Not wanting to believe this, I turn the volume all the way up and listen to it again.
Genna’s voice is not there.
It was as if I was talking to myself….
“Yeah,” Harry says, noticing the baffled look on my face, “I was trying to figure out who you were talking to—didn’t realize Tori was here the whole time.”
“No,” I say, absently putting up my hand, “she wasn’t here the whole time.”
“Fine, but I’ve still never heard of—”
A short guy wearing a green Abercrombie & Fitch shirt walks by and I reach out to stop him. “Do you know Genna Bishop?” I say to him.
He thinks about it for a moment and then says, “No, does she go here?”
But I can’t answer him. I’m too stunned and I simply slide back down on the chair and stare at Harry’s phone in my hand. The guy walks away, but I hardly notice.
Maybe that’s why Tori and her friends were looking at me so strangely….
“Whoa,” Harry says, taking the phone from my fingers cautiously as if it were a gun and he’s just talked me out of it, “you’re really starting to worry me. First, you pass out at Isaac’s—”
My face shoots up then, “You saw her there, at Isaac’s, didn’t you?” I say, desperately searching for something to make this all make sense. “Genna was there next to me the whole time…up until just a few seconds before I passed out.” I feel my fingernails tapping heavily on the tabletop and I’m practically glowering at Harry. “You saw her, right?” It comes out like a demand that he absolutely has to tell me that he did see a girl, someone that he’s never seen before.
“No,” he says and his face exchanges worry with grief. He takes my hand, but I hardly notice that either. “Maybe you need to go home for the day.”
I’m shaking I’m so stressed out, feeling like I’m losing my mind.
Viktor’s face dissolves into my thoughts.
“Oh no…maybe he really did do it,” I say to myself, feeling the tears start to choke the back of my throat.
“Who did what, Adria?”
I stand up quickly and grab my books, but before I can stack them into my hands, I start to see those furious black dots buzzing around in front of my eyes again. No, this can’t be happening. Not again. I reach out to grab a hold of the back of my chair, but I don’t catch it in time before the floor starts to rise up at me. I feel my body crash against the carpet, the side of my head thrumming after it hits the chair leg. I can hear voices all around me, hovering over me and they sound muffled and interwoven and I can’t make anything out. I feel the side of my cheek pressed against the floor and the sound of my own breath is vociferous and desperate in my ears. My sight is doubling, tripling and I can’t tell if there are six, or twelve, or twenty legs standing around me, moving back and forth across the floor. Nothing is clear.
Genna Bishop walks toward me from a strange and frightening blinding light. Is she an angel? She must be an angel. The light, her beauty, the way her emerald eyes sparkle like something out of a fairytale, the way I suddenly feel calm and relaxed. But she can’t be an angel because I’m still afraid of her. Despite feeling calm and relaxed, another part of me wants to claw my way across the floor and away from her.
I hear her voice inside my head as she draws closer, the shapes and colors of everyone and everything else around her seems to fade and blend into her surroundings, becoming part of her.
She reaches out her hand to me and I feel it touch my wrist as it lies on the floor, my fingers curled inward.
“I’m sorry,” she says as she kneels beside me, but she seems too far away to be as close as she is. “I couldn’t foresee this and I couldn’t sense it and it can only mean one thing.”
Her voice sounds more like an echo coming from all sides and her lips never move. Whenever I try to move, her form becomes wispy, threatening to evaporate completely as though she is a ghost.
“What does it mean?” I say desperately. “Who are you?”
“You need to stay calm,” Genna says, “more than ever, you need to stay calm—overactive emotions of any kind will only kill you faster.” Her voice is muted like she’s speaking through a glass wall.
Suddenly, my body is heaved backwards, the floor hurtling away from me as I’m lifted into the air. Genna’s form breaks up like brushing a hand through a wisp of smoke and she disappears. I feel a set of arms underneath me and I see the white walls of the library turn into those of the hall as I’m carried briskly out the door.
I’m really getting sick of fainting and waking up in places I was not in before I fainted.
Like right now.
I open my eyes a slit at first because the light is way too bright and the walls way too white. I see a glimpse of the fluorescent light set above me in the ceiling, but then I turn on my side so it doesn’t blind me. A pair of long legs dressed in black jeans are draped over a chair, bent at the knees. Black Doc Marten boots dress his feet, which are stark against the bright white floor. I blink a few times to let my eyes blur into focus.
Isaac is staring across the room at me, but he doesn’t get up because the school nurse seems to have things under control.
“I’ve called your mom,” she says looking down at me through a pair of thin gold glasses. “She’s already on her way.”
I don’t care to correct her and say that Beverlee is my aunt; she might as well be my mom. I start to rise up from the bed, but she puts her hand on my shoulder and gently pushes me back down.
Isaac watches quietly from the side.
The door comes open then and two EMT’s enter the room, one carrying a black and orange duffle bag I know is filled with medical stuff that better not include any needles, but I’m sure does. I tense up instantly and feel like I want to claw my way up the wall, but I just lay here in a sort of quiet panic.
Isaac must’ve noticed because he is on his feet and standing closer to me, maybe just in case I try to flee.
I still might.
“I don’t need an ambulance,” I say.
The EMT carrying the bag sets it on a chair and walks over to me smiling. But I never trust anyone who is associated with needles. EMT’s. Veterinarians. Doctors. Drug addicts. They all scare me equally.
“Just going to check you over,” the EMT says. He’s already wearing a pair of blue latex gloves.
I force my head back against the pillow as his hand moves toward mine. He presses two fingers on my wrist while the other EMT pulls out an ear thermometer from the duffle bag and waits. Once my pulse is checked, he takes the thermometer from the other EMT and places it in my ear. After a few seconds, it beeps.
“Heart rate is a little high, but no fever,” he says, clicking the end of the thermometer off and into the nearby trash can, “but nothing to worry over—I’m betting you’re afraid of needles.” He smiles down at me. Clean-shaven. Middle-aged.
I swallow hard and glance over at Isaac, thinking he’s going to save me if this man tries to whip one out after me.
“No needles today, Miss Dawson,” he says and puts a stethoscope to my heart. He listens for a few seconds and pulls the cold metal away from my skin. “At least from us, but you should go to the hospital for a full assessment.”
The school nurse speaks up from behind, “Apparently, she fainted yesterday, too, off school grounds.”
Just great—Harry must’ve told them that bit of forbidden information.
Or did Isaac? I glance over at him accusingly, but he shakes his head no.
The EMT turns back to me and nods once. “Yes, you definitely need to see a doctor,” he says. “We can take you to the hospital now, or you can set an appointment with your family doctor since you seem to be doing fine at the moment. But I would do it as soon as possible.”
Aunt Bev flies around the corner, her purse strap falling off her shoulder.
“Is Adria okay?” she says, so worried that it shows all over her face. She moves her way past the school nurse and gets in-
between the EMT’s; the quiet one is already zipping up the duffle bag.
“I’m fine, Aunt Bev,” I say, tired of everyone asking how I am almost as much as I’m tired of giving them reason to. “Seriously, I’m alright, so please don’t make me go to the hospital.”
Beverlee dismisses me altogether, as though my opinion of my health isn’t good enough and she gives the EMT’s her full attention.
“All of her vitals are good,” says the EMT that did the few assessments. “But I would get her in to see a doctor soon.”
Beverlee nods and pushes herself the rest of the way past them and stands next to me. Finally, I can lift myself up without feeling threatened by over-reactors.
“What’s this about you passing out yesterday?” she says, cupping my forehead in her hand as if not fully convinced of the EMT’s evaluation, either. “Harry told me you fainted at Isaac’s yesterday—why didn’t you tell me?”
“Aunt Bev, please,” I say, pulling away lightly, “there’s not a thing wrong with me.”
That’s a complete and total lie and I know it better than anyone in this room, but I can’t tell anyone.
I look over at Isaac again and feel my heart crumble into a million pieces. I look away quickly, as though him peering deeply into my eyes will give away my dark secret, the one I’m a little more than convinced of now. I feel sick to my stomach. The fear of what he will think, what he will say and do…the fear of losing him because Viktor bonded me to him…I can’t think about that right now. I try to push it out of my mind, but every time I feel Isaac’s eyes on me, it just comes back again, flooding painfully down into the threads of my heart.
I don’t have the strength to argue my plea with Beverlee anymore. Not now. Not after letting this realization slither over the walls I’ve struggled to keep up the past several months.
This can’t be happening. It can’t be real.
I don’t want to end up like Aramei.
“You’ll go to the doctor tomorrow,” Beverlee says firmly, “or you might not be going to Portland.”
“Fine,” I give in, “I’ll go, but I don’t need any blood drawn or anything. I draw the line.”
Beverlee’s chin draws back and I can tell she’s suppressing a smile. “You’ll have to do whatever the doctor suggests, Adria, I’m sorry. Even sorrier that drawing blood is pretty standard and it’s likely going to be one of the first things they do.”
I swallow a gulp of air. My stomach is churning, more now than it was seconds ago. Couldn’t she have just lied to me?
I walk over to Isaac, though I feel Beverlee’s hand pressed against my back the whole way, waiting to catch me if I decide to faint again. The EMT’s are just leaving, but the school nurse is still standing in the room, so I decide it’s not a good time to be showing him any kind of affection that involves more than a hug.
He hugs me and whispers, “I’ll come over tonight. Call me if you start feeling bad again…just so I’ll know.”
“Okay,” I say and grip him back tightly.
12
DINNER IS ALMOST READY, but I’m not hungry. I’m too depressed to eat. When Beverlee brought me home from school, the first thing she did was call and set an appointment for me. It’s good and bad that she managed to get me in as early as tomorrow morning. Good because if it were any later I would almost definitely be missing my trip to Portland. Bad because I’m about fifteen hours away from being poked and prodded with needles and I’m contemplating right now about whether to pack a bag and hitchhike out of Maine.
But the needles have nothing to do with my depression.
Viktor Vargas has everything to do with it. Isaac has everything to do with it.
I look out over the field that surrounds our house from the roof that covers the wraparound porch and I wish I could see everything clearly in my life as clearly as I see the landscape. I started coming up here one night when I ventured into the dusty attic. The box window on the front side opens out onto the roof and I couldn’t resist climbing out here and taking advantage of the solitude. I always did like to stare up at the stars; did it with Alex all the time in Georgia. Now, I spend my stargazing nights sometimes with Isaac, but also with Harry. I hear him coming up the attic steps now, the wood creaking underfoot, the old door with rusted hinges whining open as he steps inside. His voice rebounds softly in the wide open space as he calls out my name and says something about how dusty it is in there and that I should think about breaking out the furniture polish.
“Did you hear me?” he says, popping his head out the window.
I’m sitting upright on the roof with my legs crossed, letting the light breeze brush against my face, taking in the tranquility of the Golden Hour, the unwinding time just before the sun sets.
Harry climbs out onto the roof, his long legs make him sort of frightening as they lengthen and bend like a giant spider crawling through the small window. His shoe slides once against the shingles and my body jerks in reaction, but Harry fastens himself against the gentle slope and raises his body carefully into a partial stand.
“Beverlee said you’re going to the doctor tomorrow?” he says as he makes his way over to me.
“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t look at him. My fingers intertwine uneasily in my lap.
Harry sits down next to me, his knees bent upward.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says. “Well, obviously it’s something, but doubtful it’s fatal, y’know?”
I let out a spat of air through my nose and smile derisively to myself over that word: fatal. I had been thinking about what this means all day. About what being cursed by this Blood Bond means, if it’s true that Viktor cursed me. And it’s like I know in my heart that it is. All of the pieces seem to fit. Everything that has happened to me since then, all comes down to this one possibility.
“I hope you’re not pissed at me for telling Beverlee about yesterday.”
I smile lightly. “No, I’m not mad about that,” I say, looking back out over the field. A set of headlights moves through the trees from the road, like dull flashlights veering off around a curve. It’s not fully dark yet, so it must be a newer model car with automatic lights. I see something shuffling around, back and forth, far out near the end of the field and recognize it as the neighbor’s dog from the end of our street. It’s always running around loose in the evening.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, or not?” he says, skipping all of the in-between talk that would’ve eventually led to what he really came out here for.
I pause and breathe in deeply and finally turn my head fully to see him at my side.
“Yes, I’ll tell you,” I say and he looks a little shocked that I gave in so easily.
I need this, to be able to get it out in the open. It’s risky though because I’ll have to tell Harry all about the night I was Viktor Vargas’ prisoner. About the things that Sibyl told me.
When it comes to the dark secret of Aramei, Trajan and Viktor, I know there are ways around that, that I don’t really have to tell Harry about it. But I want to. I need to. It’s hard carrying this burden alone.
“I need to tell you everything that happened that night,” I say, staring intently at him. “But you have to swear on your life and mine that you won’t repeat any of it.”
Harry’s mischievous and lighthearted nature is tucked away now and he looks at me with such determination and loyalty. He knows this isn’t the time for anything else, that what I’m about to tell him is important and that he should listen carefully.
He nods his promise and I know I can trust him.
I gaze out at the field and think back to that night more vividly than I ever have because I had always tried to forget about it, to tuck it away in the darkest folds of my memory. And I tell Harry everything, every last detail no matter how significant or small. I tell him how afraid I was and how it was then, in the clutches of death, that I came to understand just how dangerous this life is and that I know I can never go back
to the way things were if I ever wanted to. When my life was seemingly simple, despite having a drunk for a step-dad and a vulnerable, love-hungry wreck of a mother. I explain to Harry how the Blood Bond works—how Sibyl told me it worked and even how Isaac told me it worked when I visited Aramei in the cave—and that immortality never comes without a cost. A very high cost. And I tell him about Aramei, about how fragile she is in mind, body and soul and that just being in her presence is an overwhelming experience that I’ll never forget. And I tell him about the mysterious ancient book and about Trajan and Viktor and Nataša and how even though I couldn’t read the language, I got the worst feeling from the drawings that screamed at me from its pages.
And I tell Harry about how Trajan protects Viktor because in doing so, he protects Aramei, the love of his life.
For once, Harry cannot speak. Instead, he stares out into the field with me and I can only wonder what thoughts and images float through his mind. I can sense his emotions, all of which I share: disbelief, shock, sadness and resentment, among others. He must be thinking about Daisy, too, and maybe what this means for her, if she’s in any danger because of her father’s choices.
We sit here, Harry and I, on top of the roof for a long time and finally the sun begins to slip quietly behind the trees.
Harry looks over at me, a storm of questions on his face, but he can’t seem to decide on which one to ask first.
“What is the main reason you’re telling me all of this stuff?” he finally says. He seems afraid of my answer, knowing just by my demeanor and the sheer poison of the mood that there is, in fact, a reason and that it can’t be anything good.
I draw my knees up toward my chest and wrap my arms around my legs, my shoes propped against the shingles in a slight downward angle to hold my weight. In the sky a faint orange and pink hue lingers until finally the shadows pull it away and leave only darkness. The stars flicker on here and there until it’s dark enough to see an expanse above me full of them, but this time I can’t give them the attention they deserve.