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“See?” Mom hissed to no one in particular as she glared at Savannah. “I told you Tristan would never willingly break the rules. She was making him do it.”
Savannah nodded. “Yes, I was. And I’m very sorry. I didn’t understand what my vamp side could do. But now that I know what I am and what I’m capable of, I can promise you…” Her throat worked as she gulped.
“Sav, don’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin. “I promise you I will no longer be involved with your son in any way. As long as you agree not to punish Nanna or Tristan. Nanna didn’t even know about us, and Tristan—”
“No,” I shouted, her words clawing at my insides. “I knew what I was doing. Don’t listen to her. She’s lying to try and—”
“How do we know you’ll keep this promise?” Dad asked, ignoring me.
“Because…” Savannah’s voice wobbled. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Because I already made the vampire council the same promise. And they’ll be checking on me to make sure I keep it. Just like I’m sure you will be.”
She was lying. She had to be.
I searched her face. But this time, she was telling the truth. It was all right there for me to see in the trembling of her chin, the tears gathering in her eyes, the sudden slouch of her shoulders.
She’d promised a bunch of strangers that she would break up with me. Hours ago. Long before we ever got on that plane together in Paris. Before she sat curled up against me, letting me hold her, watching me smile and even fall asleep, letting me believe everything was finally working out for us.
All that time, she had been planning this—to break up with me. To dump me. And I hadn’t guessed a thing.
The wind returned, whipping Savannah’s long red curls into a frenzy that hid her face from me. The gusts tried to rock me off balance, but I couldn’t feel them.
“We agree to your request,” Dad said.
With a nod of his head, Sav’s grandmother began to lower to the ground.
Savannah turned to watch her ease ever closer. I should be reaching out to help her catch Mrs. Evans, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen, a statue ready to be pushed over and smashed into pieces.
This wasn’t happening. Sav and I were meant to be together forever. She knew that. She loved me. I knew she loved me. She was just taking the easy way out, caving under the pressure because she couldn’t see how close we were to freedom.
I had to stop this somehow, find the words to undo what she’d done.
I forced one foot forward, then the other, finally closing the distance between us. “Savannah, don’t do this. You know we’re meant for each other.” I reached out and touched her upper arm, silently begging her to face me. “Don’t give up on us.”
She still wouldn’t look at me.
“Savannah,” Mrs. Evans gasped as the last of the elders’ magical hold on her fell away. She collapsed forward, and both Savannah and I managed to catch her dead weight.
Then two pairs of hands grabbed my arms, dragging me backward and forcing Savannah to take her grandmother’s entire weight on her own. They went down to the ground together.
As soon as my captors set me back on my feet, I turned to snarl at them.
Dylan Williams and another descendant two years younger than us. I should have known.
“I warned you, man,” Dylan murmured, sneering from underneath his too-long blond hair.
Cursing, I tried to break free, but the elders must have been lending their power because I couldn’t shake my new jailers’ grip. Their hands were like metal cuffs.
The wind tore through the clearing again, carrying with it a chorus of shrieks from the descendants. Savannah’s father had darted out from the surrounding pine trees to kneel on the soggy ground with his daughter and former mother-in-law.
Hands rose all around us in silent threat. I tried to think of a spell to block them, but Savannah was faster.
She threw out her arms. “No! Wait, he’s my dad, he’s just here to help.”
She and her father crouched together on either side of Mrs. Evans, their matching silver eyes warily scanning the tense line of descendants.
“Let him be,” Dad said, and everyone slowly lowered their hands.
Savannah looked down at her grandmother. “Nanna, are you okay?”
Mrs. Evans reached up with a gnarled, shaky hand, which Savannah took. And that’s when the clouds finally let it rip, dumping sheets of rain on the Circle and everyone within it.
SAVANNAH
Nanna’s pulse skipped all over the place beneath the crepelike skin at her wrist. She’d always been the strongest member of my family despite her age. When had Nanna become so fragile?
I leaned over her, trying to use my upper body to shield her as the clouds rained down their own stinging punishment on our heads. Despite my best efforts, within seconds we were both soaked.
Dad laid his cheek against her chest for a few seconds, then straightened up and leaned toward me.
“Her heart is damaged,” he murmured near my ear. The wind did its best to tear his words away before I could catch them.
“I fought too hard,” Nanna whispered, and even with my vampire hearing, I had to lean close to her mouth to hear her. “I was a foolish old woman. I shouldn’t have tried to fight them.”
“It’s going to be okay now. Dad and I will take you home.” I wiped the water from her cheeks.
But Nanna shook her head. “Too…tired.” Her grip loosened on my hand.
“Someone help her,” I shouted at the shocked faces around us. Were they so cold and uncaring that they would let an innocent old woman die right in front of them? She used to be one of their own!
But as the wind grew stronger and tried to steal their umbrellas, the descendants stumbled back beneath the shelter of the trees.
They weren’t going to help.
Then a single man stepped forward into the sheets of rain. As he strode over to us, I recognized him as Dr. Faulkner, the Brat Twins’ father and a surgeon at the local hospital.
“I’m a doctor. I can help.” Dad moved out of his way, and Dr. Faulkner knelt at Nanna’s shoulder, ignoring the wet moss that quickly soaked and stained his slacks. He pressed two fingers at the side of her neck while checking his watch.
The pulse in her wrist stopped beneath my fingertips.
“Nanna?” I shouted over rumbling thunder as I repeatedly patted the back of her hand. “Nanna!”
Time slowed and the roaring wind blocked out all other sound, making the moment surreal, like a movie I was watching instead of living. I saw Dr. Faulkner use his hands like electric paddles to zap Nanna’s chest, making her lifeless body jerk. Tristan’s dad ran over to us as if in slow motion, abandoning his throne to kneel on the soaked sponge that the moss had become, joining Dr. Faulkner’s attempts. Their combined energy made Nanna’s upper body lift several inches off the ground with each electrical jolt, then land with a small splash in the growing puddles beneath us. I tried to think of something I could do to help, but Clann rules had forbidden my family to teach me anything about magic. I wasn’t yet a full vampire, either, so I couldn’t turn Nanna into an immortal. Despite all the fears of both the vamp council and the Clann regarding what I might be able to do someday, the reality was I was powerless to save even my own grandma. All I could do was cause destruction and the threat of another war between the species.
And make dumb decisions that resulted in my grandma fighting for her life in the woods during a storm.
Mr. Coleman and Dr. Faulkner fell into a rhythm as a two-man team, taking turns zapping her chest, checking her pulse and blowing air into her mouth. I lost all sense of time as they worked for minutes that could have been hours, the rain soaking through their clothes and hair and eventually pouring in tiny streams down their arms.
Nanna never woke up.
Eventually, the men’s hands withdrew from Nanna’s too-still body. Dr. Faulkner was saying something to me. But I couldn’t hear him.
“What?” The dreamlike feeling of shock drained away, leaving me soaked and chilled to the bone. Only then did I realize the wind had died down again and it was only my blood rushing in my head that was causing the roaring sound in my ears. “Is she all right?”
I reached past Mr. Coleman to pat Nanna’s cool cheek, willing her to wake up. “Nanna? Can you hear me? Come on, Nanna, you’ve got to wake up. I’ve got to get you home now and into some dry clothes. Wake up, Nanna. Come on, wake up!”
Her eyes remained closed.
I circled around Mr. Coleman, kneeling so I could lift her head and shoulders and cradle them in my lap. She was still asleep, but she would wake up soon. I just needed to elevate her head, help her breathe easier. All she needed was a little time to come around.
I looked up at the sky, ignoring the flock of crows beneath their umbrellas still lingering at the edges of the clearing. At least the storm seemed to be passing. The thunder and lightning had eased, and the rain was coming down in actual raindrops again instead of a waterfall. That was good. Dad could carry Nanna back to the car now. We’d get her home and into a hot shower to warm her up, then into some dry clothes. She’d tell me how to fix her a cup of hot tea the way she liked it using some of her homegrown mint leaves….
A heavy paw of a hand rested on my shoulder.
I looked up at Mr. Coleman, but he was too blurry to see clearly no matter how much I blinked. All I could make out was his bushy white beard.
“I’m so sorry, Savannah. We tried everything. But…she’s gone.”
“No.” She wasn’t. She was just asleep. Raindrops splattered over Nanna’s cheeks again, gathering in the deep laugh lines at either side of her mouth, and I wiped them dry.
“Savannah, it is too late,” Dad said, standing at my other side. “There is nothing else we can do.”
“No.” I shook my head, staring at Mr. Coleman, willing him to help me. “Use your powers—”
“We did,” Mr. Coleman said.
“Then try something different!” I turned to Dr. Faulkner. Why was I the only one here still fighting for Nanna’s life? He fixed people for a living and he was a descendant. He had to be able to heal her. “You’re a surgeon. Can’t you go in and magically repair her heart?”
He shook his head. “I tried that. But I wasn’t fast enough. There was years’ worth of damage to the tissue. She must have had heart troubles for a long time now. Didn’t she say anything to you?”
I stared down at Nanna’s face, at her chest that refused to rise or fall. She had kept so many secrets. She hadn’t even told me about my family’s past until I was fifteen.
But why keep this secret? If she’d only told us, we could have done something to help her get better, made her lay off the fatty fried foods or helped her work out or something. Didn’t they have surgeries and transplants for this kind of thing?
I tried again, asking both Mr. Coleman and Dr. Faulkner at the same time. “But you can still fix it. You can do a spell or—”
Mr. Faulkner shook his head again. “We can only do so much. We can’t bring the dead back to life. At least, not with a soul—”
“Then bring her back without one!” I said, my hands aching to slap him. He was just refusing to help because we were outcasts, because I was a half-breed. “She’s my grandma! You killed her. Do whatever you have to do, but bring her back!”
“No.” Mr. Coleman’s tone was final. “We don’t do that. It’s against Clann law to create zombies. And that’s all she would be, a zombie, no personality, no true life within her. Just an animated corpse. Is that what you want, what your grandmother would want?”
I almost said yes, but the words choked in my throat. Nanna would be horrified and furious if she could hear us now. She couldn’t stand to watch zombie movies and refused to read books about them. Even if I could convince the Clann to bring her body back to life, it was useless if it wouldn’t really be her again.
“Please, there has to be something….” I whispered, staring down at the tiny wrinkles in Nanna’s thin eyelids. I stroked her soft cheeks, then stopped as I realized she was already turning cold and losing her color.
No. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be gone.
“I’m sorry. But there’s nothing more we can do,” Mr. Coleman murmured. “I swear, if we could bring her back for you, or undo what’s been done here today, I would make that happen. But even descendants have limits.”
So that was it then. Like me, even with all their supposed power, the Clann could only take Nanna’s life, not bring it back. Nanna was really gone. I’d gotten here too late to save her after all.
And now I had to say goodbye.
“Nanna,” I whispered, the ocean of ache in my chest spreading over my body to make my limbs so heavy I could hardly move. The ache bubbled upward, rising to fill my throat and burn my eyes and the inside of my nose, until I felt sure it would push right through my skull. If I had been standing, it would have knocked me over like a tidal wave. But I was already on my knees, and all it could do was bend me in half over my grandmother’s body and leave me gasping for air.
I wrapped my arms around Nanna, lifting her to me in a one-sided hug, remembering all the times she used to hold me in her lap and rock the both of us in her rocking chair when I was little. And how she used to kneel just like this on her knees day after day, despite her joints getting creaky and popping with age, so she could talk to the herbs and fruit plants she so carefully tended in our backyard. It was the last time I would ever hold my grandma, the woman who had helped raise me, who at times had been there for me even more than my own mother.
She was gone. Because of me.
“I’m so sorry, Nanna.” I couldn’t say it enough. A lifetime of apologies wouldn’t make up for what I’d done.
“Savannah,” Mr. Coleman said. “Please accept my deepest apologies for your loss, and also pass on my condolences to Jo—to your mother. None of us intended for this to happen. I just wanted my son back safely, and we thought your grandma knew where… I never dreamed…”
Words apparently failed the big bear of a man. I looked up and discovered tears in his eyes, which were lined copies of Tristan’s, giving me a glimpse of the man Tristan would someday become. A future I would no longer be a part of.
Hands covered my own, easing my fingers loose. Confused, I looked down to see Dr. Faulkner trying to release my hold on Nanna.
On Nanna’s body. Because she wasn’t here anymore.
I let him take her weight and lower her body to the ground. I couldn’t move, couldn’t feel my legs or arms anymore, couldn’t even feel the clothes that were plastered to me along with strings of my hair along my face and neck.
What should I do now? What did normal people do when their loved ones died in their arms in the woods? There must be a procedure, certain steps of some kind that should be taken by someone. But my mind didn’t seem to want to work to figure it out. Wiggling my hands, I discovered my fingers had somehow become buried in the earth. When I lifted them, clods of moss and mud clung to me. The same mud that would be all over Nanna’s back now.
Nanna wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want me to sit in the mud sobbing over her body, especially not in front of the descendants who had cast her out and turned their backs on her. She would have demanded that I get up, put on a strong front, hide my pain. Show them just how strong the Evans women could be. Focus on what needed to be done, and break down later in private.
For her sake, I took a deep breath and tried to wipe my hands clean on my pants, only to discover my shirt and slacks were covered in streaks of mud. I would have to wait until I was home to clean my hands of the mess.
Home. Where Mom would be waiting soon for an explanation. Oh God. She didn’t know yet....
“We’ll help you with the arrangements,” Mr. Coleman murmured, and Dr. Faulkner dipped his head in agreement.
What would Nanna have expected of me now?
“I think…she would have wanted to die at home in her sleep,” I said to Dr. Faulkner. “She wouldn’t want everyone to know…” Unable to say the rest of it, I gestured at the mess of it all, the slop of the mud and rain and grass stains all over Nanna’s once-pristine nightgown, which she’d always been so careful to bleach a blinding white.
“I’ll make that the official report,” Dr. Faulkner replied as he, Dad and Mr. Coleman stood up, too.
I looked around the clearing, for the first time seeing again the horrified audience watching my every move. They stared at me, many of them whispering amongst themselves, as if this were a play they were watching but weren’t really a part of. Didn’t they feel any guilt for Nanna’s death? Or was I the only true murderer here today?
Mr. Coleman turned in a slow circle, drawing everyone’s attention and silence. “Today’s events will never be spoken of. Is that clear?”
Slowly the descendants nodded, though my vamp abilities allowed me to pick up the general reluctance rolling off many of them as the crowd broke up and walked away in small groups through the woods.
“Savannah…” Sounding as if he were choking on my name, Tristan tried to cross the distance between us, but Dylan and another boy held him back. Cursing, Tristan fought against their hold.
Needles stabbed at my skin, a sign of his growing power level. Tristan was getting ready to use magic against them.
