Immortals And Melodies (Blood And Guitars #2) (30 page)

“You’re right,” I said.

Beck managed a smile, shaking his head at me. “Of course, I am. Besides, you’re in no condition to be starting a fight,” he said. “Come on. You look like you could really use some blood.”

I sat on the sofa while Beck went to the fridge to get us a drink. He returned a moment later with a glass of blood for each of us. He sat down across from me and took a sip of his. I held mine out in front of me, eyeing it tentatively.

“First drink from a glass?” he asked. “It’s not too bad. You get used to it.”

Technically my first drink from a glass had been with Aurora at Club Sanguin, but it hadn’t been solid blood, and I didn’t want to talk about that place just now. I brought the glass to my lips and took a drink. He was right. It wasn’t bad. The blood, although it had been chilled in the refrigerator, warmed me from the inside out as my body drew nourishment from it. With the warmth, the pain in my side worsened, but it still wasn’t enough to distract me. It wasn’t anything like drinking Aurora’s blood, but it gave me the pick-me-up I desperately needed.

Hana came out of the master bedroom a few minutes later carrying a small medical bag. “You look better already,” she said to me.

“How’s it going in there?”

She frowned at me. “We won’t know until Mark is finished.” I would have drilled her for more information, but somehow I knew it was useless. I’d have to wait for a real update from Mark. Hana gestured to the table with a sweep of her hand, holding up the medical bag. “Come on. Let me take a look at you while we wait.” Like a good little patient, I sat on the edge of the table for her. “First things first,” she said, and she placed the palm of her hand against the part of my throat that Malena had attempted to rip out. Lucky for me, Malena had been distracted. Not so lucky for Aurora. I would have given anything if Malena had spent her time mauling me instead.

I felt a cool tingling sensation where the wound was and saw that Hana had closed her eyes in deep concentration. After a moment, she looked up and pulled her hand away.

“I’m afraid that will have to do,” she said as she eyed my neck. “I’m not as skilled as Mark, but the wound has closed. The rest will take care of itself in time.” Next, she eyed the large bruise on my right rib cage in concern. “This will probably hurt,” she said apologetically.

“I’ll live,” I told her. Hana quickly checked me over, determining that I did indeed have two broken ribs. She used some medical tape from the leather bag to tape along them. I nodded and thanked her like it mattered, but my attention was focused on the sounds in the next room. Mark was on the phone with Antonio now. It sounded like the soonest Antonio could get a flight back was a day from now. Hana cleared her throat, and I blinked, realizing I’d been completely absorbed in my eavesdropping of the phone call. She handed my half-empty glass of blood back to me.

“Here, you’ll need this.” She scrutinized me, and I took a few gulps to make her happy. It seemed to work. “You need to be drinking blood every few hours,” Hana admonished. “Using the stash means it will take longer for you to heal up, but you should be good as new in a few days.”

I thanked her, forcing a half-smile for her. She smiled back, and I had the distinct sense that she felt sorry for me. That worried me as much as anything. The bedroom door opened just then, and Mark stepped out. He looked … exhausted, although that word didn’t begin to cover it. I didn’t know a vampire could look so haggard. I got to my feet, glass of blood still in hand.

“How is she?” He met my eyes briefly and then looked away. “She … she’s going to live, right?” I demanded. “I mean, she’s a vampire. We’re supposed to be immortal.”

“Immortal doesn’t mean invincible.” Mark stated, accepting the glass of blood Hana held out for him. “Surely, Aurora explained that to you.” He gestured to the living room, saying, “Why don’t we sit down and talk?”

Before I could argue with Mark, Hana gently took my arm and urged me forward. I let her lead me to the living room, but only because the doctor looked like he could fall over at any second. Using his moon-given ability to heal Aurora had really taken it out of him. I hoped that meant he’d managed to do it. I sat impatiently next to Beck while Mark downed his entire glass of blood at once. Watching Mark drink reminded me that I hadn’t finished my own glass yet, and I drank the rest of it quickly.

“How bad is it?” I asked. The suspense was killing me.

“Her femur was broken, along with her collarbone,” Mark began. The fall must have been responsible for those injuries. “I set the bones in place to heal. She has a pretty extensive head wound, which is probably why she’s unconscious.”

“What about the gaping hole in her chest?” I asked. I couldn’t stand the suspense.

Mark sighed. “I was able to remove the spindle and close the hole.”

That was good news, so why didn’t Mark look happy about it? “So, what’s the problem then?” I asked, wrinkling my forehead in confusion. “We’ll get her some blood when she wakes up, and she’ll be fine. It might take a few days, but she’s strong. I can take care of her.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.” Mark set his empty glass on the coffee table and leaned forward, interlocking his fingers. “I can’t tell how bad her head wound is. She could have a brain bleed for all I know. As for the spindle I removed, I closed the wound, but I’m certain I wasn’t able to completely repair all of the internal damage.”

“Why not?” My human voice would have cracked at the words.

“For one, I’m flying blind.” Mark shook his head slowly, and Hana reached over to touch his arm. “She’s bleeding internally, and X-ray vision isn’t exactly a vamp ability. The damage is just too much. I fixed the bleeds I could see, but I’d have to have an MRI to-”

“So let’s take her to the hospital,” I suggested. “You have all the equipment you need there.”

“And let all the human doctors see her extended fangs?” he said calmly. “The results of her blood work alone would spread rampantly through the hospital like wildfire. If I thought there was any way of pulling it off, I’d be hauling her there now, but I don’t think I can cover something like this up. Taking her to the hospital would be dangerous to all of us. The Synod would never stand for it. We’d be risking exposure and all our lives. We’d only be making a bad situation worse.”

“Then what are we going to do?” I begged.

“I’ve done all I can for her.” Mark looked away, unable to meet my gaze. “I put some of my blood into an IV since she’s not able to feed. It’s not ideal, but all we can do is wait and see if she wakes up. And if she does, we hope her head injury isn’t so severe that she isn’t herself anymore. We’ll keep an eye on her.” I didn’t like the defeated tone in his voice.

“That’s it?” I jumped to my feet, ignoring the pain that seared across the side of my chest.

“Normally, her body would regenerate on its own, even without feeding right away, but-” He bit down on his lip, unwilling to finish his sentence.

“But, what?” Even as I spoke the words, I realized what he was getting at. “It’s because of me,” I said. “Changing me … it weakened her.”

“Only temporarily,” Mark clarified, as if that changed things.

Of course, Aurora hadn’t told me what changing me would do to her. She didn’t want me to worry. In any other situation, she would have been fine. And she was having me feed from her. That was how it worked, but it couldn’t have helped. Then she got staked, and that sort of threw a wrench into the whole ‘normal’ scenario. I realized I’d been holding my breath, which wasn’t an actual problem, but I gulped down a mouthful of air out of habit. I felt Beck’s hand on my shoulder. I had done this to her.

Chapter 39

Aurora

I WAS SURROUNDED BY darkness, and Trey was nowhere to be seen. I wasn't certain what was happening, but I knew something was terribly wrong. I glanced around again for Trey, needing to find him, but all I could see in every direction was the blackness interspersed with small wisps of cool, grey fog. The last thing I remembered was fighting Malena. Trey had been there. He'd been trying to help me, but
Tytus
had gotten a hold of him from behind and was holding him back. And now I was here, in the midst of this great void. Had I blacked out? I'd never blacked out as a vampire. I had no idea what that might feel like. Then, an icy cold crept over me as I realized with chilling clarity that I might actually be dead. Maybe this was what death looked like for my kind. After cheating Mother Nature, is this where I was destined to live out the rest of my eternity?

But that wasn't the worst of it. Whether I was dead or not, I wasn't there with Trey, and surely he needed me. What would Malena do with him now that I was gone? Would it be enough for her to dispose of me, or would she finish the job she had originally intended and kill Trey, too?

I felt the insatiable need to search the blackness again for Trey, this time hoping against hope that I wouldn't find him. As much as I didn't want to be dead, the thought of Trey sharing that fate with me was unbearable. I wandered through the dark, drifting insubstantially around in the void and shouting Trey's name. To my relief, there was no response. But did that really mean that he was still alive, or was he searching for me in his own void?

The blackness around me began to shift, a scene forming all around me. Within several jarring seconds, I found myself riding in a car. It wasn't just any car, as I soon realized. I was riding in the car my parents had owned when they were alive. I was sitting in the backseat, and my younger brother Aiden was riding next to me, staring at the passing scenery out the window and listening to music with his headphones. My mother and father were in the front seat talking casually as my father drove.

I gasped in astonishment as I looked at them, studying their faces. I reached for Aiden, trying to touch his arm to get his attention. To my great disappointment, my hand went right through his as if I weren't a solid being. I opened my mouth to speak, calling out his name, but he just continued to look out the window as if he couldn't hear me.

In another futile attempt I tried to tap my mother's shoulder in front of me. Again, my hand passed right through her as if I were a ghost. I sat back, resigned to watch them since I could do no more than that. I studied Aiden, finding comfort in seeing his face again. I missed him so much that it had almost shattered me to lose him. In that moment, it was easy to believe that he was here with me ... that they all were. I listened to the rich sound of my father's voice as he spoke to my mother in the front seat. I observed the way she gazed adoringly back at him.

Then I made the mistake of following Aiden's gaze out the window, and I recognized our surroundings. We were in Chicago, but we weren't just anywhere in Chicago. We were on the same street the accident had occurred on. Panic set in as I looked ahead, seeing the familiar buildings towering on both sides of us in a city I had once loved but had desperately tried to forget since. I tried again to get Aiden's attention, to warn him of what was surely about to take place. When that didn't work, I desperately reached for my father, leaning forward between the driver and front passenger seats.

"Dad," I called out. "You have to listen to me. A drunk driver is coming from the other direction. You have to turn, or pull over. Just do something!" But no matter how hard I tried to make contact, my efforts were futile. I knew why, of course. I hadn't been in the car when the other driver had hit them. I'd been out with friends after arguing with my parents about having to go to dinner together as a family. My father had eventually given in and let me see a movie with my friends instead. I'd returned home just before midnight to find police at the house. They were, of course, there to break the news that I'd just lost my entire family.

Now here I was, riding along in the car with them as they headed toward their demise, and I could do nothing about it.