Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
After another shower and a change of clothes into an outfit donated by RJ, we settle in their attic with more talismans of protection hanging from ceiling and shelf.
I draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
Low burning cones of incense release trails of gray smoke in the air.
They’ve got Grayson stabilized for the moment. He sits cross legged beside me with the witch’s grimoire open to a dog-eared page and their attention on me
The cup of tea in my lap has long since chilled.
The same cold animates me.
“You don’t have to tell us what happened,” Aimee says.
Trying to be gracious when we all know I’m the one with secrets.
We’ve already gone over the cabin, the search party, the attack on Ironwood. Now they want to know why, and the time is—the edge of the guillotine brushes my neck, and the truth has to come out. There’s no more hiding it. Why does the thought fill me with equal measures of relief and sickness?
“Only if you’re up to it, Mandi.” But Grayson’s eyes tell me to be strong.
To let it all out.
There’s no better place, no better time, even if I’d been waiting for the perfect set of circumstances.
I set him with a brittle smile and wrap my fingers tighter around the mug of chamomile. “I’m moonlocked. As the witches know. Um. It, ah—”
The truth.
Words bubble out of me and tumble over each other in their rush to exit.
“It means I can’t shift. I’ve never been able to. The wolf inside me is there, but no matter how many full moons pass, or things we try, nothing works. I’m stuck in human form. It’s a huge shame to my family and my, ah, my fiancé doesn’t know. My father decided to keep it from everyone.”
I bat my eyes open and force myself to look Grayson dead in the eyes. He weaves from side to side, a dull blankness threatening to overtake his features.
He gives me a nod. Continue.
Just like that.
This is what I wanted. No shame or judgment.
The truth, out there, with people who will listen and understand. But when I get to the worst part, what will they say then?
My stomach dives into the abyss and heat threatens to boil me alive.
“I was sick of it when I found you, Grayson. I’d gone out to watch the meteor shower but part of me wanted to make a run for it and find help on my own. Nothing had ever worked for me. But I found you, and you’d been attacked. Bitten.”
“I remember.” His voice is distant, his eyes closed, long lashes black against his tawny skin.
“What you don’t know…I heard a wolf howl before I saw you.
Not any wolf. The stench, the feeling, it all points to the same thing.
The wolf that bit you had moon madness. So…
you also have it, triggered by your first change.
Judging from the way your body is fighting it off, we’re running out of time to find you a cure. ”
My wound pulses and reminds me of the trickle down. Grayson, his shift triggering the spread of the disease, gave it to me.
He straightens, RJ breathing in deep and Aimee stifling a cry of surprise.
There. I said it.
“I wasn’t sure of it before. I had my suspicions, but when the curse didn’t take you down within a few hours, I thought we were safe. Until you finally shifted the other night.”
I’m the worst, and if Grayson had been angry with me for keeping this secret, I’d understand it so much better than the flash of pain in those brown eyes.
This sucks. I suck. A person who actually gave a shit about someone other than herself wouldn’t have piled up this many secrets.
Their eyes crawl over my skin in a reminder. They’re waiting. I started this, and now it’s up to me to finish it, no matter how much it costs me.
“You’ve been infected, Grayson,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. The moon madness will eventually take us both. I should have told you right away.”
I slowly unwrap the gauze and hold my forearm up for them to see. The bite marks have finally scabbed over. Pink skin puckers around the circular indentation from his fangs.
Grayson shudders and when he speaks again, anger taints his voice. “You should have told me. Why didn’t you? Did you think I wouldn’t be able to handle the truth? Not knowing doesn’t change anything.”
He’s mad at me for keeping this secret. I knew he would be. I don’t expect anything less than for him to let me have it and I swallow hard, bracing for impact.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s the one thing you probably don’t want to hear right now—”
Grayson pushes himself off the floor, stalking to the other side of the room. His pacing wobbles, his skin shines with sweat, and he’s hunched over like it’s too much effort to stand upright.
Aimee reaches out to examine my arm. “You’re not healing the way you normally would.”
You’ve been cursed.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
She clucks her tongue before peeling away. “I think I’ve got a few things to make this better. Hold on.”
RJ blows out a breath and leans back to balance on her elbows, her legs still crossed. “You’re going to have to stop pacing soon, dude, you’re making me dizzy.”
Grayson growls at her and RJ ignores it.
I got everyone involved in this garbage, because RJ and Aimee wanted to help me with my moonlocked issue. They wanted me to finally be free to shift. Now here we are with the madness pressing closer and both Grayson and I infected.
Tears steam down my cheeks and RJ groans. “Hey, stop it. There’s no crying in football and there certainly shouldn’t be now.”
I sniffed, trembling. “There’s no cure. We die. You lost your research when someone torched the Hollow.”
“Hey, not necessarily true. You think we’re dumb? We weren’t only busy figuring out how to rescue you in those four days, you know. We had a bit more time to put our heads together and go over our resources.”
She points to a stack of books across the attic I hadn’t noticed before, but they certainly don’t look like they belong here. Or to either witch.
Aimee bustles in with her arms laden down with jars. “I think I’ve got everything.”
I can’t even look at Grayson. He doesn’t slow down, pushing off one wall only to slam his palms to the other, frustration driving him. And hatred.
He’s gotta hate me for this.
Aimee grabs my arm again.
“What have you found?” I ask.
“I mean, we’ve found a few things. And Colt and Lacey have been an incredible help once she got him out of that castle turned prison. Vampires are the literal worst.” Aimee glances up at me, apologetic, before slathering on a bit of goop from one of her jars.
The astringent scent couples with a milder floral undertone. It glides over the bumps on my skin.
“We found out about a shaman. He’s someone who’s dealt with moon madness before. He isn’t in the books, but sometimes rumors turn out to be true. We’ve done our research. He’s the last lead we have toward finding a cure.”
“Sounds too good to be true.” Grayson stops, catches himself against the wall, and bares his teeth to something only he hears.
How much longer before the curse takes him down entirely? He’ll become one of those flayed monsters with no memory of who he was. Everything gone. Erased.
“It’s definitely not too good to be true because this dude exists, but he’s incredibly hard to get to. The actual good news is this.” Aimee plucks another jar from her array and holds it up between us, twirling it until the liquid inside makes a whirlpool.
“Wolfsbane,” RJ says, picking up the thread of conversation. “And other stuff you’ll probably recognize but want to barf if we tell you. A real witch’s concoction. Doesn’t smell as bad as it could though.”
I glance between them. “Then you guys are either getting better than any of your college friends or you’re selling us snake oil.”
What kind of potion did they come up with?
I knew they were working on something for Colt. As a dhampir, half vampire and half human, they’d found a way to stop the progression before it killed him, keeping him human.
But what were the odds this would do anything for us?
“Is it for the moonlock?” I ask.
Aimee is quick to correct me. “For the madness. It’s not a cure. I mean, we’re not miracle workers or snake oil salesmen.”
“We’re just two bomb ass, awesome witches who kinda know our business because we have to.” RJ rubs her hands together. “It slows the progression. Like a yellow light for the symptoms. If it works.”
“At least we hope it will. I’m not sure. It’s too soon to tell and we haven’t tested it on anyone yet.” Aimee glares at her sister.
Once again, RJ pretends not to notice.
“But there’s a chance?” Grayson growls, settling himself across the room, far enough away for me to notice the distance. “It might work? Help give us more time to track down the shaman?”
I startle at the word, us. He hasn’t damned me completely yet.
“We’re hopeful. The arcane spell we found had to be translated out of ancient Greek, but we’ve got a guy.”
RJ puffs out her chest.
It’s always good to have a guy and for me, the witches are my guys. There’s no one else I trust in this world and they’ve been nothing but good to me.
“I’m willing to try it. I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again.”
“What if it kills you?” I turn to Grayson, swallowing down my hurt when he looks away instead of meeting my gaze. “What if it makes your symptoms worse?”
“Thanks for the show of faith, Mandi,” RJ gripes. “It’s almost like you don’t trust us to know what we’re doing.”
At this point in life, trust is something I can’t afford.
I suck in a breath when Grayson holds out his hand for the jar. Aimee wings it his way, Grayson making the catch and unscrewing the bottle.
“Don’t do anything rash—”
It’s too late. My warning disintegrates into nothing as he swallows the entirety of the potion. It goes down in a few gulps. He lets nothing show on his face before he finishes it and swipes his hand across his mouth.
“Thank you.”
Nothing happens and I’m holding my breath for it. Fuck.
“Now, about this shaman?” Grayson is all business.
Aimee watches him, her knowing gaze marking the minuscule changes the rest of us might miss. But she doesn’t seem overly concerned with what she sees.
I’m too spooked to look directly at Grayson.
Too weak to face his anger at me. Moonlocked and the one person who could have told him flat-out what he was dealing with, but didn’t.
“Okay, so research led to nothing, so we followed gossip. Not with the packs, they don’t want to talk to outsiders.” RJ smirks. “So we went deeper. Goblins. Trolls. Whoever we could find who might have heard about the madness or a way to cure it. We had to work a little magic.”
“Oh no.” I groan. “What did you do?”
“Seriously, it’s fine. We strong-armed another shifter, wouldn’t say what kind he was, and he spilled. A friend of a friend of a friend had contacts with a shaman who deals with the madness directly. And cures whoever comes to him, as long as they can pay.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” I say.
Aimee shrugs. “Of course you wouldn’t. Legit or not, it’s the kind of thing people don’t talk about.”
Not much is said in our pack anyway. Dad keeps it that way to maintain order. The practice is to push things away until they simply don’t exist anymore in our reality.
Now, if war rages outside our gates, it doesn’t matter. We’re fine. We stand together.
Everyone else is screwed.
Until today.
Another low shiver vibrates through me and when I glance at Grayson, he’s watching me, like he feels it too.
“This shaman would be able to tell you if this is truly a curse or not. Or if it’s something else. Gossip makes it seem like he’s the only guy alive right now who has a shot at combating the madness.”
“So, a miracle worker.” Bitterness isn’t a good look for anyone.
“Honey, if Grayson is infected, and he infected you through this bite?” Aimee jerks her chin toward my forearm. “You’d be showing signs already if you’d contracted it.”
I cradle my arm closer to my chest.
“Either way, the shaman is your guy, and consider us your messengers. The last we heard, he was in a town about ten hours away. He travels with some kind of festival or circus…I’m not sure. No one seems to agree on the details.” RJ scratches her head.
Grayson straightens. For a moment, the old Grayson is back, the person he must have been before the bite.
Then it’s gone in a blink and replaced with the exhausted, worried, sick version I’ve gotten used to seeing.
The night I found him changed everything for both of us. Our trajectories have diverted from whatever we thought we’d be.
I wonder if I’m the only one who accepts it.
“You have to look for the Vanishing Mile,” RJ is telling Grayson. “That’s where the shaman hangs. I have no idea what he looks like or what part he plays in the festival, but I do know their last day in Levalley is tomorrow. After that, who knows where they’ll pop up again.”
“The Vanishing Mile has no known schedule. They could appear across the country next time.” Aimee worries her lip.
“We need to borrow a car.” My palms are sweaty again and no amount of wiping them on my pants helps. “Ten hours isn’t too bad.”
“If we had a car, it would totally be yours,” RJ says.
She’s acting like this is No Big Deal. For me, for Grayson, it’s a Big Deal. If we don’t find this shaman…
If he doesn’t have a cure…
“We do know someone with a car you can borrow, though. So one problem can be solved at a time. As long as you don’t mind driving at night and sleeping during the day.”
Aimee windmills her arm toward the door to get us moving. I’m the last one out the door, my entire body weighed down like I’ve become the anchor. There’s no saving me from this drowning feeling. My lungs fill and push against my insides like there’s no room left.
The witches brought two vials of their not-quite-cure all. The one Grayson drank, and a second. The cork keeps the liquid safely trapped in the confines of glass.
I might not have the madness. Or maybe Aimee is wrong. They aren’t miracle workers, like they said, because those kinds of things only exist in TV and movies.
Am I really willing to take a chance that Grayson is fine, but I’m not?
That one night on our search the curse will take me down and I turn on him, but not the way I want to?
Their voices go distant, echoing down the hall, Grayson’s a low murmuring baritone.
And before I can talk myself out of it, I grab the vial, popping the cork and slugging it down in one swallow.
Thick liquid scalds my throat and lands heavily in the pit of my stomach. I blink, working the horrible acidic taste out of my mouth.
Here goes nothing.
It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever done. If everything works out, it might be the sanest.