Avenge (18 page)

Finally, James nodded once and Adam
stood up. “Can you please escort Lucy back to her room? She needs
to rest. Lucy, I don’t want you to leave there until I come and
talk to you again in a little bit, okay?”

“
What the hell, James? Now
I’m being grounded ‘cause I yelled a little? I’m sorry, okay? Is
that what you want to hear, you bastard?” I sat back down and
crossed my arms over my chest. They weren’t getting rid of me that
easily.

“
Lucy, we can discuss this
later. Right now, I think it’s best that you try to get some sleep.
This is not a punishment. We’re simply looking out for you. Adam
will walk you back and stay with you until I get there.”

At this directive, Adam gently curled
his hand around my arm and pulled me closer to him, guiding me
toward the door. I tried to shake him off but couldn’t. His grip
was too strong, and I knew if I fought him, I’d only end up being
carried away forcefully. “We’re gonna fix this, Lucy. I know you
don’t really feel it now, but you’ve gotta have a little faith in
us. Now go rest.”

We were silent on the way back to my
Dwelling. I couldn’t believe the bastard actually kicked me out,
and then sent this brute as a babysitter to make sure I stayed a
good little girl. I was fuming, and all I wanted to do was cry. The
anger mostly receded, and once again I was hollow.

I opened the door to my Dwelling and
crawled into bed, pulling the covers over me as the tears began
once again to flow. Frenchie hopped up on the bed next to me and
cuddled into my side. Adam flipped the desk chair around before he
took a seat, but didn’t say anything or offer comfort in any way.
After a few minutes, I peeked my head out to see if he left. Maybe
the sound of girls crying made him uncomfortable enough to want to
leave.

He was still sitting in exactly the
same position, backwards straddling the chair with arms crossed on
top of the backrest. He tossed me a box of tissues, and I gave him
a small smile.

“
Lucy, you know I’m not one
for blowing smoke or sharing feelings, right?”

I eyed him suspiciously, wondering
where he was going with this. “Yeah, so?”

“
I’m worried about you. We
all are. I think the vampires did something to you. You haven’t
been the same since you’ve been back.”

I scoffed. “Would you be? If you’d
been tortured, been a meal for weeks, and then had the love of your
life ripped away from you? What if it had been Cassie?”

“
There’s more to this,
Lucy. You’re all over the place. One minute, you’re seething in
anger and shaking so bad you’d think you were in the Arctic with no
coat, the next minute you’re crying so hard I wanna scoop you up
and hug you for a year. But before I can, you shake it off and try
to be strong and act like nothing is going wrong. Do you see how we
might be a little concerned?”

“
I think you’re
exaggerating a bit here. I’m not that bad.” I balled up the tissue
I was holding and hid it, like evidence of the things he was
accusing me of.

“
Lucy, I want you to do me
a favor, okay?”

His tone was so overly sweet I rolled
my eyes. “What is it?”

“
I want you to look at
yourself in the mirror.”

“
What?” If I imagined all
the favors he was going to ask me, this wouldn’t have even made my
top 1,000. “Seriously?”

“
Yes,
seriously.”

I huffed, keeping to myself how stupid
this was since he’d made his opinion of my attitude clear. “Fine,
whatever.”

Chapter
Twenty-One

“
So you want me to look in
the mirror? What exactly is that going to accomplish?” I knew Adam
could hear the bite to my tone, and I didn’t care. His arms were
crossed over his chest, and he nodded for me to get on with it. I
huffed loudly to make sure he knew this was stupid and ridiculous,
but went to the armoire that included a full-length mirror inside
the door and opened it.

I drew a sharp intake of air seeing
the horrifying image before me. My hands shook, terrified that the
image projected was really me. “How long have I looked like
this?”

I couldn’t believe the image I saw
before me. My once bright blue eyes were now almost completely
black. The iris nearly disappeared, leaving a tiny sliver of blue
on the outside edge. The image reflected back to me looked evil,
pure and simple. There was malice swirling in my eyes, and I was
frightened that I could have that in me.

I wanted this to be a joke, with
hidden cameras shoved inside my stuffed bear and for Cassie ready
to pop out and yell “gotcha!”, but I knew it wasn’t. That angered
me. It enraged me to think that I could have changed into something
I despised, and knowing that they all knew—they KNEW I looked like
this and kept it from me made me see red.

As I stood, still staring at myself in
the mirror, I saw the small amount of blue that remained in my eyes
recede and now they resembled black holes or hollow orbs. This only
further enraged me. I was furious that I was losing every piece of
myself and couldn’t seem to do anything to stop it. I balled my
hands into fists and wanted to cry.

“
Luce.” Adam’s hand lightly
brushed my shoulder, like he wanted to comfort me but wasn’t sure
he should. “You can’t let it take control. You have to fight it. I
don’t know what’s happening to you, but I know you’re stronger than
this.”

My lip quivered. I knew he was right,
but that knowledge terrified me at the same time. I closed my eyes
and took a few deep breaths, focusing instead on the love I knew my
team felt for me. When my eyes flickered open again and I stared
back into the mirror, the blue returned slightly. This gave me
hope, and the ball of nerves currently residing in my stomach
loosened a fraction of an inch.

“
What do I do?” I
whispered, afraid if I spoke too loud I would cause it to wake up
and take over again—whatever the “it” was.

“
We keep you calm. It seems
to be worse when you get upset.”

“
Has everyone seen this?
How long has this been happening?” I covered my face with my hands,
now horribly embarrassed.

“
It’s
been getting progressively worse. James was the first to notice
when you blew up at the meeting a few weeks ago. But that stuff
isn’t what’s important right now. We need to keep you, well,
you
for as long as
possible. So, I put some music onto your iPod—Jewel, Norah Jones,
Adele, and some other sappy chick stuff. Go and take a bubble bath.
That always mellows Cassie out.”

The thought of the warm water with
lavender and vanilla scented bubbles surrounding me as I relaxed in
the candlelight and listened to music sounded like the best idea
ever. When I nodded, Adam stood up and went to the door. “I’m going
to wait in the living room. Take your time. I’ll be here if you
need anything.”

*****

I wanted nothing more than to take a
bubble bath, but my nagging mind wouldn’t let me relax until I knew
what was happening with the rest of the team. It wasn’t like Cassie
to keep things from me, so that tipped me off that something was
very, very wrong.

I waited a few minutes and cracked the
door, just an inch to make sure the hallway was clear. I heard the
football game in the living room and knew that Adam was engrossed,
so I slipped out my bedroom window, clinging to the ledge before
effortlessly dropping the two flights to the ground. I tucked my
body to absorb the impact, glad that as a Patronus such a fall
would barely register a pain level. Once outside, I hurried into
the woods and used my bracelet to gain access to the rear entrance
to the Gideon facility. As soon as I entered, I could hear
voices.

Taking a deep breath, I took two steps
forward before slinking down into a squat. The voices were clearer
now, and I held my hand over my mouth when I heard what they had to
say.

“
This has got to be the
last straw, James,” Cassie said. “I am really worried, and it’s
only getting worse. We have to do something. Have you seen her
eyes? We’re losing her!”

“
We’ve all witnessed her
since she’s been back,” Lola agreed. “I’m afraid Cassie’s right. If
for no other reason than her own protection.”

“
Tell me what you’ve seen,
Marco. When she goes off like that, what’s happening in her head?
Maybe that can help us figure out how to fix this.”

A chair squeaked, presumably Marco
standing up. I knew whatever he was about to say was bad, and my
shoulders hunched, fearing the worst.

“
I’ve been watching her
closely over the last week, trying to assess the situation. I
noticed it when she first got back, but couldn’t quite put my
finger on what was wrong.”

“
What do you mean?”
Cassie’s voice was tight, and I knew her blood was boiling. “You’ve
known the whole time that something is wrong and you didn’t say a
word? You kept it to yourself instead of coming to us so we could
have figured this out sooner?”

“
Cassie—” James
warned.

I slid my body a few more inches,
desperate to see what was going on. I tilted my head until I had a
view of the room where the rest of the team gathered. Cassie
smoothed her skirt down and closed her eyes to regain her
composure.

“
Twenty-four years with
Daddy taught me to bite my tongue against the absurdities of men.
So I won’t comment with what I wanted to say.” She paused. “You
were sayin?” She looked at him sweetly and urged him to
continue.

Marco chuckled, obviously reading her
thoughts based on the look on his face, but didn’t comment. “When
she first arrived back here, I could tell that something was off.
Her thoughts had always been so clear, like spring water in a
stream. But now they’re murky, polluted. Something is tainting her,
and I’m having a harder time weeding through the muck to read her.
The most intriguing part is the ebb and flow of it all.”

“
What do you
mean?”

Marco thought for a minute. “Think of
it like a red sock in a wash full of whites. Her thoughts were once
all white and clear, but now every once in a while something
injects a red sock into them, muddying everything up. That’s when
she has an outburst. But then, the red drops of dye get diluted,
and her thoughts become clear again. Except they’re not as clear,
now they’re slightly pink. Whatever the dye was is still there, and
with every new drop of red dye, the more stained she becomes. Every
outburst leaves her once-clear thoughts darker and
darker.”

Lola took a sharp breath in beside
Cassie and James closed his eyes, leaning his head against the
wall. Zander, never one to take things at face value or accept fate
without a fight, spoke up. “So what kind of bleach can we throw on
her to take the stains away?”

Cassie smiled and I knew why. This boy
was something else. He cut right to the heart of the matter and was
fiercely optimistic. Wow, was that an admirable quality.

“
Zander,
I think you’re quickly becoming one of my favorite people,” Cassie
told him. He blushed a deep shade of red and Marco choked on a
laugh.
Now what was that
thought
, I wondered.

“
Zander, you’re exactly
right. There has to be something we can do to get her back. But
first we need to figure out what’s causing this. Is it some sort of
after effect from the vampires? Did they give her something, or do
something to her? Right now, I’m afraid she’s a danger to herself,
or us. I’m going to quarantine her until we have this figured out,
and someone will have to stay with her to make sure she doesn’t
attempt escape.”

Elizabeth spoke up. “Do you think it’s
possible to use her somehow? To lead us to the vampires
maybe?”

James shook his head and steepled his
fingers. “I don’t think that’s the best way to go about this right
now. I can’t run the risk of doing more damage, or if—God
forbid—she is being used by them, I can’t have her leaking
information to them. Cassie—”

“
You don’t even need to
ask. Of course I’ll stay with her. Now gettin’ her to stay put
might be a problem. I can only give so many mani/pedi’s a day
before she’s gonna get suspicious.”