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“I’m telling you, I’m going – with or without all of you.”
Danny jutted his chin out to match my stubbornness. “And I’m telling you, there’s no way. You’re a couple weeks away from your due date. Not exactly the time for a cross-country trip.”
“Hello, I’m going to a hospital. If I go into labor, I’m sure they know the song and dance of how to deliver a baby in California.”
“You need your doctor. You need to rest. Bedrest, kid. That’s what you’ve been prescribed, so march!” Danny pointed his finger to the bedroom with imperious authority.
“I can sit in a car just the same as sitting in a bed. This is my sister, Danny! My sister’s lying somewhere in a hospital without me! She needs me!” The thought of her hooked up to life support with tubes and needles all over her choked me around the throat and threatened my sanity. I couldn’t bear the thought of her alone in a room for years now with no one to brush her hair or tell the hospital her name wasn’t friggin’ Jane Doe.
Danny held up his hands to calm me down. “Look, you’re getting this information from where? It came to you randomly in a dream? You have to know how crazy it all sounds!”
I chewed on my lower lip, wishing I didn’t have to offer up the entire confession. “It wasn’t exactly random. Philip, I mean Sama, came to me in my dream last night.”
Any traces of friendship that had been blooming between us turned icy by the time my sentence hit the air and crackled between us. Boston’s hand in mine turned stony, and Graham, Alton and Mariang all gasped. “He what?” Danny asked in a deadly low tone, his fists clenched.
I threw out my free hand in exasperation. “I can’t exactly help it. And I tried to kill him in my dream, but he like, evaporated out before I could end him. He told me I wasn’t the first Omen he’d tried to get pregnant, that he’d done the same thing with Allie.” My heart tugged painfully. I tried to rip my hand from Boston’s so I could scrape at my skin, but the smarty only clung tighter. “Sama got my Allie pregnant, but something about her not being awakened first, or not having the stupid weed fried her brain. Fried her brain, Danny! That’s why he’s been giving me the himila weed. It’s how September’s stayed healthy.”
Danny took a step back and rubbed his forehead as he processed the new information. “But Mariang was the only Omen for years before you came along. We didn’t even know you had a sister until you told Ezra that first day we met you.”
“Somehow Sama knew Allie could be an Omen before anyone else did, so he got into her mind and got her pregnant before she could be awakened.”
Danny spun on his heel and yanked out his phone, calling Ezra from the kitchen. I stood in the middle of the living room, wishing I was standing next to Allie. Allie who hadn’t abandoned us. Allie who loved me. Allie who needed me.
Mariang came to life first, standing and wrapping her arms around me. “I’m so sorry! I’ll help you get to her however I can. We’ll find her.”
“St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital in California. She’s Jane Doe!” I cried, utterly woebegone. “No one even knows that she’s loved, that she belongs to a family.” I squeezed Mariang as tears started to fall, our bellies dueling for space in our hug. We both felt September reach out to press her hands to Mariang’s baby, which made us cling tighter to each other. “Allie needs me, and I won’t lie around while she’s scared.”
“We’ll find her. We’ll find her. Dad’s not going to rest if one of his children is out there and needs help.”
I nodded, knowing she wasn’t just trying to make me feel better. “Thank you. She needs to meet you. Having you on my side? It’s made all the difference. She needs you in her life. She’d love you.” I stomped my foot to the floor when Graham’s hand rested on my back. “And where’s Ollie? He needs to be here!”
Mariang nodded, releasing me. “I’ll go talk to Dad, make sure he orders Prince Langgam to bring him home today. They’ve been in touch, but Prince Langgam’s insisted Ollie’s been a great help to him down there. The country’s in an upset, and Ollie’s good in those kinds of crises.”
“This is more important. I need him here right now.”