“Huh,” I said, brushing the moonstone pendant with my fingers as I took it off and handed it back to Daniel. “You know, I didn’t hear the wolf’s voice once during the fight.” The only time I had heard it was when I couldn’t decide what to do about Talbot’s truce. Keeping the wolf’s voice away seemed to be getting easier since I’d prayed for help at the hospital. I’d been hearing it less and less.
Daniel shut my door and got in on his side.
“What about you? Are you okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You were amazing in there. Like seriously, freaking amazing.” I poked him in the side. “Even with a bad arm! And you’re always going on about not being a hero? Whatever, that was awesome.”
“I don’t feel like a hero.” He gripped the steering wheel hard as he pulled out of the parking lot. “No matter what, I still feel like a monster.”
“You. Are. Not. A. Monster. We saved a lot of lives tonight. You saved them. That seems like the definition of a hero to me.”
“But how did I save them?” The muscles in Daniel’s throat tensed. I could see the pulse of his veins. “By killing. I hate that. Even though I’ve changed, transformed into whatever I am now, I’m still just a Death Dog. That’s what I do: I deal death.”
I sat back in my seat. Quiet. Not sure how to counter his words. Words he’d said with so much despair and disdain it made me ache.
I stared far out the window as we drove along the old country road away from Frightmare Farms. I hoped to never see that place again. Daniel stopped the car when we came to a red light at the intersection for the main highway. He flipped on the blinker to go left. A sign at the T-shaped intersection pointed one way toward Rose Crest, and the other way to Apple Valley and then on to the city. I couldn’t help thinking of my dad at City Hospital. I’d been so wrapped up in Daniel’s return and learning about Pete’s undeath, I hadn’t been there to see him yet today. But the thought of watching him lying there in that hospital bed again was almost too much to bear.…
Until an idea hit me and I sprang forward in my seat.
“Death is not the only thing you have to give. I’ll prove it to you.” I pointed at the intersection. “Turn right.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to the hospital.”
Daniel glanced at me with confusion, but he took the right turn anyway.
“I’m going to show you what you can really do. Who you really are.”
It was time. I may have failed before, but I knew that, hand in hand with Daniel, we could do what needed to be done. What we were meant to do together.
Chapter Twenty-four
GIFTS OF THE HEART
AT THE HOSPITAL, AROUND TWO THIRTY A.M.
I pulled the clothes we’d changed out of at April’s house from the trunk of the Corolla. Daniel and I took turns changing in the backseat while the other stood outside the car. Getting past the nurses’ desk at the ICU was going to be hard enough this time of night without our parading in there looking like a couple of emo-bandits. Plus, if my plan worked, I didn’t want my outfit to put my dad into cardiac arrest. I’d had enough of this hospital for a lifetime.
Getting past the nurses’ desk posed even more of a problem than I’d thought it would—even in my nice-girl ensemble. The ICU allowed visitors at night, but that didn’t change the fact that I was minor and not allowed there after dark without a chaperone—as the nurse at the front desk reminded me.
“But he’s over eighteen,” I said about Daniel. “Can’t he be my chaperone? We’re not staying overnight. Just give us twenty minutes. That’s all I need.” I made the saddest face I could possibly muster, wishing I had the talent to cry on demand. “I just need to see my dad. Pleeeease?”
The nurse didn’t seem amused. “Your friend may be over eighteen, but only family is allowed.”
“Maybe we should come back in the morning?” Daniel whispered, so soft only I could hear it.
I shook my head. I didn’t know if I’d be able to work up this much courage again. If we were going to do this, it had to be tonight.
I grabbed Daniel’s hand, lacing my fingers with his. “But he’s my fiancé,” I said. “I’ve read your visiting policies. That’s allowed.”
Daniel glanced at me, his eyes wide with surprise. Or perhaps shock. He looked away again, and I couldn’t get a read on his expression.
My heart sank a bit. So he really doesn’t remember what happened?
I squeezed his hand as if to say, Just play along with me. Daniel’s hand clasped mine a little tighter in response.
“Just happened,” Daniel said, rocking on his heels. “We came to tell her father the good news. Even if he’s unconscious, we wanted him to be the first to hear it. Besides you now, of course.” Daniel flashed her one of his most charming smiles, and even though the nurse had to be twenty years his senior, and clearly wasn’t buying the story, I could tell that she wasn’t going to be able to say no to him.
“Twenty minutes. That is all. You stay a minute longer, and I’ll call security. You don’t want to get barred from the ICU for the rest of your father’s stay.”
“Thank you,” I said as she handed me a couple of visitor badges. She glanced at my hand as I reached for them, no doubt searching for an engagement ring on my finger. I pulled Daniel along the hall as fast as I could without running before the nurse could change her mind about letting us in.
When we got to Dad’s room, I pulled the curtain partway closed over the sliding glass door the way Gabriel had. “We’re here to help you, Daddy,” I said, turning toward my still-unconscious father. Daniel stood quiet and still by his bedside, and I remembered that this was the first time he’d seen him in his injured state.
“I almost can’t recognize him,” he said with a catch in his voice. The swelling in Dad’s face had gone down considerably, but the bruising was much more pronounced. Like his whole face had been blotted with blackish-purple dye. “I’m glad you brought me to see him. But I don’t understand why we’re here, or what this has to do with me. How could I possibly help him?”
“We’re going to heal him.”
Daniel looked even more shocked now than he had when I announced our engagement. “How?”