”
Mom and Dad frowned, but a laugh lurked in Damon’s eyes. I smiled, brushing my thumb back and forth across his fingers, and let myself go back to sleep.
.
I woke to the sound of Jonathan’s voice, slurred and scared and very young.
“Mommy? Mom? Where are we?”
“Your parents went to the cafeteria,” Damon said, crossing the room to his side. “It’s all right, you’re safe. Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Teeth… Naomi, where’s—”
“I’m right here, Jonnie,” I called. “I’m okay.”
He turned his bandaged head toward me, eyes wide and darting around the room. “Naomi! You’re — you’re in danger? I don’t understand.” He raised a hand to his head. “I don’t… remember that. Why do I remember that? Who’s Emily?”
I felt my eyes widen.
“Jonathan,” Damon said.
“You!” Jonathan gasped. “I know you! When we were kids, you — no, no, I’ve never met you.” His voice was shaking now. “I don’t understand.”
“Jonathan, I’m a friend of Westley’s.”
Jonathan froze. “Westley,” he repeated.
“Yes. He saved your life. He gave you his blood.”
Jonathan stared at Damon, the fear on his face fading into intense concentration. “Blood,” he whispered. “It worked?”
“What did Westley do?” I asked.
“You know how human blood heals Shadows?” Damon said. “It works the other way around, too.”
“You’re saying Jonathan has Westley’s memories?”
“Yes. All of them, not just the last three months. Jonathan, it was the only way to save your life.”
Jonathan put a hand to his throat — his perfect, uninjured throat. “Will it go away?”
“It’ll get… better.”
“But,” I said, “you said Shadow bodies don’t know how to heal. How can your blood heal us?”
“It doesn’t actually heal, it kick-starts your own systems, puts everything into a super-redline-overdrive that you could never achieve on your own. It’s even been known to re-start a stopped heart — or stop a beating one. It’s definitely a last resort.”
I looked at my brother. He didn’t even know Shadows existed. And now he remembered being one.
“Where is Westley?” Jonathan demanded. “I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll tell him to come as soon as possible.”
Jonathan winced, rubbing his temples. “None of it makes any sense!”
“You hit your head,” Damon said. “Concussion can do some odd things to the process…”
“I was dreaming. I think. About you and Naomi being in danger. Even now that I’m awake, I can’t get away from the feeling that you’re in danger. Even though I’m looking right at you and you’re fine.” He stared intently at me, as if trying to convince himself.
“That’s the mindset Westley was in when he gave you his blood,” Damon said, though he didn’t sound totally confident. “It’s the last, most vivid memory you got from him.”
“I guess. You… It’s weird, you being here. I barely know you, but I remember… no, Westley remembers.” He wiped sweaty hair from his forehead, looking confused and irritated.
“If it helps any,” Damon said, “I have three months of Naomi’s memories of you, which is pretty strange for me.”
“This is… this is crazy. I’m going back to sleep. Maybe this is a dream.”
Damon patted his shoulder. “Good luck with that, kid.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I murmured as Damon returned to my side.
“He’ll either adapt or have a psychotic break. That part’s up to him.”
He was alive, I reminded myself. Everything else could be worked through, as long as he was alive. “What happened to the… orphan?”
“She’s dead.” He hesitated. “I knew her, Naomi. She was one of mine for a while, but that didn’t work out. It doesn’t make any sense for her to have attacked you. Broad daylight, you weren’t alone, and you don’t glow outside the normal range anymore…”
“When she first got there,” I said, “she said something about not expecting me to have company. Like she was looking for me, specifically.” I shook my head. “Maybe she was just really hungry and happy to get both of us at once.”
Damon’s voice went so low I had to strain to hear. “I think she was sent. I think Liberty sent her after you.”
For a moment, all I could see was Martin Iverson’s mutilated body on blood-soaked carpet, words smeared on the window. LIBERTY OR DEATH.
“Naomi, no one is going to hurt you, not ever.” He touched my shoulder, forced me to meet his eyes, burning green like a driftwood fire. “I will protect you. Do you hear me?”
I nodded, and squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back, then turned to the window, and gazed through it unseeing for several minutes. He murmured under his breath, words I wasn’t sure I was intended to hear.
“It’s just because Westley was afraid for us when he gave the blood. It has to be. Has to be.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Parallel Lines
DAMON
While Burt and Penny micromanaged the doctor’s examination of Jonathan’s head, I helped Naomi to her feet.
“What are you doing?” Burt said in some alarm.
“I’m taking her to see the baby. If you feel up to it,” I added as her knees wobbled.
“Yes. Yes, I want to see him right now.”
I would have liked to carry her, but settled for pushing her in the provided wheelchair, while she held her IV pole out before us like a flag. I was glad enough for the wheelchair by the time we found the NICU; the exertion of sitting up had Naomi white and trembling, a condition that worsened as we gazed at the puppy-sized child in the incubator. He could not suck or swallow, so a tube gave him nutrient solution; his lungs worked, mostly, as long as another tube in his nose kept up the proper air pressure. Wires strung from electrodes kept careful count of his heart rate and respiration. His diaper seemed to swallow half his body.
“Hey, l
ittle guy,” Naomi murmured, tears trickling down her face. “Happy birthday.”
He stirred at the sound of her voice, twitching an arm and opening one muddy-blue eye.
Naomi gasped. “Did you see that? Hey, baby, you remember me?”
“Touch him,” said a nurse, working with another baby several feet away. “You’ve sterilized, right? Touch him as much as you can. Preemies need that.”
Naomi leaned hard on me and threaded a trembling hand into the box to stroke his wispy red hair.
My stomach felt hard and heavy. He was so small. Ribs no thicker than licorice sticks pressed against his skin.
“Have you decided on a name yet?” the nurse called over her shoulder.
“No,” Naomi said. “I-I’m still thinking.”
Naomi had wanted a girl, I remembered. Not that it seemed to matter now. She hadn’t looked away from her son’s face since we entered the room.
“I don’t even know what last name to give him,” she murmured. “I… I have to tell Tyler. That he has a son.”
“There’s time for that later,” I said.
“Is there, though?” The baby had closed his eyes again. She laid her hand on his tummy. “What’s worse, never knowing you had a child, or finding out just in time to… lose him?” Tears were streaking her cheeks again.
“Your baby has a very good chance,” the nurse said. “He’s breathing on his own. He’s responding to the world around him. I’ve seen babies in much worse condition pull through with flying colors.”
Naomi crossed her arms, shivering. “It’s my fault.”
“Naomi, you didn’t throw yourself down the stairs,” I said.
“No. It’s my fault he’s so small. I didn’t eat right, I knew I wasn’t gaining weight like I should, everything was just so… overwhelming and… and expensive and… I took my vitamins, I did! I should have tried harder—”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay.” I held her against my chest. She seemed so much smaller than usual. “You did the best you knew how. He’s going to be all right, he just needs time.”
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