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I awoke to my bedroom in shambles, and was surprised to find that I didn’t care about that anymore. I was disoriented, and my tongue was fat and fuzzy in my mouth. I tried to unstick it so I could form words. The world had a black furry halo around it. I tried to get my peripheral vision to work, but it had apparently gone to lunch.
“September?” I croaked out.
Mariang came into my vision with a glass of water, tipping it to my lips as her tearstained face tried to make out words. I drank the cool beverage, feeling a little better as the haze around my vision started to clear a modest amount.
“Can I hold her? Where is she?”
Mariang shook her head, her lips pursed together through a sob as she tried unsuccessfully to communicate something to me.
I tried to sit up, but Danny came to my other side, his face red and sweaty as he lowered me back down. “You lost a lot of blood, so you have to stay in bed a little while longer.”
I felt the bed beneath me, but there was no wetness or blood anywhere. “Did you change the sheets? How long have I been out? Where’s September?”
Danny sat down on the side of the bed and picked up my cold and limp hand, sandwiching it between his meaty ones. “September’s...”
Mariang’s bark was angry, which was uncharacteristic of her dealings with her surly husband. It seemed that while I was out, they’d switched roles. “Don’t you dare, Danny! She just woke up. Let her rest a minute.” She faked a smile down at me and switched her tone to the one Allie used to use when she was trying to will something to be true that just plain wasn’t. “Von’s with September now. You can see her in a little bit.”
Danny glared over at his wife, unwilling to bend to her. “You’re not doing her any good. Go try and help the guys with Von. I’ll handle this.”
Mariang left the room, though I sensed it wasn’t because Danny told her to, but because something bad was about to happen here, and she needed to flee from the scene of the impending crime.
I looked down at my significantly flatter stomach. I felt like a deflated balloon beneath the sheet I’d been draped in like a corpse. “What happened?” I was barely coherent. Every breath brought me a smidgen more lucidity until I was able to look up at Danny and squeeze his hand. “Where’s September?”
Danny addressed my hand that was squished between his as he spoke, afraid for some reason to look at me. “The Manas forced you to swallow the patayin root they’d ground up. Do you remember the whole drama with the women in Sakuna losing their babies?”
“Yeah. How awful.”
“They lost them because King Geon poisoned the river with patayin. A faction of the Manas were afraid of Sama reproducing, so they snuck Topside to force the patayin on you.”
I stared up at the ceiling. “I guess my spontaneous labor was a good thing. Thank God we got her out right then.”
Danny shook his head, still fearful of meeting my eyes. “We got her out of you, but it was too late. The patayin is powerful, and works quick.”
I didn’t understand what Danny was trying to say. Impatient, I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Can I just have my baby already? Is she sick from the patayin or something?”
Danny cleared his throat and held my hand tighter as dread painted his monster of Frankenstein features. “September isn’t sick, hun. She’s...”
I saw Danny’s lips move, but my ears felt like they had cotton in them. “What?”
“She’s....”
“I can’t hear you.” Each time he tried to tell me, my hearing deserted me. It was the strangest thing.
Finally Danny let go of my hand and held my face so I was inches from him and could see his lips move in slow motion. “September’s dead.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We did everything we could. She came out without a pulse. There’s nothing you or anyone could’ve done. The patayin works fast. She was probably gone the minute the herb touched your tongue.”
“What?” I asked, confused as the insane information mangled my brain and refused to make sense. “She’s not dead. She’s my baby. She just came out of me! I just had her with me a second ago!”
Danny shook his head. “She’s gone. Kabayo even worked on her for half an hour. She didn’t make it. After the patayin, she didn’t stand a chance.”
The earth shook as I shouted in Danny’s face. My body was too weak to sit up, so my voice tried to compensate. “Stop it! You’re lying to me! You know she’s fine!”
Tears welled in Danny’s eyes while he tried to make sure there was at least one sane person in the room. “She’s dead. They pronounced her a while ago. Then Von lost himself. He took her into the kitchen and won’t let us near them. He bit Graham when he tried to take September from his arms. Then he bit Finn when he tried to take her away after that.” He waved his hand like he was clearing the air of a bad smell. “That’s nothing for you to trouble yourself with, though. I’ll take care of it.”
I had no words or concept of time as the seconds passed, giving my mushy brain a moment to process as much as it could of the chaos. When I finally spoke, a whisper was all I could work out. “Bring them in here. Von and September. I want to see my baby.”
Danny shook his head, swiping at tears that trickled down his cheeks. “No. You don’t need to see what you lost. It’s bad enough you lost her. No need to put a face to the nightmare.”
A low rumble started in my disoriented guts and echoed out through my body like a war cry. “Bring me my daughter!”
It was a thing of mercy that Danny obeyed me for once. I wasn’t sure what kind of inhuman damage I might do if he didn’t. It took some time, but finally a wild-eyed and disheveled Von inched into the room. He was clutching a swaddled blanket in his arms like it was a treasure he was afraid would be stolen right out from under his nose. “I... I can fix this,” he promised, his wet eyes like saucers, and his movements stiff and unpracticed.
“Come here. Let me see my daughter.” I patted the space next to me on the bed, waiting with bated breath to get a look at the person who’d changed my life the most thus far. Von climbed into the cleaned bed and laid his head down on his pillow, resting September between us.
I gasped with fear and wonder as the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on was unveiled next to me. I shook as I studied every curve and crevice of her sleeping face, wanting more details, more of everything that had to do with her. I never understood the whole love at first sight thing, but in that moment, I did. I loved her. Deep in my bones, her tiny curled fingers wrapped around my heart and held it, squeezing the tears straight from it like an overfull sponge, refusing to let go. “She’s gorgeous,” I whispered.
Von’s voice sounded unbalanced and a little insane, but I let him woo me with his crazy. “I can fix her. I’ve been feeding her a little of my blood to see if it’ll transform her into a quarter-vamp. I know traditionally only a full vampire can change someone, but maybe that’s just because no one like me’s tried it before. Just give her a little more time and keep her warm, yeah?”
“Okay, Von.” I agreed because it meant I got to keep my daughter a little while longer. She had thin cheeks and a button nose like mine. “She’s got your chin,” I remarked, tracing with trembling fingers the arc that was precious to me. In truth, it could’ve been my chin. Philip’s chin had a cleft in it, and September’s didn’t. It was one drop of hope in my ocean of bleak nothingness, so I clung to it.
Tears flowed out of me as Von kissed her temple and then mine. “She’s our girl. Sama’s got hideous white-blond hair, but September’s is darker.”
I didn’t tell him that since my hair was auburn and September’s had a bit of color to it, that it didn’t actually confirm paternity. He was too in love for me to burst the bubble with logic. “She’s perfect, that’s for sure. Do you think she’d be able to talk people into stupid things, like you can?”
A hint of a smile touched Von’s lips. “I have no doubt. She’s got your ears, which I’m guessing means she won’t listen when she’s told no.”
I smiled through my grief that I could see coming like a giant boat-smashing tsunami. “That’s my girl.” Von swallowed uncomfortably, and I knew he could smell my blood. “Why don’t you go drink from one of the Manas in the garage? I can tell you’re thirsty.”
“I’m fine. I won’t leave her.”
“You’re not leaving her. You’re going into the next room so she can lay next to her mama.”
Von shook his head. “I’m not ready to blink yet. I’m afraid if I do, they’ll take her away from us. I can save her. I can fix this.”
Danny cleared his throat, alerting us to his presence in the room. “I brought you this. Take some time together and say goodbye.” He reached over me and handed a blood bag to Von, who gripped his brother’s arm in gratitude.
Von lowered his voice to a whisper when Danny left the bedroom. “I’m not saying goodbye. Let’s give my blood time to work its way through her system.”
September didn’t have a heartbeat, so nothing would work through her system, no matter how powerful the fictional antidote may be. But I wanted to believe Von because I wanted the lie to be true. I wanted to know that life would be kind to us, that after all the horror, it would give us something good to hold onto. “How much more time?”
“I don’t know. A little while longer.”
“Okay, Von. We can keep her a little while longer.”
Von met my eyes and nodded, tearing a slice with his incisor through his already scabbed wrist. Then he dripped his blood into my precious daughter’s mouth.
I closed my eyes against the image that would forever be seared into my brain. Now I knew that life would continue on as it always had, doling out breaks for others, but keeping us wrapped firmly around the throats.