“Bad.” I looked deep into his eyes. Here goes nothing. “Maybe we should go talk in private.”
“Tell me—now,” he demanded.
“Holy shit!” Dylan exclaimed in shock as he looked at Minerva. “They want to convert him?!? Into one of them?!?” he blurted out.
“Dylan!” Minerva gasped in horror.
“Son of a bitch.” Dylan looked at me in alarm. “Did I just say that out loud?”
Fury streaked through me as I stared down Minerva and Dylan. The two of them had obviously been having their own private telepathic conversation, one in which she told him everything she knew, right in front of me—in front of Quinn—and Dylan blurted it out before I could explain it to Quinn, before I could soften the blow.
I looked at Quinn. He looked utterly dumbfounded, staring directly at me while holding his breath.
“Quinn,” I stood up and took a step closer to him.
“Don’t.” His voice was filled with such contempt that I froze instantly. “How long have you known about this?”
“I found out when I was reassigned to you,” I answered.
“And you didn’t think it was important to tell me that a bunch of demons want to turn me into one of them?” He was shaking with anger.
“No—of course I did!” I tried to explain. “I—I just wanted to have a game plan in place so that when I did tell you, you’d know we were on top of it—you’d know you had nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” he hissed. “That’s funny. My best friend, my fiancée, the one person I trust more than anyone in the world, would rather go behind my back and cut a deal with some—some blood-thirsty mercenaries than tell me the truth about what’s happening in my own damn life!” he shouted.
“It wasn’t like that,” I protested weakly. I’d never seen Quinn this angry.
“When?”
“When what?” I asked warily, still reeling from his accusations.
“When are they planning to convert me?” he asked with a stone-cold face.
Oh shit! This was about to get a whole lot worse—like, cliff-diving-without-a-parachute worse.
Quinn turned to Dylan when I didn’t answer. “You’re my Shepherd. You tell me when.”
Dylan looked at me and shook his head. “K.C., he has a right to know,” he said telepathically.
“Not like this,” I half-warned, half-pleaded.
“July eighteenth,” Dylan announced quietly. Quinn hunched over as if he’d just been kicked in the gut, knocking the wind clear out of him.
“Quinn—”
“When were you planning on telling me, Evie?” he barely managed.
“Tonight—now,” I sputtered.
“Yeah, right,” he spat. “You told me I’d be the first one to know what the deal was.” He nodded once in Dylan’s direction. “But you obviously lied about that, so why should I believe you now? In fact, why should I believe you were going to tell me anything at all?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth!” I exclaimed in my defense. “And I didn’t tell Dylan. Minerva figured it out and—” I took a step towards him, and he immediately took a step back.
“And what?” he barked. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and ran his hands through his hair. “You know what, Evie? You can lie. In fact, you’re right up there with the best. You just use silence as your weapon of choice instead of words.” The disdain in his voice, in his eyes, sliced through me like a knife.
“Quinn—”
He threw his arms up defensively. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t even look at you.” He turned to Dylan. “Get me out of here now.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Dylan agreed. He looked at me apologetically as he walked over to Quinn and took hold of his aura.
“Don’t worry, K.C. I’ll take care of him. I’ll talk to him,” Dylan said telepathically.
“You’d better,” I threatened.
When the two of them left, it was like they took all of the oxygen in the air with them. I may not have needed to breathe physically, but I needed to emotionally, and when I inhaled, my lungs refused to inflate, leaving my chest burning.
“Evie, I’m so sorry,” Minerva said apologetically from behind me. “I had no idea Dylan would react that way when I told him. Honestly.”
“I don’t trust you,” I snarled, keeping my back to her. “And I really don’t want to hear anything you have to say. In fact, I don’t want anything to do with you right now.” Before she could say another word, I phased out of view and left the portal.
*
I teleported myself to Wa’ianapanapa beach. I needed to get away and think. The moonlight basking on the surface of the Pacific made the water look so inviting that I stripped off my clothes and dove in, swimming as fast and as far as I could. I stopped a half-mile from shore, treading water in the open, quiet sea. It was so peaceful—nothing around me but the sounds of the lapping water and the ocean breeze. Maybe it was because everything here seemed to coexist in perfect harmony while everything around me seemed to exist in a state of mayhem, but I started to bawl hysterically.
I really thought I’d done the right thing by keeping the conversion a secret from Quinn until I had a plan to keep him safe. I did it out of love for him. I wanted to protect him from having to face something so dark and ugly and terrifying without a silver lining. But, clearly, I’d been wrong. And now, I didn’t know how to make things better—I didn’t know if I could make things better. I didn’t know if he’d ever forgive me.
I pictured how furious he’d been with me. I heard the anger and disappointment in his voice echo in my head when he’d called me a liar, and I cried even harder.
Just when I thought I’d run out of tears, I heard a series of clicks and squeaks. I turned to my right and saw a dorsal fin glide up out of the water, followed by the curved spine and tail of a spinner dolphin. And then I saw another. I ducked under the water to see a small pod of five dolphins around me: four adults and one younger calf. They swam around me, looking at me curiously. The smaller one tried to get a closer look but was headed off by one of the larger dolphins. A series of clicks and squeaks occurred, and the small dolphin retreated behind another adult farther away. Still intent on getting its way, the young dolphin circled around, found another opening, and beelined it towards me again. I held out my hand to the determined little dolphin, but a different adult interceded, forcing the little one to veer off to the left sharply, never making contact with me. I heard another series of clicks and squeaks and the entire pod began to swim away. When they were about twenty-five yards off, the little dolphin suddenly broke away from its guardians and swam as fast as it could towards me. I held out my hand and rubbed its belly as it flew by me. It seemed to squeal with joy at its accomplishment as it breached the surface and spun in the air, only to flop back down into the water and quickly swim back to its pod.
I heard more clicks and squeaks. I could only imagine the earful the young dolphin was getting from the rest of the pod, but it didn’t seem to mind the chastising. In fact, it was swimming around playfully. It’s like it had acted to prove to its protective family that it could handle taking some risks—that it was ready to make some of its own decisions, take responsibility for its actions, and learn from its mistakes.
“I think I get it,” I said aloud.
*
By the time I got back to the Harrisons, it was just after midnight. Every room in the house was dark except for the kitchen. I walked in to find Minerva filling a glass with water from the kitchen sink. Before I could protest her being there, she walked over to the breakfast nook where Dylan sat next to Quinn, who’d somehow wound up with a black eye and a split lip and looked pretty drunk.
“Here, drink this,” Minerva instructed Quinn as she placed the glass of water in front of him. Quinn just grunted and dropped his head onto the table.
“What the hell happened to him?” I demanded. “Dylan, you said you’d take care of him!”
“College Boy just needed to blow off a little steam, that’s all,” Dylan replied.
“How? By drinking himself into a stupor and getting into a fight?” I nearly shouted.
“Well, the guy did just find out that a bunch of bastard demons want him to join their ranks,” Dylan countered.
“And whose fault was that?” I snapped angrily.
“Look, I’m sorry he found out the way he did. You should’ve been the one to tell him, but you didn’t. And what’s worse is that you didn’t tell me, his Shepherd. How did you expect me to protect him if I didn’t know what in the hell I was protecting him from?”
“For the last time, I was going to tell him—and you.”
“You waited too long,” Quinn stated, slurring slightly.
“Hey, you gave me three days, remember?” I stated, thoroughly annoyed at the scene before me. “And I wanted to have the game plan ready for how we were going to stop this from happening to you.”
“Well?” Quinn asked, lifting his head up in my general direction.
“Well, what?”
“Do you have one—a game plan?” He was trying to focus on me.
“Yeah. At least I think so,” I replied.
“Then you have no excuse for not telling me the truth sooner.”
“It’s a work in progress. I wanted to fit more of the pieces together first.” I had no idea why I was even trying to justify myself to Quinn while he was in this state; he probably wouldn’t remember a word of our conversation in the morning.
“And if your plan didn’t work, what then? I’d be dead—or a demon, which, I guess is a lot like being dead—only a hell of a lot worse, right?” Quinn closed his eyes and quickly shook his head as if to help him focus his thoughts. “Either way,” he continued, waving his finger sloppily at me. “You had no right to keep this from me.” He paused to focus on my face. His eyes looked so pained. “You. Why? You’re the one person I trust—trusted—unconditionally with my heart, my soul—my life. And you let me down.”
His words were like sucker punches to my chest—only they weren’t cheap shots. I deserved each and every one.
“You’re right—I should’ve told you sooner. And I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you. But obviously that wasn’t the case.” I sighed heavily as I looked at the mess he’d turned into—we’d turned into—in a matter of hours.
“You gave up the right to protect me the second you stopped wanted to feel my heart beating,” he said bitterly.
“That’s not fair,” I replied, fighting back my tears.
“And what you’ve been doing since your return is? Hiding information from me? Making decisions about my life without consulting me? That’s fair?” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table, making the glass of water jump a bit.
I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now—not while Quinn was drunk, not in front of Dylan and Minerva.
“Quinn, I think we should talk about this tomorrow—after you’ve slept this off.”
“Oh, now you want to tell me when I should go to bed?” he shot back. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not a child.”
Oh yeah? Well you’re certainly acting like one right now! I wanted to scream, but I knew that would only make matters worse.
“Fine,” I said. Exasperated, I threw my hands up. “Sleep. Don’t sleep. Do whatever you want.”
“Evie, what I want is for you to be honest with me. But you can’t do that, can you? Tell me, can I trust you anymore?”
“Quinn, I had the best of intentions at heart, but I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I was wrong, and I won’t do it again.”
“You were wrong,” Quinn repeated slowly.
“Yes, I was wrong.”
“Did you hear that Dylan?” Quinn asked, grinning crookedly, his mood instantly improving. “K.C. admitted she was wrong. Ever think you’d hear those words out of her mouth?”
Dylan chuckled. “It must be killing her to admit that.”
“Yup!” Quinn kept grinning as he turned and tried focusing his gaze on me again.
“Happy now?” I asked wryly.
“A little bit,” Quinn said smugly. He stood up, lost his balance, and fell back into the booth, hitting his head against the windowsill. “Ouch.”
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” Dylan noted, still chuckling.
“C’mon.” I sighed, walking over to Quinn. “Let’s go upstairs so I can fix you up.”
Quinn leaned into Dylan and whispered loudly, “Do you think that’s code for ‘make-up sex’?”
Dylan cracked up and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I don’t know, is it?”
“Not when you’re drunk,” I muttered quietly under my breath. Dylan chuckled again.
“Are we taking the shortcut?” Quinn asked me.
“It’s probably safer than having you try to climb an entire flight of stairs at the moment,” I replied.
“Agreed.” Quinn turned to Dylan. “Hey, man, thanks for hanging with me.”
“Any time, man, any time,” Dylan replied. “But next time, let’s leave the bar fight out of it, okay?”
“And how about the bar too?” I shot him a nasty look, which only made him laugh again.
“Have fun, K.C.”
“Yeah, right—fun cleaning up your mess,” I snapped.
“Hey, the same could be said for what I’ve been doing the last few hours,” Dylan replied.
“We have way different opinions on that.” I shook my head in disapproval and teleported Quinn to his room. He fell back onto the mattress, and I began to slowly undress him. Even drunk and beat up, he still looked sexy as ever.
How does he do it? I sighed in frustration, but I had no right to be mad at him. I was the one who pushed him to do something rash and reckless—to rebel against me, against us. I checked out the newly acquired bump on the back his head; it wasn’t too bad. I healed it in a matter of seconds, along with his battered eye and lip. The real healing would come tomorrow, and I wasn’t talking about his hangover. Tomorrow, I’d have to take the steps to heal us.
I pulled the covers up over him and kissed Quinn goodnight on his forehead.
“I still love you, you know,” he mumbled to me.
“And I still love you.”
“Evie?” Quinn opened his eyes and tried his best to focus on my face.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t want to become one of them.”
“You won’t. We’ll find a way to stop it—together.”
Not wanting to see either Dylan or Minerva, I stayed with Quinn all night. I thought about the young dolphin, Quinn’s actions tonight, and my actions—or, more accurately, my omissions—over the last couple of days.
Tomorrow was another day. One day closer to the attack. And, hopefully, one day closer to getting Quinn’s blood back. Tomorrow, I’d tell Quinn everything.
*
Quinn moaned when he woke up the next morning. “My head.” He placed his arm over his eyes, shielding them from the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty in the morning,” I said rather gingerly. I was enjoying this—probably a little too much.
“I feel like I was run over by a bulldozer.”
“How much did you drink last night?”
“Too much,” he whined. “But,” he turned his head slowly towards me, “not enough to make me forget you admitted you were wrong.”
“Of all the things I said that would be the one thing you remembered, wouldn’t it?”
Quinn chuckled slightly and then winced. “Ow,” he moaned. “Remind me never to go drinking with Dylan again.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” I replied. “Do you want me to take care of that hangover?”
He sighed in relief. “I thought you’d never offer.”
I leaned over, my left hand hovering over his head, and healed him. “Here.” I reached across him and grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table. “You’d
better drink this anyway.”
Quinn downed the glass and felt his lip. He looked at me appreciatively.
“Yeah, I took care of that too—and your eye. More?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
I filled up the glass with cold water from his bathroom sink and brought it to his bedside. He downed that entire glass as well.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“So, what possessed you to go out last night, get wasted, and start a fight?”
“I was so mad—at you, at the situation … I was freaked out at the thought of becoming one of them.” He cringed. “It was all too much, and I just needed to get away from it all. I needed to escape.”
“Quinn, believe me, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth right away. I only wanted to protect you from it. I was afraid you wouldn’t handle the news very well—and, I guess I was right.” I eyed him shrewdly.
“But,” I continued, “I will own up to my mistake. I tried to do what I thought was best under the circumstances, but obviously, that wasn’t the right thing to do. And, I promise I’ll be up front with you from here on out. I’ll do it your way from now on.”
“Evie, I don’t want it to only be my way or your way. I want it to be our way.”
“Yeah, well, you may reconsider that once you hear everything I have to say. I’m not sure what Dylan or Minerva told you, but I can promise you there’s a lot more crazy stuff going on they don’t even know about yet—stuff I’m having trouble dealing with, much less talking about.” I sighed.
Quinn embraced me and kissed the top of my head. “Maybe I’d handle the crazy stuff a little better if you were up front with me—if you gave me the chance to talk to you about it, to ask you questions, to understand the options before it’s too late for me to even be part of the discussion.” He sighed. “Evie, more than ever, we’ve got to be able to trust each other completely—and, right now, we don’t.”
“I trust you.”
“Not enough to include me in what’s going on.”
“That wasn’t a trust issue, Quinn. Besides, you weren’t the only one I kept in the dark, you know.”
“Your hiding this from Dylan doesn’t make me feel any better. He’s my Shepherd now. He needs to know everything too. But, Evie, we’re the ones who are truly in this together—you and me. And when you keep this stuff from me, all it does it push me away. You have to tell me what’s going on. You have to believe in me enough to trust me to be able to handle this. I may only be a human, but I’m not weak.”
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