It took a long moment for him to react. He reached up, dazed, and felt the fissures in his neck. Blood pumped through his fingers, flowing out of him like a floodgate had opened. I looked down at my hands. Not an ounce of blood, not even a trickle. Not a mark or a scratch or even a broken nail.
I looked back up as Vincent fell to his knees. Blood flowed in rivulets over his hand and down his arm, draining the life out of his eyes in seconds. He fell forward onto his face, and I covered my mouth, dumbfounded.
“How did you do that?” Cameron asked, clearly as surprised as I.
The only answer I could manage was a stunned shake of my head. Because I had no idea. Then an inkling of an idea surfaced. One I dared not acknowledge.
There was no way. I looked down at my hands again. They were shaking to the point of convulsions. But there was no way. Simply no way the demon inside could have somehow manifested through me, through my actions. Did Malak-Tuke kill Vincent? Those gashes were made by something long and sharp, and I remembered exactly what Malak-Tuke’s claws were like. It was the only explanation, but how?
Jared took my hands into his, drawing my attention. “Lorelei, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“They’re here!”
Someone called from a distance.
“They’re over here!”
“Did I just take someone’s life?”
Without answering, Jared scooped me into his arms. I felt his steps as we trekked over the uneven terrain. I felt cool air as he laid me on a stretcher. I felt weightless as they lifted me and carried me to an ambulance. Jared was beside me, holding my hand. Grandma was there too, crying and fussing. Cameron was talking to the sheriff, pointing to the top of the ridge where the authorities would find more bodies.
Then sounds blurred and bled together. Images faded and receded into darkness. And I drifted inside myself.
Are you in here?
My voice echoed in the darkness but received no answer.
Have you been here this whole time?
I heard a shift. Felt a stir of air.
I know you’re here. Inside.
A fine edge grazed across my ankle, like the tip of a very sharp claw.
There you are.
I knelt beside the sleeping dragon, folded myself into its wings, and slept.
NOAH
Hypothermia. That’s what they called it. I called it being freaking alive, and I couldn’t have been more grateful. After a group of crazy people tried to kill me, I got to miss another week of school beyond the week it was closed due to the shooting. I felt the absences justified. And I spent that week with one Mr. Jared Kovach. And Cameron, of course, who was becoming a permanent window fixture. And Brooke, who practically lived at our house anyway. And, naturally, Glitch.
I was never lonely, though privacy was quickly becoming an issue. There were just certain things boys didn’t need to know.
Luckily, Cameron and Jared had enough injuries to back up the we-were-attacked story. Lots of investigators were brought in, and we were questioned for days. Sadly, the descendants had killed Delores. Harlan, who had been in the basement, really did just fall asleep, and Mr. Walsh suffered a concussion when they knocked him out. The whole town showed up for Delores’s funeral. The guilt that gripped me that day was overwhelming, knowing she believed in what we were doing so vividly that she died to protect me.
Not so many showed up at Hector’s funeral, and I felt just as bad. He’d been programmed to do that shooting. But Cameron said that stuff worked only so far. That if he hadn’t wanted to do it, he could have fought it. I wasn’t so sure, especially after what Vincent said about Jared’s blood. My heart broke for his parents. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through.
With the sheriff backing everything we told the police and the district attorney, the authorities weren’t really questioning the whats. They seemed more concerned with the hows. How did the three of us defeat a dozen axe-wielding, machete-swinging cult members? Especially after one of us, namely Cameron, had been almost fatally wounded two days before?
If they dug very deep, they would find a connection to a similar cult catastrophe and my paternal grandfather. It would raise some brows for sure. I hoped they wouldn’t dig. But until then, we were just basking in the fact that none of us were in jail. And we were freaking alive.
I was still floored that Cameron was able to show up in the forest at all. His and Jared’s ability to heal was unfathomable. And very much appreciated.
I was still sore a week later. Being shoved, thrown, tossed, and dragged by the head wreaked havoc on us mere mortals. Not to mention almost frozen to death. So while Cameron was out playing tag football after receiving four gunshot wounds to the chest, and Jared was giving him a run for his money after getting shot with a .50-caliber sniper rifle only days earlier, I was sitting on the parking lot sidelines—aka, the sidewalk—trying not to grimace too hard when they dented a fender here, crumbled a brick house there.
“They need help,” Brooke said, sitting beside me and holding out a hot chocolate.
I took it with an oddly elated sense of glee. Hot chocolate. How would I be able to live without hot chocolate for all eternity when I finally did bite the dirt?
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Brooke asked me as we watched Jared put Cameron in a choke hold.
“Are those even legal?” Glitch asked from my other side. He sat drinking his usual whipped almond toffee cappuccino with nonfat milk.
We enjoyed watching them play, then cringed when Cameron flipped Jared over his shoulder and slammed him onto the ground.