“Kerri, this girl might be able to save Abby faster than I can. If I even can. If she’s taken a bad reaction to the sedatives, it could verra well kill her.” Vic’s words were gentle but brokered no arguments. “Please, Kerri. Let us try and save your pup.”
The woman looked at me for a long moment, then burst out in loud sobs and left the room, closing the door behind her. I’d asked the guys to wait outside so that I wasn’t dragging my entourage through this family’s house with me, which left Vic and me alone.
Sagging to my knees beside the girl’s pink and purple bed, I stroked a gentle hand over her hair, which lay limp on the pillow. She looked so peaceful, like she was sleeping, but her skin was ashen and there was a worrying blue tint to her lips.
“You okay, girl?” Vic murmured, leaning over me to strap a blood pressure cuff to the girl’s arm.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered. My voice caught, and I choked back tears.
“Don’t worry about it. Barely anyone escaped that fucking plague unchanged. Even those who retained their memories and magic were altered. Damaged. Weakened. None of the Ban Dia retained their ability to heal others, so there’s no shame in not succeeding here.” He was gruff as he worked, but I got the distinct impression he wasn’t such a bad guy deep down. Just... rough.
“This whole thing, these kids being drugged, it’s because of me.” I pressed my hand to the girl’s forehead and tried to find that spark within myself, that essence of magic that had brought both Cole and Vali back from the brink of death.
Nothing.
Vic heaved a sigh. “Look. Don’t try and force it. I can’t give you much more than that. Your mom only ever healed us, but she always said it just came naturally. Like the magic in her had a life of its own and she just let it do its thing.”
He made it sound so easy, but I supposed some advice was better than none. Biting my lip, I smoothed my hand back across the girl’s forehead and closed my eyes. Magic always seemed easier when I closed my eyes. Says me, who to my knowledge, had used magic all of twice in my life.
For the longest time, nothing happened. Then just as I was about to give up, a small flickering of light ignited within my mind. Still convinced that nothing was happening, I gasped with surprise, and my lids flew open, my mind losing the little light instantly.
“Shit,” I swore quietly, and Vic raised an eyebrow at me. “Give me another minute.”
Closing my lids tight once more, I searched for that flickering and found it almost immediately, like it had been waiting for me to come back. Under my hand, the girl’s skin warmed with the phantom feeling of fur, and my lips curved into a smile.
It was working.
Vic’s advice about letting the magic do its thing rang true, and I opened my mind to it.
A tingling rush ran through me and into the unconscious girl, increasing the feeling of fur under my hand to the point where I began stroking her head like you would a puppy.
In no time at all, the feeling faded and left me a with a sharp sense of loss and emptiness.
“Holy, shit,” Vic murmured from somewhere close behind my shoulder. “Abby, sweetheart, are you okay?”
“Doctor Vic?” The little girl’s voice croaked, and I blinked my eyes open.
“How are you feeling, Abby?” the scarred man asked in a gentle voice, but the girl had her gaze glued to me, her eyes wide with terror.
“I should go,” I murmured, pushing to my feet. “She saw me during... before she got drugged. I’m probably scaring her.”
Vic nodded, letting me past him to leave the little girl’s room.
“You did good, Christina,” he commented, making me pause in the doorway. “Thank you.”
I nodded but said nothing. No thanks were needed for a mess that I had created.
Outside the house, six men waited for me. They hadn’t seen me slip through the door, and I took a moment to watch them. Wesley, Caleb, and Austin sat on a low wall talking quietly with their heads bowed, while Cole and River stood together with their backs to me. Only Vali stood alone, leaning against a lamppost, and was the first to look up and spot me.
“You okay?” he asked, taking a few steps toward me as I descended the porch steps. My head was swimming like I was drunk, but it wasn’t a scratch on the way I’d felt after healing Cole. Or Vali for that matter, but I’d been so pumped with adrenaline from being shot at and seeing Mr. Gray that I hadn’t really noticed it at the time.
“I healed her.” A smile curved across my face as a sense of accomplishment washed through me, and Vali’s lips twitched in response.
“Good. But are you okay?” he repeated, his steely gaze intent on my face.
“Yeah, fine. Just tired.” In direct contradiction to my words, I stumbled my next step and screwed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t see the pavement when my face hit it. My body was too tired to try and save itself, so I was just letting it happen until a pair of strong hands grasped me by the waist and hauled me back upright.
The rapid direction change barely allowed me a moment to gasp a breath before my lips were met by the lips of whoever had just caught me. His soft mouth caressed mine gently, and when I responded, he teased open my lips with his tongue. A soft whimper escaped me as I melted a little under the touch of a man that was familiar but new all at the same time. Like some sort of clichéd rom-com, butterflies erupted in my belly, overwhelming me with emotion while he slid his soft palm up to cup my cheek and his glasses bumped my eyebrow.
“Hmm, might be time to switch to contacts,” Wesley whispered with a cheeky grin as he pulled back just an inch and met my shocked gaze.
“Wes...” I trailed off because I was quite literally at a loss for words.
“Did you manage to regain some energy?” he asked sheepishly with a light blush staining his cheeks. His palm still cupped my face though, and I leaned into his touch as the magic sparkled through my veins.
“Yes,” I sighed, relishing the feeling of what I now knew was magic passing between us. “Thank you, Wes.” Rising up on my toes, I planted a soft, lingering kiss on his lips before turning to the other guys.
“Let’s head back to Vic’s and work out what to do next. I think he’s going to be a while checking on the other kids.” I glanced back at the house I’d just left and saw Abby’s mother watching me from a window with a deep scowl on her face. “I get the feeling we aren’t particularly welcome in this town anymore.”
Caleb snorted, sliding an arm around my shoulders as we started back to Vic’s house.
“Yeah, like we ever were.”
A small smile pulled at my lips; he had a point.
Between the near fatal fight with Chesca—the metal-clawed werewolf we’d last seen at Blood Moon labs—to the villains from my own past drugging and abducting their children... yeah, we definitely weren’t welcome.
Back at Vic’s house, Caleb made bacon sandwiches for everyone and I poured myself a glass of wine from Vic’s cellar. After all, I was legal now.