Tom tumbled out of the crevasse and into the undergrowth, brambles tearing at his skin. Bugs leapt from his shoulder as Tom rolled, narrowly avoiding being squashed.
“You okay?” he called to Sky.
She sat up. “Yeah, I think so.”
He squinted in bright sunlight and looked around, hardly able to believe he was back in the real world. Behind them stretched a park and across the field stood a row of shops, complete with the hustle and bustle of people. He felt as though he was watching a movie about a foreign place and it wasn’t real. He squatted down and clicked his fingers towards Bugs. The rat turned to him, its coal black eyes glinting in the sunlight, then ran up and jumped onto his shoulder. Tom stroked the rodent’s ears absentmindedly. They felt like little slips of velvet between his fingertips.
Together, Tom and Sky got to their feet and headed towards the people, leaving the madness of the Underlife behind them.
Chapter 28
OUTSIDE THE ROW of shops, a taxi idled. The driver sat eating something pastry-based from a paper bag, flakes falling onto his chest.
Tom pulled open the back door and Sky jumped in and dragged herself across the backseat. Tom climbed in beside her.
The young, black driver glanced in his rear view mirror, clocked the state of his two passengers, and then saw the huge rat perched on Tom’s shoulder.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, his mouth dropping open, his eyes wide.
“It’s an emergency,” Tom said, knowing they probably looked and smelled terrible. “We need to get to the hospital.”
The man pulled himself around to face them. “And you’re taking that thing with you?”
Tom had completely forgotten about Bug’s presence. “It’s okay. He’s tame.”
“You’d bloody hope so!”
“He’s my son’s pet,” he lied. He remembered something and groaned inwardly. His wallet was long gone and he wasn’t sure where he’d lost his bag—somewhere in the bat cave, he guessed. “Also, we don’t have any money, but my wife can pay you when we get to the hospital.”
The driver raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Sorry mate. If you ain’t got no cash, I ain’t driving.”
“Please,” Tom said, starting to feel desperate. “My son is dying. I have to get to the hospital. You can come in with us and my wife will pay you double the fare.”
The driver’s face softened at the mention of David. “You got a boy, huh? How old?”
“Seven.”
“Yeah? Mine’s three. I’d do anything for that kid.”
“So, you know how I feel. Please, just drive.”
The driver stared at the strange threesome and pressed his lips together before speaking again. “Your son’s real sick, huh?”
Tears threatened and Tom could only manage a nod.
The driver made up his mind and turned back around and put the car into first gear. “Well, this ride’s on me.”
Tom settled back in the seat with a sigh of relief and Sky reached over and squeezed his hand. They would need to leave Bugs outside of the hospital, in the car park somewhere. He couldn’t risk taking him in, not with David being so sick. He hoped the rat would hide. Tom would have to find him again when it was time to go home.
* * *
TOM BURST THROUGH the door to David’s room, expecting the worst.
During the whole taxi ride, he’d been torturing himself that he would get to the hospital to find David’s bed empty. Tom no longer had his bag or any of his possessions, so if Abby had called his mobile to tell him David had died, he would not know about it.
This was his worst fear, but it went unfounded.
David lay on the bed, looking as though he was sleeping. Abby sat in a chair beside their son’s bed and, as Tom swung open the door, she leapt to her feet. For a moment, she simply stared as though struggling to process who stood before her, but then her whole body sagged with relief.
“Tom?”
She whispered his name and he rushed to her side, catching her just before her legs gave out. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed against the base of his throat.
“I thought you weren’t coming back. I thought you wouldn’t get to see David again.”
Tom held her.
She didn’t even notice the other person standing by the door until Sky cleared her throat. Abby pulled her face away from Tom and frowned in mistrust at the new arrival. A husband going missing only to return with another woman would set off alarms in the most trusting of heads.
Tom gave Abby a reassuring squeeze and crossed the room towards Sky and held out his hand to her. She took it and allowed herself to be pulled towards the small family.
“This is Sky,” Tom said. “My sister.”
Abby’s face blanched. “Your sister? You don’t have a sister.”
“She’s the reason I had to go away, Abby. She’s here to help David. She might be a bone marrow match.”
“What? But how?”
“I’ll explain the rest later. The important thing is that she might be a donor.”
Abby turned her face up towards Sky’s, seeing her with fresh eyes. “You think you can help him?”
Sky shuffled from foot to foot, clearly awkward about intruding upon a family that had suddenly become her own.
“I want to try.”
Abby’s lips pressed tight together. “Thank…” she started to say, but the emotion was too much for her to finish and the words choked in her throat. She covered her face with her hands and cried with relief.
* * *
THE DOCTORS WHISKED Sky away for tests in a matter of minutes. She was scared and self-conscious, but the doctors reassured her that the tests wouldn’t be painful. The old method of collecting a donor’s stem cells from large bones such as the hip only occurred rarely now. Instead, her blood would be taken and the cells would be extracted from that.
Sky listened with a quiet resolution.
David had not yet woken up. The doctors conferred with one another about whether he was strong enough to survive the radiation and then the transfusion, but they all knew this was his only chance.
If he couldn’t withstand the transfusion, he would die.
If they did nothing, he would also die.
The small family sat around David’s bed waiting for the results. Abby clutched Tom’s hand, her fingers digging into his flesh. But the tension that had existed between them for the past few months seemed to have evaporated. They were husband and wife, mother and father, best friends. The competition was over and they were united in their one desire for their child to get well.
Mr Stephenson, the consultant, walked in, his face unreadable, and both Tom and Abby stood.
“She was a match,” he said. “You are very lucky people.”
Abby’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, thank God.”
“It’s not over yet,” he warned. “We need to do this quickly. You understand it is dangerous for David? The radiation we need to give him to stop his body attacking Sky’s white blood cells may be too much for him. It could kill him.”
Tom said, “And if we do nothing?”
“Then he will die.”
They didn’t need to say anything more.
David was whisked away on a gurney. He woke briefly, but he didn’t seem to know what was happening or even that Tom was there.
* * *
FROM BEHIND A huge glass screen, Tom and Abby watched David being prepared for the transfusion. Though weak and pale, he was conscious. The process seemed so simple, essentially another drip, only this time the small bag did not hold chemicals or medicine. Instead, it held the priceless bone marrow that would save his life.
The nurse hooked up the IV and, as she turned the switch to start the drip, she looked up and smiled at Abby and Tom. A young doctor stood nearby overseeing the procedure, writing something on a clipboard.
As the bone marrow raced down the tube, the fluorescent lighting above their heads flickere
d.
Abby squeezed Tom’s hand, a frown creasing her forehead.
He gave a slight shake of his head to say it was nothing, but a rush of anxiety fired within him.
As though a fierce wind suddenly raced through the hospital, the sound of whispers filled the rooms. Both the doctor and the nurse looked up, a mixture of confusion and fear on their faces.
“Tom?” Abby stared up at Tom, her eyes wide.
The whispers increased in volume, but now behind their constant hiss came a wailing.
Above their heads, the lights flickered again.
Still, David’s transfusion continued.
Like the shriek of wind around a house, the wailing rose to screams. The doctors and nurses all covered their ears, cowering under the violent and terrifying force overwhelming their senses.
The lights flickered again and then went out. With no windows, the room plunged into darkness. All around them, the walls started to shake. Metal instruments clattered in a bedpan and the glass screen Abby and Tom stood behind shook in its frame.
Abby screamed, her voice lost in the terrifying crescendo battering them.
As abruptly as it started, everything fell silent and a moment later the lights flickered back to life.
As though they’d experienced a sudden and life-threatening hurricane, everyone rose from their crouched positions. White-faced and wide-eyed, only Tom really understood what they’d gone through.
“What the hell happened?” the doctor said. “Was that an earthquake? Why didn’t the generators start up?”
He directed his questions towards the nurse, but she couldn’t answer him. Too shocked to manage any kind of thought process, her mouth hung open.
But Tom and Abigail’s attention wasn’t focused on the hospital staff. They were looking at their son.
David sat up in bed. Though obviously still ill, colour had returned to his cheeks and his eyes were focused and alert.
“Mum?” he said. “Dad?”
Tom knew he wasn’t supposed to be in the room during the transfusion, but to hell with it. He raced through the door to his son’s bedside.
“It’s gone, Dad,” David said, staring at him in earnest. “The Shadows isn’t in me anymore. It’s finally gone.”
Tom put his head on David’s narrow lap and cried.
* * *
EIGHT DAYS LATER, David was finally being discharged. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He still had weeks of recovery where he would experience all of the debilitating symptoms he’d been struggling with for the last few months—the nausea, the vomiting, the weakness.
But Tom knew this would work. He knew because the Shadows had lost.
Today, Tom brought in a present for David.
Bugs had been living in their garden shed, Tom sneaking food out to him while Abby wasn’t looking. She never went in the shed and he wasn’t worried about attracting other rats, Bugs could fight off a Rottweiler if needed.
David was sitting up in bed. Already he’d grown stronger and he’d been able to keep some food down these past couple of days.
Tom walked into the room, Bugs on his shoulder.
Abby stared at him in horror. “I hope that isn’t what I think it is?”
“It’s not. It’s a rabbit.”
“Don’t get smart, Tom,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Even if you are in my good books at the moment.”
“No, seriously,” he said, grinning. “He’s known as a track rabbit. His name is Bugs.”
Abby’s eyes went wide. “My God, that’s the biggest rat I have ever seen.”
Tom reached up and ruffled Bug’s fur. “He’s tame. I was a bit freaked out at first, but once you get to know him, he’s kind of cute.”
“You are not bringing that animal into our house.
“Aw, Mum,” protested David. “But he’s my getting well present. Dad said so.”
Abby glared at Tom and the thing on his shoulder, but ruffled her son’s hair in the same way Tom had stroked Bugs. “That is called emotional blackmail, kiddo.”
David grinned. “Does that mean it works?”
“No!” Abby said, but David and Tom exchanged glances. Abby wouldn’t hold out for long.
Tom smiled. He knew the argument was only jesting. His family had grown strong again; they were finally back together—a unit.
Tom had spent most of his life not knowing where he’d come from and he’d never thought it mattered. Yet, he’d learnt where he’d come from was important. His past had shaped his future, and in the most important way. Without knowing about his past, he would never have been able to save his son. And David was his future.
Sky was staying in their spare room for the moment, but Tom could tell she was getting restless. She had tried to get a couple of minimum wage jobs, but with her none existent CV, she’d not even gotten an interview. He didn’t want to admit it, but he believed she would end up back in the Underlife. She had a place with the underground homeless, but he hoped she would always know she had a place above ground as well, should she need it.
He hoped the others were okay as well. After the transplant, he’d made a call to the police. He’d struggled with the decision, not wanting to alert the authorities to the existence of the underground homeless, while feeling unable to simply forget about Mack and Samantha. He didn’t know what would happen to them after the Shadows retreated, but couldn’t stand the idea of leaving them, possibly hurt in the cave with the bats, with no help coming.
In the end, he’d come up with a story about taking a walk in the park and feeling what he thought was an earthquake and seeing a small part of the ground cave in. He told the police that he thought someone might have fallen down the hole, though he couldn’t be sure.
The police had questioned his delay in contacting them and he’d given a lame-ass excuse about losing his mobile phone and then wondering if he’d imagined things. They’d come back to him several hours later and told him an earthquake of five-point-four on the Richter Scale had been recorded—something which later made the evening news—but they’d found no sign of anyone down the hole.
Tom could only hope that meant both Samantha and Mack were safe. He prayed the Shadows hadn’t taken them and they hadn’t joined the sea of souls deep beneath the earth.
He hoped he would see Samantha again—though he hoped it would not be at the hospital. He hoped one day Mack would come and find him.
The Shadows had gone. How long it would last, he didn’t know.
He finally had his family back, and for the time being, nothing else mattered.
* * *
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Marissa Farrar has always been in love with being in love. But since she's been married for many years and has three young daughters, she's conducted her love affairs with multiple gorgeous men of the fictional persuasion.
The author of fifteen novels and numerous short stories, she has been a full time author for the last five years. She predominantly writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but has branched into contemporary fiction as well.
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JUMP TO...
A DOSE OF BRIMSTONE by NOREE COSPER
END OF DREAMS by KIM FAULKS
HAUNT by HEATHER HAMBEL CURLEY
> DARK CROSSINGS by ANN SIMKO
HEADSPACE by CALINDA B
THE OTHER F WORD by SUSAN STEC
UNLEASHED by RACHEL MCCLELLAN
HIDDEN INTENTIONS by STACY CLAFLIN
THE COMPLETE BLOODLING SERIAL by AIMEE EASTERLING
SHE WHO FIGHTS MONSTERS by KYOKO M
ST. CHARLES AT DUSK by SARAH M. CRADIT
WICKED BY NATURE by MADISON SEVIER
UNDERLIFE by MARISSA FARRAR
DRAGON’S REDEMPTION by EDEN ASHE
MILAN’S RETURN by GRAE LILY
THE BREAKERS CODE by CONNER KRESSLEY
THE MEDIUM by MR GRAHAM
WICCAN WARS by HEATHER MARIE ADKINS
CARPE NOCTEM by KATIE SALIDAS
A QUESTION OF FAITH by NICOLE ZOLTACK
DRAGON’S REDEMPTION
BY EDEN ASHE
Copyright © 2015 by Eden Ashe
The one female he isn't supposed to want, is the only one he's ever needed.
When her brother goes missing, everything in Lily Cage’s world turns upside down. Born a Hunter female, the last thing she needs is an attraction to Dallas, the scariest dragon in existence. The one known as The Destroyer. With peace between the Hunters and Dragons hanging by a thread, one wrong move on Lily or Dallas’s part could catapult them all back into war. But with Dallas playing by his own rules and someone on the outside decimating her life, they have a choice–stand and fight, or lose everything they never realized they wanted.
Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More Page 320
