********************
I was spending the night at the clinic again. Dr. Roberts was able to pull me aside to suggest that I be around just in case my mother’s condition regressed. I wasn’t sure if I could repeat whatever it was I’d done, but as my grandmother didn’t have any problem with it this time, I was certainly willing to make myself available. I’d managed to avoid Duncan’s eyes until he and everyone else headed home, and the big hug Darren gave me just before we parted had the Elder Witches giggling.
It was late. After checking up on my mother for the fifteenth time, I headed back into the examination room, laid out on the bed, and ordered myself to stay put. Dr. Roberts would be spending the tonight too, to monitor my mother’s recovery. I didn’t want to keep interrupting him. On my last visit, he’d said that the venom having cleared from her heart was a great sign. Once he placed a transfusion line into the large vein leading up to it, he could almost guarantee that it would remain uncompromised. The fact that things were continuing to go so well kept me in good enough spirits to push back my worries to the periphery of my brain. And on occasion, when they did streak out into the center of my thoughts, I had two ready-made worry dampeners to fend them off. First, I reminded myself that if Duncan truly wanted to bust me, he’d had the perfect opportunity with the Elder witches assembled right there in the waiting room. Secondly, I decided that if Gregori could keep his being a conjurer a secret, then why couldn’t I? Getting myself drunk was a non-issue for me; I’d never even tasted alcohol and honestly, the threat of a gruesome death? Well, that ensured I never would. The fact that I was some kind of super witch, practically capable of bringing my mother back from the dead (well, there was no practically about it), actually felt kind of badass the more that I thought about it—
“Oh my god!” I shouted into the darkness.
A realization struck me like lightning and I sat up in the examination bed. Tristan’s story didn’t seem so farfetched anymore. I mean, if I could bring my mother back from the other side… then why couldn’t I bring myself back?
Goosebumps sprouted across my body and my heart began to thump in my chest, pounding against my rib cage. It was all real, the emotions, the explanation for it, everything fit. The only thing that had stopped me from believing was how outrageous it sounded. I now knew that I was perfectly capable of outrageous. I reached under the pillow and grabbed Darren’s card, holding it up to my chest. Guilt stirred inside of me. Crap.
Morning came fast, and I woke up smiling. I had dreamed that my mother had come to and that she’d heard all the things I’d said to her while she was out. Suddenly, all those memories I feared I’d miss out on began to play out like mini-movies. She was there to walk me down the aisle, and she was there with me when I was having my first child. What’s more, Darren was there too.
Unfortunately, as soon as I leaned up in bed, it all immediately felt like a lie. I suddenly found myself missing Tristan terribly. His scent, those eyes. It was as if my heart was punishing my brain for dreaming about the wrong boy.
I found Dr. Roberts working with my mother. His eyes were red and huge bags puffed out beneath them. He’d been up with her up all night. Half of me wanted to tell him to get some sleep, while the other half was scared that if he did, something might happen while he was gone. I decided not to say anything. Instead, I took up a seat in one of the chairs beside the bed and watched him work for a little while. He had set up the device below her heart and though the black streaks still webbed across her lower extremities, they were much fainter now.
Try as I might to stay in the present, my thoughts kept drifting to Tristan. He was coming back tonight to tell me the rest of the story and it was going to be bad. Did I really want to hear bad? Then there was the fact that I wouldn’t see him again after that. It was the last thing he’d said to me and conveniently, the part I thought about the least. Even knowing this, I found myself eager to meet with him, to feel those intense emotions again.
“Where are you right now?” asked Dr. Roberts, laughing as he waved a hand in front of my face, disrupting my daydream.
I’m with a vampire, who is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and who I’ve apparently loved for lifetimes already. Only, he’s changed his mind for some reason, maybe because I don’t remember him, or maybe because the current me doesn’t stack up to the old ones. “Nowhere,” was what I actually said.
The hours seemed to crawl by, with not much change in my mother’s progress. So when my grandmother arrived with the younger woman from before, I found myself almost overjoyed for the break in the monotony.
“Bringing people back from the dead? Aren’t we full of surprises?”
I nearly panicked but then I realized the voice I was hearing was London.
“Where are you?” I thought as she stepped into the room. She rolled her eyes at me and I remembered that she was still pretending to hate me. As to why this was, I had no idea. Still, seeing her triggered even more thoughts about Tristan and as she undoubtedly saw the images flash in my mind, she almost let a smile slip.
“Ana, I want you to meet the woman who will be replacing me soon as your chief adviser. After you turn twenty-five, of course. This is Bethany McArthur.”
The younger woman smiled and reached out her hand. “Let’s hope it’s not for awhile though, your grandmother’s in excellent health.”
I took her hand and she nodded for London to come closer. “You’ve already met my youngest daughter, but London here tells me that you two didn’t get a chance to meet on your first day of school.”
I shook my head. “You’re really committed to this, aren’t you?”
She laughed inside her head. “You’ll understand soon enough.”
I couldn’t believe the easy way in which we conversed. Albeit telepathically. The fact that she now knew two of my biggest secrets and hadn’t immediately tried to blackmail me, or do something else, made it concrete. She was really someone I could trust.
After listening to her mother and my grandmother flatter one another for another ten minutes, with London doing her best to make it as obvious as possible that she hated being here, they got to the point of the visit.
“Here it comes,” London thought as her mother turned to address me.
“Ana, since you’re new here, you probably don’t have a lot of friends. I was thinking that maybe London could kind of show you around a bit. Help you get to know some people. She has some community service activities happening tonight. I’m sure she’d love for you to join her.”
London stared blankly at her mother. Her mother cleared her throat. London rolled her eyes again. “I would really like, super duper love it, if you could come, it would totally make my entire year.”
The sarcasm was not lost on anyone. My grandmother looked uncomfortable, while her mother looked to be on the verge of losing it.
“Say yes. We are not going anywhere near the food bank, I can assure you.”
“Sounds like fun,” I answered.
Relief spread across Mrs. McArthur’s face. “Alright then, she’ll pick you up around seven!”
I glanced at Dr. Roberts. He nodded and then said, “Have some fun. It’s just a waiting game now.”
Grey Eyes (Book One, The Forever Trilogy) Page 27
