Read Precipice (Tribe 2) Online
Authors: Audrina Cole
Precipice (Tribe 2) (8 page)
“Don’t worry, I’m not. It’s just an uncomfortable feeling. But I’m not stupid.”
“Poor baby, we’ve probably messed up your whole body,” Mom said, my brushing hair back from my face. “We’re going to need to do all kinds of healing on you, when we leave here. It’s been driving me crazy, wanting to heal you, and instead having to stop your body from doing its job. But we can’t have you walking out of the hospital with a scar that looks two months old instead of two days old.”
“Will she have a scar?” Alex asked.
Mom shook her head. “Not once she’s fully healed. It will probably take a month to disappear completely, but it will likely be completely gone when it’s done.”
“That’s…weird,” Alex said. “But also really cool.”
We all laughed. What was normal and natural to us was completely foreign to him.
“Wait…
” I gasped, a realization rocking me. “Mom, how much blood did I lose?”
Mom shuddered, and leaned into my dad, who put his arm around her. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“It was a lot, Em.” Dad answered for Mom.
“Was I transfused?”
He nodded.
I stared down at my arm in horror. “My blood is polluted?”
“No way, shrimp,” Meadow chimed in, with a smirk. “Mom and River donated a pint of blood each. It’s a good thing they’re a match, or you’d be filthy with a stranger’s blood, right now.”
I swallowed back the bile in my throat. “Oh man, that would be so gross.”
Alex shook his head in disbelief. “You drink strangers’ blood all the time. Being
transfused
is gross?”
“It’s not
all the time
,” River said, rolling his eyes. “Only when we heal a lot, which isn’t that often. And we’re careful picking the blood, when we can be. And it only goes into our gastrointestinal system—not our circulatory system. It never gets into our own blood supply.”
“That’s…wow.” Alex shook his head. “I’m never going to understand all this.”
I tried to explain. “The blood we drink nourishes us…it restores our life force. Think of it as an energy drink. It’s not replacing blood lost. It’s replacing vital energy lost. It’s…complicated.”
“So then why did your mom think you were going to go berserk when you lost all that blood? I know she said it had something to do with your body trying to heal itself…but I’m not sure I get it.”
I looked at Mom. I wasn’t sure, myself.
“Her body was fighting so hard to heal itself,” Mom said, “that I was worried that her body might have depleted its energy just trying to open her energy centers. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Either she never reached that point, or she got the transfusions in time. Or maybe we held it back so long that the energy centers just plain shut down
before it became a problem. I don’t know.”
The entire scenario was so frightening. I leaned my head back on the pillow. I was exhausted just trying to keep up with everything that had happened.
“I see you’re awake!” A nurse said brightly as she walked in. “You should have told me.” She frowned at Mom and Dad. “There are too many people here. She needs her rest.”
“I’ll go,” Alex said, rising. “You should be with your family.”
“Don’t,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Mom, Dad, can I have a moment alone before he goes?”
Mom cast a concerned glance in Alex’s direction, then nodded.
The nurse raised an eyebrow at Alex. “As long as no one gets her excited. You have until I can round up the doctor.”
Alex promised to keep me calm, and everyone else filed out of the room.
“Your family is great,” he said. “I can see why you’d be so close to them, and want to protect them.”
“Your parents are pretty great, too,” I said, smiling. “You know…for normal people.”
We both laughed.
“Thank you for protecting them for me, Alex. I know you were angry with me, and you could have told the truth. You could have gotten into trouble, yourself,
by lying for me. I know you did it to protect me, and my family.”
“I would never have turned you in, no matter how upset I was.”
“I know…but…you thought we were murderous monsters. You thought I put your family at risk.”
“Ember, I never thought you were a monster,” he said. “I was angry because you put people at risk, sure. And I guess for a minute there, I freaked out about the whole…” he glanced toward the door, and lowered his voice “…blood-drinking thing. But when I was in my mom’s hospital room, talking things out with her…well,
to
her, since she was unconscious…it kind of helped me sort things out in my mind. I knew that you had meant well, and that you helped my mom for
me
, not because you have some kind of hero complex. It was really mean and selfish of me to say that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I was a jerk. And if I didn’t know it already, I sure knew it after Meadow left.”
“Meadow? What does she have to do with this?”
“She came to see me at the hospital after you were taken away by the MPs. She basically told me I was a selfish jerk, and gave me a verbal ass-kicking, and told me I’d better get my butt over to Fairchild and fix things.”
“I thought Kline made you go.”
“He did. Right after Meadow left, I was headed back into Mom’s hospital room to borrow Dad’s keys, when Kline showed up, and insisted I go with him. So I went. I put up less of a fight than I implied.” He grinned.
I was impressed that Meadow had stuck up for me.
Alex is right—I have a great family…
“Are you done smooching, yet?” River
asked in the hallway, beyond the closed door.
…most of the time.
Alex laughed. I sent a wave of irritation in River’s direction, just to make sure he got the picture. I wanted him to buzz off.
Lifting my right hand off the bed, Alex pressed it to his lips. “I’m truly sorry for the way I acted. I understand what you are, now. At least, I understand the important parts. I’m sorry for not giving you a chance to explain.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t explain sooner. Maybe you wouldn’t have been so freaked out, if I had.”
“Umm…you told me you were a blood-sucking vampire. Yeah, pretty sure I still would have freaked out, no matter
when
you told me.”
I pulled my hand away, then slapped his hand. “I told you, we hate that word.”
“I know. I may occasionally tease you about it, though.” He waggled his eyebrows in a devilish grin. “You know, my Christian parents would be just thrilled to know I’m dating a vampire.”
“Dating? We’re
dating?”
My heart knocked against my rib cage, and I grinned like an idiot.
He laughed. “I love that the most shocking thing about that statement is the ‘dating’ part.”
“I just love the ‘dating’ part.” I took his hand again.
“Me too.” He squeezed my hand
in his.
“I don’t ever want to be apart again,” I whispered. “The last few days were awful, without you.”
“Yeah,” he said, with a far-off expression. “This has been the worst week of my life. Watching my mom in pain was hard enough…and having to suffer through it alone, and missing you, just made it worse. But then when I thought I might have lost you…”
“Shhh.” I reached up and touched his face, then pressed my lips to his, kissing him long and slow, and savoring every moment. When we parted, I whispered in his ear. “We’re never going to be apart again.”
Epilogue
Maxwell Conrad
The Hamptons, New York
I
took a deep breath, loosened the knot of the tie that threatened to choke me, then knocked on the majestic walnut door. The hollow sound of my knock echoed off the walls of the enormous wood-paneled office that lay on the other side.
Too loud.
I knew I’d earn his ire for that.
From within the plush office,
William Hanover sighed with irritation. “Come.”
Twisting the knob, I opened the heavy door and
slipped in, careful to cross the Fereghan rug soundlessly.
Behind the massive mahogany desk, t
he tall leather executive chair faced away from me—toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the clinic grounds. Concrete pathways wound through the manicured gardens, dotted here and there with benches for the patients to rest on. Several patients who had come to the clinic on stretchers or in wheelchairs strolled slowly through the grounds on the arm of pretty nurses, or ambled along with the help of top-of-the-line walkers, or sat resting on the benches, admiring the many sculptures created by world-renown artists. Beyond the grounds, small ocean waves rolled onto the beach and gulls patrolled the water’s edge in search of small creatures to feast upon.
“Is there a reason you’re interrupting my lunchtime, Conrad?”
came the somber voice from the chair.
Hanover’s lunch platter sat on his desk,
the silver dome that covered it untouched. I could see a mist of steam clinging to its piping-hot surface.
Pretentious ass,
I thought…then strengthened my auric shield. Hanover was as skilled an empath as they came. I was just glad he couldn’t read thoughts
I cleared my throat. “Sir, t
his just came in from our contact at the USAMRMC.”
Hanover slowly twirled his chair
around to face me. I’d worked for the senior Elder of the tribe for three years, and I still hadn’t built up a resistance to his intimidation. No shield I could throw up was a match for his aggressive personality.
I
laid the thin file folder on the leather surface of Hanover’s massive mahogany desk.
Hanover
slid his lunch platter aside, then laid his fingertips on the file and slid it toward him, flipping open the cover.
I
waited silently, my hands clasped behind my back while the older man perused the two-page document. With his thick mane of white hair, his striking steel-blue eyes, and his tailored Armani suit, Hanover could have passed for a well-to-do televangelist. Or, when the mood struck him, a kindly grandfather with a warm smile.
The mood did not strike him at that moment.
“We’ve been compromised?” Hanover asked, without looking up.
His mild tone didn’t deceive me—as his second-in-command, I’d known him too long. Despite his skill at
veiling his emotions, I knew Hanover’s smooth, elegant British accent and calm demeanor only masked a malignant fury. I swallowed, and struggled to keep my own voice steady, cursing myself for letting him intimidate me. Again. “It appears we have, sir.”
“This girl…” he lifted a photo from under the document, studying the face of the teenager with curly blonde hair “…did she survive the incident? The report concludes by saying she was treated at the scene by the MPs while awaiting the ambulance, then she was transported to the hospital.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I was ready for that question. “I just got off the phone with a contact at Johns Hopkins, who works for Kline’s superior. He made inquiries, and says the girl is going to be fine, and there have been no unusual reports resulting from her hospital stay so far. She’s likely to be discharged before we could fly out there. But,” I added quickly, eager to appease him, “I can roust the pilot and see if we can get the jet ready to be in the air by—”
“No need.” Hanover slipped the Fairchild Air Force base security photo back into the folder, and closed it. “We know exactly where she’ll be in just a few weeks. We’ll take care of the situation then.”
I blanched. “The reunion? Is…is that appropriate…?” I trailed off as Hanover’s pale blue eyes bore into mine, and I felt his façade slip—just enough for me to feel a hint of his outrage. It lie in wait behind his wall of restraint, like a coiled snake poised to strike at the slightest provocation. I snapped my mouth shut.
“I don’t like loose ends, Conrad.
It would have been more convenient if she had bled out, but since she didn’t, at least she was smart enough to refrain from healing the laceration. I don’t want any more attention on this fiasco than necessary. We’ll let things die down, and keep her under surveillance, then assess the situation at the reunion. As long as she learned her lesson from this incident, perhaps a stern conversation will be enough.” He picked up the file and held it aloft. “But if she does anything else to compromise the tribe…”
Hanover leaned to his left, inserting the file into his shredder.
The machine whined, devouring the file and rending its contents into a million tiny fragments.
###
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