"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?" Finn asked nervously.
"They will give her a blood transfusion," I said, not looking away from the medical instrument in my fingers.
Finn paced back and forth on the other side of the table. "It looks like she needs one."
I glanced at him quickly. "Human blood is poisonous to all supes, except vampires of course."
"Will my blood work?" he asked and started rolling up his sleeve.
"Let me get her closed up and we'll see how she's doing?" I answered.
Even as I replaced the scalpel with needle and thread, I knew there was no point in taking his blood. I didn't want to give up on Bridgett, but her chances of survival were slim. I could hear her heartbeat growing weaker with every pulse. Each one was a bit slower and further apart.
Anita looked at me, and I could see that she knew too. I finished closing Bridgett’s chest and began to step away to wash my hands. Bridgett reached out suddenly and grabbed my bloody hand. Her voice was less than a whisper.
"Thank you for trying." She looked around and saw everyone watching her. "I'm really sorry for how I acted when I first got here. I am glad I got to meet all of you."
"No!" Chloë screamed. She staggered toward the table.
It was like watching everything in slow motion. Part of my brain recognized that she was about to do something stupid, but the part that controlled my body didn't know what to do about it.
Chloë's eyes blazed the brightest green I had ever seen them. She rushed forward and placed her hands on Bridgett's chest. For a split second, Chloë glowed. The light traveled up her body, out her hands, and into Bridgett. Bridgett's chest rose, and Chloë fell to the ground.
Bridgett got up off the table and lay down on the floor next to Chloë. "This is the best gift anyone has ever given me, but you are needed here. I would have liked us to be friends," she whispered. Bridgett wrapped Chloë in her arms.
This time, Bridgett glowed and the light rushed back into Chloë. Chloë sucked in a sudden, deep breath, and Bridgett exhaled for the last time.
Chloë
I scrambled to go to Bridgett, but Finn's large hands clamped down with a steel grip on my shoulders and pulled me away.
"Don't ever do something like that again!" He sank down to the ground and pulled me into his lap, still holding on tight, and I realized he was shaking.
Grey stormed out of the room. A large crash and the tinkling sound of broken glass came from the room he’d fled to. I looked around, confused. I’d heard her talking. She’d been fine. I had felt it.
"I...I heard her."
Anita exhaled forcefully and buried her face in Dean's chest. He lovingly stroked her back and ran his fingers through her hair.
Finn tipped up the bottom of my chin with his index finger. "You transferred your energy into her. You...ah... Shit." Finn squeezed me tighter.
"You died, Chlo," Anita said into Dean's chest. "I heard your heart stop, and you weren't breathing. It was less than a minute, but you were dead."
I blinked rapidly several times, not allowing myself to cry. "I only meant to give her a bit of a jump start."
Grey walked back into the room. He looked paler—if there were something lighter than bone. He slid down the wall to the floor without his usual effortless grace. He dropped his head into his hands and shut down. He was perfectly still as only someone who didn't breathe could do. Leah walked over to him and pressed against his side.
"I was supposed to protect her. I failed. Then Chloë did... Oh hell." He lifted his head, and two ribbons of blood coursed over his cheeks, breaking up the white planes of his face.
I realized he was crying tears of blood.
I looked at Bridgett. She was here and gone. Physically, she was still in the room, but the animated part of her had left us. I had disliked her immediately. I’d actively ignored her. Over the last few days, I’d felt the beginning of a friendship stirring, but it hadn't made me rush to go with her when she’d asked. What would have happened if I had?
Dean studied my face. "I can see you thinking. I have a pretty good guess what you are thinking too. Each one of us in this room put Bridgett off when she asked us to go into town with her. I feel the guilt for it also, but a guilty conscience won't bring her back. We may not have been able to prevent her death even if we had gone.
“Think about it. You and Finn were together when you were taken. Killing yourself to save her wouldn't have helped either. Trading one of us for another isn't a bargain I feel comfortable making."
I crawled off Finn's lap and started pacing. "Finn had gone back into the building for a minute when we were taken. We might have been able to stop this," I argued.
"Yeah, and one of you could have turned your back in the store, gone down the next aisle, even used the bathroom. Let's not go down the trail of what-ifs. All we have is what is. It is pretty shitty, but this is reality. She made the choice to save you. It was her choice, and we have to respect it," Dean answered somberly.
I gestured toward Bridgett's body. "We can't just leave her on the floor like this."
Grey stood without a word and picked her up. "I have a place to keep her until we can deliver her to her parents."
The guilt and grief crashed over me. She’d died for me. Jumped in front of a knife meant for me. My head started to whirl, and the room listed to the side. Luckily, I was standing next to the wall. How much death would I see over an eternity, assuming I made it to twenty-five?
I looked around the room and took in the faces of my friends. We’d lost someone tonight, and we were each struggling to come to terms with it. The feelings of guilt and relief struggled to come out on top. It was survivor's guilt. I was here while she was dead, and that felt horrible. But I was still here, and I couldn't help but be thankful at the same time.
My legs started to feel tingly and weak. I sank down to the ground. No one seemed to notice. I sniffled a bit and wiped at my nose with a tissue I’d taken from a nearby end table. A flash of crimson made me look closer. I touched under my nose with a shaking hand, and it came away with blood. I coughed a little. And then a bit more. I covered my mouth and realized I was coughing up blood too.
I'd used too much magic. I'd pushed my abilities too far when I’d tried to save Bridgett. I wanted to laugh because the worst part was that she’d died for nothing. My vision started to blur, and it was harder to breathe. Bridgett had sacrificed everything, but I was going to die anyway.
Finn
I looked over and saw Chloë slump over. "Someone help me!" I shouted frantically.
Anita was a blur as she rushed to Chloë's side. Grey appeared out of nowhere and began tearing at her clothes. The bonded part of me wanted to force him to stop, but logically I knew he was trying to help her. Once Chloë was in her underwear, Grey turned to me. With one flick of his hand, I was left naked from the waist up.
"Anita, we need a blanket. Finn, open your arms," Grey demanded and gently placed Chloë in my arms. Her breaths were shallow, but a few heartbeats later, they deepened.
Anita returned quickly and draped a blanket around the two of us. "Her heart rate is steady now," she said, mostly to comfort herself.
Grey paced back and forth in front of us, his eyebrows drew close together, and he radiated tension. "You cannot let a moment go by where the two of you aren't touching in some way. Skin against skin. Nothing else will work anymore. You have to use the bathroom, bring her with you. That ceremony needs to be performed soon. Her magic is nearly gone after her stunt tonight. We have to find someone who can do the ritual, or she will be dead in less than a week. I am not losing anyone else."
"All the supernatural races came from the originals, right?" I asked, thinking out loud. Grey nodded. "Doesn't that give Chloë's dad universal abilities?"
Grey cocked his head to the side, contemplating what I’d asked. "Eli was the first of the originals. He is the most powerful. The others were made from him as companions. A lot like the
biblical stories of Adam and Eve. There is an original for each of the supernatural races, each with the strongest powers of the race they created. Except for Eli, who has all of the supernatural abilities."
"Wouldn't that mean he could conduct the ceremony?" I asked.
"I'll have to track him down. Eli is thousands of years old and hates technology. I can't reach him by e-mail or cell phone. Hell, I'm not even sure he is still at the cabin we visited him in last fall."
"How can you guys stand here and discuss the bonding ceremony right now?" Jo snapped.
"Jo..." Cooper tried to intercede.
She shot him a dirty look. "No, Coop. Bridgett got abducted preparing their ceremony." She pointed at Chloë and me. Her expression was pinched, and she continued her tirade. "She jumped in front of a knife meant for Chloë. And how much consideration does she get for all of that? Not a damn bit. She's been gone for about fifteen minutes and they are already trying to figure out how they will have the ceremony now."
I clenched my teeth almost hard enough to crack them. "If you think I don't feel massive guilt for what happened to Bridgett, you're wrong. But I'm not willing to let my guilt stop me from saving my mate. We can't help Bridgett now, but we can still save Chloë."
Dean turned a detached gaze toward Jo. "There will be time to grieve once this is over and the rest of us are still alive. Life in this coven can be hard. You have to learn to focus on the here and now and save emotions for later. Allow yourself to get bogged down by any strong emotion and you'll end up dead too."
"You're a cold bastard," Jo spit out.
"Actually, he's the nicest of all of us. He's right too. If you want to live, you'll listen. We are in crisis. We can't sit around grieving when there is still work to be done. We save Chloë. If we don't, we will all die. I don't have the power to stop a demon, and no one else here does either," Anita countered.
"Your father could do it. Or Marguerite Du Lac," Jo argued.
I released a bark of laughter. "If you expect Marguerite to give a damn about us when she'll throw her own daughter into danger to preserve her legacy, then you aren't as smart as I thought you were."
"Jo, lay off. We've been with these guys for almost two months now. We both know they aren't heartless. I understand you feel guilty for not going with Bridgett when she asked. I do too. I'm sure as hell not going to remedy it by standing by and watching Chloë die," Leah said to her sister.
I turned to Dean and Grey, ignoring the snarl still set on Jo's face. "We staying here tonight?"
"It's best not to separate now," Dean confirmed.
"You still have that room set aside for her?" I asked Grey, tipping my head toward Chloë.
He glanced cautiously toward Leah and nodded when she wasn't looking.
"You have a room for her?" I heard Leah ask as I left the room.
I didn't envy him right then. Chloë hated every girl I’d ever flirted with, and they… Well, I didn't actually like to think about it.
I used one hand to pull back the blankets and slid both of us in. I held her close to me and listened for her breathing. Each tiny exhale comforted me. A week, maybe less, but right now, she was here. I felt her stir next to me.
"What happened?" she asked, confused.
"You fainted again," I said as calmly as possible. I kissed her on the head and squeezed her a bit tighter. The tension in my body alerted her to my worries.
"Tell me what's wrong. I'm dying, aren't I?"
"No," I responded forcefully. "You are not going to die. I will not lose you."
She pressed her face into my chest and placed a kiss over my heart. "I'm sorry I scared you tonight. I couldn't seem to control myself. She wasn't supposed to die. Not for me. Everyone else feels guilty because they weren't there with her when she was taken. Me too, but she jumped in front of a knife for me. How do I come to terms with that, Finn?"
I tried to comfort her. "We have to respect her decision. We do that by making sure you live. Otherwise, she died for nothing. Jo's wrong. We aren't forgetting her by continuing to live. We are honoring her sacrifice. She didn't die for us to stop living. We fight, we win, and we remember her every day because we are still here. It's all we have. It sucks because nothing we do now will bring her back. We can only hope that beating these terrorists will make us feel marginally better. I'm proud of her, and I hope that, wherever she is, she knows that. I didn't want her to die, but I couldn't have lived without you either."
Anita
Finn was right. Marguerite didn't give a hot damn about Chloë. At least not in the way a mother should. Chloë had never felt the unconditional love my mother had given me. She didn't need my pity. I couldn't frighten Marguerite. It was hard to frighten someone who would live forever. She did care about her legacy and the passing of power from one powerful Du Lac witch down the line.
The problem was that I didn't have the ability to teleport. I was fast, but there was still an ocean between us, and I did need to breathe. I stepped out onto the back porch to catch some fresh air. I heard the screen creak open and slap back against the wood frame. The fresh-rain smell told me that it was Grey who had followed me out.
"You are going to do something stupid. I've reached my threshold of people I care about doing stupid things today. Bridgett ran off when she was told not to, Chloë drained every last bit of her magic, and unless I'm mistaken, you are trying to figure out how to confront the strongest witch alive."
I didn't turn around to address him. He didn't need to see my face to know he was right.
"Chloë is the strongest witch alive."
He placed his hand on my shoulder and forced me to turn around. "Not now she isn't. Right now, you are a stronger witch than she is. I didn't tell Finn, but if she uses the tiniest bit of magic, she is going to die. I said this ceremony has to be performed in less than a week, but I was stretching a bit to keep him from panicking."
"How much stretching?" I asked.
"If she were in the hospital, I would say she is in critical condition, and we need to pray she makes it through the night."
If he were trying to talk me out of confronting Marguerite, he was doing a poor job of it. "What is going to happen to the rest of us if she doesn't make it?"
He raised one black eyebrow at my question. "Know anything about sending demons back to Hell?" I shook my head. "Neither do I. Furthermore, do you know anyone else who has the abilities she does?"
I wasn't even sure what her abilities were. But if her father had created the other originals... Hmm... "You said the other originals were created from Eli. Meaning the Creator took aspects of him to create the others."
He gave me a partial smile. "Isolated powers for each one of the other originals. Did you take any biology Anita?"
Weird question. "No, I'm in geology."
"Well follow along. Like humans, we have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Half are inherited from each parent. When the other originals were made, they were given a specific code to the powers the Creator wanted to isolate."
My hand shot to my mouth. "But Chloë's genetics weren't segregated. Which means calling her a witch isn't exactly the right term for her, is it?"
His smile broadened, displaying his needle-sharp fangs. It would have terrified me if I weren't part vampire myself. "She isn't as powerful as her father, but I'd say Chloë is a little bit of everything."
"Is that why Finn bonded with her?" I asked, mostly thinking aloud.
"Did you know what you, the twins, and Chloë have in common?" he asked me.
"We are all lovely, dark-skinned chicas?"
"Well yes, but you are also family," he said, dropping a huge bomb.
"Come again?"
"Chloë isn't Eli's only child. His other children are thousands of years old and all followed their human mates into the afterlife. He has two grandchildren from them—Tala Broken Feather and Carlos Sanchez.
“And before you get pissy with me, I didn't know about this the entire time. I was confu
sed myself. You, Dean, Chloë, and Finn are alive. I'm not—not really. I couldn't figure out why Leah might bond to me, so I did a little digging. I don't know if it really applies to Leah and me, but if I were going to bond with a shifter..."
"I think I'm following you. If you were going to bond with a shifter, she would probably have to have a bit of necromancer ancestry. Dean and I bonded because, as Eli's great-granddaughter, I have a bit of shifter in me."
Grey scrubbed his hands down his face, and the stress reappeared. "This is all very interesting, but it won't mean anything if we can't find Eli."
"I agree. I believe if there was anyone who might know where he was, it would be Marguerite. She loves him as much as she is capable of loving anyone."
Grey pulled his phone from his pocket and placed it in my hand. "I know you would call your father and talk him into teleporting you there, but it would waste time. I have her number in my phone since I'm a Watcher. Call her, but don't make it easy for her to punish you by going to her."
I searched through his contacts and didn't find Marguerite or Du Lac. I did find one under Ice Queen. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. I pressed it and listened to the international ring.
"Grey, I hadn't expected to hear from you," Marguerite answered in her musical French accent.
"Madame Du Lac, this is Anita Sanchez. We need to find Eli, and I'm hoping you know where he is," I rushed out.
"Anita, do call me Marguerite. Of course I can get in touch with him. What is the problem?"
I winced. I didn't want to tell her about Chloë, but I didn't have a choice. "The bonding ceremony for Chloë and Finn needs to be completed immediately or she is going to die."
I heard her suck in a ragged breath. "Why didn't anyone tell me she has been weakening? I would have pulled his parents out of that ridiculous elvin gathering. You are right. Eli is the closest, and I'm sure he's capable of performing the ritual. I'll leave right away and fetch him. Are you at home?"
It took me a moment to find my voice. It sounded like she was actually concerned about Chloë. "N-no, we are at Grey's house. There is more bad news. Bridgett O'Connell died tonight. It seems the auto-da-fé unknowingly teamed up with a demon."
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