Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) (4 page)

“
She’s in her room. They
got her into bed,” I said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

The moment my feet crossed the
threshold, Chris sighed in relief. His stress and urgency
diminished. “She’s been asking for you,” he said to me.

I stopped, mid-stride. “Me?
Why?”

Fee appeared, a steaming mug in one
hand and a large plastic bag filled with what looked like dried
herbs in the other. Her expression was worn and tired but her eyes
were bright with purpose—and panic. “Tara, Wes, thank goodness.
Here.” She passed Chris the mug. “Come on, she’s asking for both of
you.” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed my hand and led
the way down the back hall toward Vera’s room.

Fee pushed open the door without
bothering to knock and we filed in after. It took me a minute to
find Vera amongst the mountain of blankets someone had layered over
her in the metal-framed bed.

At the sight of her narrow face and
sunken cheeks, a pang of guilt shot through me. It’d been days
since I’d last seen Vera. I’d been so busy with trips to Alex’s
bedside, babysitting temperamental Werewolves, and finding ways to
drown out the noise in my head, I’d only spoken to Vera a handful
of times. And even then, it’d been pleas for help with controlling
my own mental noise. Nothing about how she was coping with an
illness we’d yet to name.

She looked so small.

Fee sprinkled some of the herbs into
the mug Chris cupped, crushing them with her fingertips before
dropping them in. She took the mug from Chris and held it to Vera’s
lips, coaxing her to sip. Vera complied and then fell back against
the pillow with labored breath.

“
Tara.” Vera’s voice was
weak, no louder than a whisper. Wes nudged me forward and I moved
to the bed’s edge.

“
I’m here,” I said. Wes
pressed in behind me. Vera’s eyes flickered to him and she
smiled.

“
We’ll be out front until
the ambulance gets here,” Fee said from the doorway.

I twisted around. “You called an
ambulance? A human ambulance?”

Fee nodded. She hadn’t looked this sad
since we’d lost Bailey. “It’s the only thing we can do,” she said
quietly. “I can get her moved into the Hunter wing once she’s
admitted somewhere, but …”

I nodded as she and Chris disappeared
down the hall. Wes pressed a hand to my back. I was sure he meant
it as reassurance but it felt more like prodding toward something I
didn’t want to do. Slowly, I turned back to Vera. Pain showed
through the stoic mask she usually wore, along with
resignation.

I thought of a
conversation we’d had months ago at Wood Point, the Hunter boarding
school I’d been sent to last spring. She’d spoken of wanting more
time with me. Said she’d stayed away before, despite being related,
out of respect for my mother trying to protect me from this
world.
If I’d waited until you were legally
an adult, it might be too late. I might not be around that
long.

I’d blown her off, more frightened
than anything by the possibility of her visions about me being
true. Since then, I’d gotten to know her better, and I‘d learned
that family was a lot more than sharing the same DNA. Vera was
family because she cared, because she’d been there for me. And
lately, I hadn’t done the same for her.

Tears welled up.

“
Don’t cry,” Vera said.
“It’s not time.”

Hearing her say that made it worse,
like she knew there would soon be a time for tears.

I looked away, trying to blink them
back as I’d done earlier. “Vera, I’m so sorry, can we get you
anything?” I asked.

“
The bond,” she said.
“The
Draven
speaks
of the bond.” She raised her hand toward the small table in the
center of the room. On it laid her
Draven
, a family book passed down
through generations, cataloguing all things Hunter. The open page
depicted a printed drawing of a Werewolf and a human. Between them,
someone had penciled in the image of something half-human,
half-Werewolf. It connected to each of the two figures by the tips
of its fingers. Arrows had been drawn to the head of each and notes
scrawled beside them. I strained to read it from where I stood but
I couldn’t make it out.

Vera had been looking into the bond
for weeks now. After all this time with no news, I’d given up on
her ever finding anything.

“
What does it say?” I
asked.

Wes leaned closer against my
shoulders. “Does it give a cure?” he asked.

Vera shook her head. “To cure yourself
would be to condemn them.” She coughed, a heavy, bone-deep sound.
With each expelled breath, her shoulders racked and shook. I
offered her the mug Fee had left but she waved me away. After a
deep breath she said, “They retain themselves through their
connection to you.”

“
I don’t understand,” I
said. “What do you mean ‘retain themselves’?”

“
Their humanity. It’s … a
product of your connection.” I could hear her wheezing and though I
had a million questions about what she was telling me, I let it go.
I hated to do anything that would make her worse and right now,
talking seemed high on the list.

“
I will look into it.
Thank you, Vera,” I said.

“
Tara … I didn’t get as
much time with you as I would’ve liked,” Vera began.

Guilt pricked at me. “I know, I’m
sorry. I—”

“
No, it’s nothing to be
sorry for. I want you to know the choice is …” she paused to
swallow, which seemed to take a lot of effort. “The choice is
always yours.”

“
The choice for
what?”

“
The paths I see for you.
There are still two. There are always two.”

I shuddered as I
remembered the last time I’d heard her say that. Two paths, she’d
said. That in itself wasn’t terrifying. What she’d said after
tended to make my heart beat triple time.
You may or may not find your way. If you do, it’ll be the best
thing that ever happened to either society. If you don’t, it will
kill you.

No big deal.

“
Vera, I—” The sound of
her coughing drowned out my words. I reached for the mug again,
ready to offer her another sip.

Before I could bring it to her lips,
Wes stiffened and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Tara,” he
said.

I looked down. Vera’s eyes were
closed, the lids so purple and thin, I imagined seeing straight
through them to her irises. I set the mug aside, panic bubbling up.
“Is she …?”

Wes reached around me and held two
fingers to the side of Vera’s neck. I held my breath.

“
She’s alive.”

After he said it, I noticed the faint
rise and fall of her chest.

The door opened and Fee walked in
followed by a man and a woman carrying a stretcher between them.
Both wore white shirts with a red cross emblazoned across the left
corner.

“
Oh, what happened?” Fee
asked, alarm registering on her face when she caught sight of
Vera.

“
Don’t worry, she’s
breathing,” Wes said. He pulled me out of the way so the female
paramedic could work. “She passed out,” Wes said to the woman as
she slipped a blood pressure cuff onto Vera’s arm.

The woman nodded and they went to
work, spreading supplies across Vera’s blanketed body as they
worked. I stood against a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with Wes and
Fee, each of my hands in one of theirs. Fee’s shook slightly as
they loaded Vera onto the stretcher and began wheeling her toward
the door.

Fee’s hand slipped free of mine as she
moved to follow. “I’m going to ride with them. Can you …?” She
looked at Wes questioningly.

“
Go,” he said, waving her
out. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

“
Thank you,” she said,
flashing him a tight smile before disappearing into the
hall.

Wes followed her out. I could hear him
assuring Fee he would call Jack and my mom to let them know to meet
her at the hospital.

The front door opened and
closed.

I stayed where I was.

If you don’t, it will kill
you.

Most days, I didn’t give extra thought
to those words. It was like my brain knew it would be too much, so
I cast it aside. But the way Vera had looked, the resignation in
her eyes, made me think she knew more about my choice and what was
coming than she’d let on.

One of Vera’s gifts was a clairvoyance
of sorts. I’d learned it was based on people’s current choices and
the future could change if we chose a different path. At first, it
had unsettled and scared me to learn she’d glimpsed me leading The
Cause with Wes by my side. Most days, it still did. So did the
second path she spoke of. Seats on the Hunter council were a
birthright, passed down to each generation. In my case, my mother
had chosen to be skipped. After losing my father when I was a baby,
she wanted no part of a Hunter life, including a seat with CHAS.
Especially that. And so it would fall to me when Grandma stepped
down. If CHAS—or Steppe—didn’t arrest me first.

The part about Wes had always fit,
even before I really believed what she was saying. But me being a
leader? I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t want it. That kind of
pressure and power, holding people’s lives in my hands, it was too
scary.

Bailey’s death had been enough of my
fault that I wanted nothing to do with a position where my orders
or decisions would lead to more losses of those I cared about. What
if I messed it all up? What if I got everyone killed?

It seemed like death—or at least the
threat of it—was everywhere. First Bailey and then all those people
whose bodies had rejected the change to Werewolf. Now, Vera was
getting worse with an illness we’d yet to identify and had no way
to cure.

Alex’s face flashed in my mind but I
shoved it away. I refused to put him into that category. He wasn’t
going to die. He was going to make it. He would live to curse me
for biting him. And for me to beat him senseless for going behind
my back and bringing Kane and his strike team to the woods that
day.

I looked up at the sound of heavy
steps against the hardwood. I didn’t need to see to know who it
was. The familiarity inside my head was enough. He stepped through
the doorway, and I focused on the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in
front of me. It was a face I’d seen a million times, though his
expression at the moment was much more somber than the easy-going,
laidback look he usually wore.

“
Hi, George,” I said,
packing an apology into my words.

“
Come here.” He held his
arms out and I stepped into them, letting him pull me close. I laid
my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes.

Sometimes, our bond was helpful. It
was nice not having to explain with words what I’d been feeling—and
to finally be in a place of solid friendship with him again so that
I could appreciate his comfort. Not to mention that if Wes walked
in right now, I could rest easy knowing he wouldn’t try to bite
George’s head off—literally.

I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment
when it’d happened, but somewhere along the way, any romantic
feelings that had lingered between George and I after our breakup a
few months ago had dissolved, and we’d found our way back to being
friends.

Forging our bond had actually helped.
I thought it would’ve made things worse or more awkward, especially
for George, experiencing every single emotion that I did.
Especially the ones I felt for Wes. Or worse, Alex. Instead, George
had been there for me. An ear, a shoulder, a sounding board.
Whatever I needed. I’d come to rely on him almost as much as I did
Wes. And I loved him for it.

“
How’s Vera?” George
asked.

“
Unconscious,” I said, my
voice catching as I pictured her pale face and closed eyes while
they wheeled her out.

George hugged me tighter. Pleasant
thoughts washed over me, sent from his end of the bond to mine. I
knew it was his way of trying to cheer me up and I stood quietly,
soaking it in until the fear receded.

“
Feeling better?” he
asked.

“
I am,” I said. “Thank
you.”

George straightened, propping his chin
on the top of my head. Images flashed in my mind of the two of us
running as wolves. I had the distinct impression this was where his
happy thoughts stemmed from. George loved being a Werewolf. He’d
always been physically active and the strength his wolf side gave
him added to it. His competitive side had been heightened too and
now he loved making everything a contest.

“
You want to go for a
run?” he asked.

I almost said no. I wanted to go find
Wes, to offer him some comfort now that I’d recovered a little. I
knew he had to be as scared as me. He’d known Vera a lot longer
than I had and despite his hard exterior, I knew this stuff
affected him as much as it did the rest of us. Maybe
more.

But I’d been away from the hybrids too
long. “I need to check on things at camp. We could run there,” I
said, stepping out of his hold to look up at him.