CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 

 

The next morning probably dawned sunny and warm, but I didn’t know, because I never left my bed. Shades drawn kept my bedroom in relative darkness, tiny slivers of light peeking around the edges of the wood blinds.

My phone remained on silent. I imagined people were trying to reach me, but I didn’t care. My thoughts were a maelstrom. This was what it had come to.

I killed someone. A paranormal being driven mad by grief, true. But still. With more time, maybe I could have helped her. I killed her to protect a man who thought I was a freak. At least nobody else would die. This was cold comfort as I curled into a ball under my comforter.

Other than a banana and bathroom breaks, I stayed in bed watching the sun through the blinds march across the sky and become dusk. I started to feel weirdly self-indulgent spending the day in bed. I sat up and stretched, grabbed my phone off the nightstand. Dang, my phone blew up while I was sleeping. Notifications of texts, phone calls, and voicemails filled the screen. Catherine and Evie, of course. Jacob. That one surprised me. He made his feelings pretty clear before he left yesterday. Well, before I fled and hid from him under the water, I supposed was the more accurate description. I sighed and began checking each of the texts and calls.

My doorbell chimed as I reached the final of the increasingly frantic messages from my friends. I had a feeling I knew who was there, once I confirmed with a glance at the blinds that night had fallen. I also had a feeling I knew who wasn’t at the door. Jacob called twice but didn’t leave a message either time. I left the warm comfort of the bed and threw on a satin robe before heading downstairs.

The doorbell chimed a second time. I opened the door. “You ladies are impatient.”

Catherine and Evie threw themselves at me in a group hug.

“We were so worried!”

“I gave you until Evie woke up, but when you didn’t respond, we decided an intervention was in order.”

“You can’t ignore us,” Evie added. “We’re your friends.”

Catherine held up a bottle of wine. “We brought liquid libations.”

Evie held up a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. “And comfort food.”    

I smiled at their enthusiasm. “Not that you can have either.”

Evie pointed to her bag. “Not to worry. I brought a bottle of my sustenance too.”

The three of us laughed as the women entered my home behind me. We paused in the kitchen to pour the drinks and scoop the ice cream. Then we collapsed on the couch.

Concerned eyes stared at me. I broke eye contact and stared instead at my fidgeting fingers.

“What happened, Mia? Jacob called me several times, asking about you. He said Jena was gone.”

My eyes filled with tears. I looked at Catherine. “He called you?”

“He did. He wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

“What happened?” Evie echoed Catherine.

I inhaled a deep breath and told the whole ugly story of my fight with Jacob, Jena’s misguided intervention, and my killing her. Both women gasped when I got to that part and my tears flowed freely.

“Oh, Mia. I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Catherine said softly. She leaned in to give me a tight hug. I took strength from her embrace, smelled the subtle scent of lavender.

“Thank you.”

“You know there was nothing else you could have done, right?” Evie asked this pointedly. I shook my head. “Seriously, Mia, misguided or not, Jena was a serial killer. She was unstable. You saved lives by taking hers.”

“That sounds all well and good,” I responded more sharply than I intended. “But the bottom line is that I killed her when she was trying to help me.” I gasped for air when the tears came harder.

Evie rose. She paced back and forth in front of us. “Bullshit,” she finally said and my mouth fell open.

“What—”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I know what it’s like to take a life, remember.” I saw the haunted look in her eyes, a reflection of her own experience only a few months’ ago.

“Sometimes it’s necessary. Killing Jena was inevitable. I can’t believe you thought you’d be able to talk her down.” She shook her head.

Her words both hurt and comforted me. “I’ll never know,” I argued and she cut me off with a flick of her wrist.

“Yes. You do. You’re hurting because you know this was always going to be the outcome and you were deluding yourself thinking otherwise. You agree, right, Catherine?”

We both looked at Catherine, who held her hands up in the universal sign of don’t drag me into the middle of this.

“You both have legitimate points.” We waited for her to continue but she didn’t. “That’s all.” She smiled serenely.

And for some reason, that turned the tide for me. I laughed, a deep belly laugh that might have cracked a rib if I kept going too long. It felt good, though, that laugh.

Catherine and Evie looked at me askance for a moment, looked at each other with a smile, and then all three of us were on the couch, laughing and hugging each other. I accepted this release and comfort.

I wiped tears from my eyes, of laughter not pain this time. “Wiser words were never spoken, Catherine.” I held each of their hands.

“Thank you both for coming here. You are absolutely right. I probably was delusional to think I could talk an irrational immortal being out of destruction. At least it’s over now and nobody else will be hurt. I can’t lay around feeling sorry for myself. What would that accomplish?”

“Exactly,” Evie concurred.

“Thanks, Evie, for being so blunt. And thanks, Catherine, for being so … accommodating.” I smiled and then my mouth turned down.

“What?” Catherine squeezed my hand.

“Jacob?” Evie asked. I nodded.

“Yeah. I thought whatever spark,” I chuckled at the memories of the actual sparks flying, “we had might have led to something. He thinks I’m a monster.” My voice fell to a whisper on the last word.

“Maybe,” Catherine said. “But, he called you—”

“Didn’t leave messages,” I interrupted.

“He called me. He asked how you were doing. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him. Remember when I found out about Alex?” Her hunky boyfriend, Alexander Moore, was a half-incubus. “I needed time to process.” She shrugged. “My guess was that Jacob felt blindsided, like I did, and needed time.”

“And Ryan?” Evie asked. Her human boyfriend hadn’t exactly jumped with excitement when he learned she was a vampire.

Hope glowed within me. “Do you really think?”

Catherine and Evie nodded.

I steeled myself and released their hands. “I’m going to put everything out there.” I felt their eyes on me. I texted Jacob one last time. It was longer than I usually text, and probably I should have just called, but this was easier, and I still felt raw from his rejection. I hit send after typing the final line and smiled at my friends.

The ball is in your court now, as they say.