Chapter 23 #2
I cast a look around. The screaming pain was driving me to believe I was surrounded by enemies I couldn’t trust.
“I’ll find a hospital. I’ll be fine. Just let me take him, and I’ll leave, and I’ll never come back.
” Fenton and I were locked in a dance now.
I moved with him, pivoting, keeping my own body between him and the befuddled Hunters until we reached my car.
Cora acted fast, blocking the passenger door before I could get to it.
“We’ll need to take his memories, Fallon,” she whispered with kindness I didn’t deserve. I was betraying them all. I just wanted to get away from their judgment.
“That’s fine. Take all his memories of this place. The whole past few days…”
“I’ll take all his memories of the Hunters.
And any memories of you.” Cora tucked her hand into her leather bag, feeling around blindly so that she didn’t have to take her eyes off me.
I worked hard to keep the flood of emotions from reaching my face.
I didn’t have time to sort them just yet.
I shifted my pierced shoulder, just to have physical pain to focus on instead of the prospect of Peter Fenton with no memories of me.
“That’s excessive.” I blew out an unbelieving laugh. “I’ve known him since…”
“Fallon,” Jo spoke. There was life-ending disappointment filling up my name. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive this. I felt like I was dying.
Fenton’s cool hand came to my cheek. “Let them take my memories of you, Fallon. You’re in my soul. I’ll never forget you.” His open affection was somehow more embarrassing than anything that had come before.
“Foolish thing. I bet he really thinks he has a soul,” Imogen snickered. She stood among the mothers like an equal, but I expected one of them to chide her for the gleefully cruel comment. No one disagreed.
“It doesn’t. That’s the devil’s manipulation to steal the souls of foolish girls.” Sarah Jane’s eyes bore into me. I was a foolish girl. I couldn’t even argue. What was I throwing my family away for this time? Peter Fenton? But it was more than just him. This wasn’t right.
Cora produced a crystal from her bag, no more than two inches of faceted pink quartz. She pressed it to the skin under the bleeding wound on my shoulder, and a pained squeak escaped my throat. “It’s time. Keep your head still, vampire.”
I jerked Fenton away from the bloodied crystal Cora held near his temple and looked into her eyes, pleading where words fell short.
She gave a short nod. Cora was powerful and strict, but she was not deceitful, and she was not unkind.
She wouldn’t break her promise to me. The tear that escaped her eye sealed that. I pulled Peter back in place.
“Fallon, I’ll see you again. I promise.” Fenton’s eyes didn’t leave mine.
His voice went low as he whispered oaths to me.
This was all happening too quickly. This was a form of death!
He’d lose everything we shared, every memory of me, all those years gone.
I was losing Peter Fenton. I longed to kiss him, but I feared interfering with Cora’s spell, and even more, I was too ashamed of what the Hunters would think of me. I was a coward.
Cora returned the crystal to the side of his head and muttered her spell.
I could only see her out of the corner of my eye as I was determined to stay with Peter as she pulled me away from his mind.
Cora’s power was awe-inspiring. I’d had no idea she could do something like this.
Peter’s proudly mischievous eyes dimmed and fought against closing until his head slumped forward, all the lights out.
I ignored the pain that had spread from my shoulder all the way to my thighs just from holding him up.
He was cold, not breathing, with no pulse, just the same as always, but a biting fear of betrayal made my panicked hand search for signs of life.
“He’s not dead, child,” Cora spoke mournfully. “He’ll be out for hours, maybe for a day. You need to take him and go. Never return here. Never tell him or anyone else about this place. If you learned anything from this terrible incident, you will stay forgotten.”
I couldn’t even begin to think that far ahead. I needed to flee.
“Thank you, Cora.” Though it hurt, I reached for her hand one last time and gave it an apologetic squeeze.
I still hadn’t let go of Peter, though I struggled to hold his dead weight.
My head was spinning, but when Cora moved away from the car, I bit back every cry that wanted to rip from my lungs and settled his slack body into the passenger’s seat.
All this fuss for a dead man. The horrific, heartbreaking irony wasn’t lost on me.
“We need to get that arrow out of you,” Cora said. She was still being so gentle to a traitor, and I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.
“You’re not letting her leave with half her Blessings, are you?” Imogen squawked, stalking down to my car. “It’s bad enough that you’re letting her leave with a vampire, Mother! This is outrageous! All because Fallon is the daughter of Diana! All my life—”
“Imogen!” Jo didn’t shout, but her voice rang larger than the forest surrounding us.
Imogen, my sister who I’d shared a bedroom with until I was 18, left with one last hateful sneer before stomping away.
I took the opportunity to slip into the driver’s seat.
The arrow in my shoulder caught against the seat, sending a new bolt of blinding pain through me.
I hunched forward, though that didn’t help much.
“Fallon, we can help you,” Cora said, holding onto the open door. I couldn’t have closed it anyway, with my foot still on the ground outside. I had to catch my breath again before I risked the pain of pulling it inside.
“I can’t,” I said. “I don’t…I can’t lose these powers. I need them. You’ll see, Cora. I’ll fight. Don’t take them back.” I had names now of the vampires who had been on the ranch that night. It had to have been one of them who killed Derrick. I had Lazaro Reyes, too. I’d promised him another fight.
Jo approached the car. My mother, the woman who’d raised me and trained me, and my tears got thicker when I realized I was saying goodbye to them all.
Cora sent her a desperate look, pleading for help in taming my current state.
Jo shared no such desires. The sting of my betrayal was open on her face.
“There’s darkness in you, Fallon. A place for creatures like this to crawl inside and hide until you become one of them.”
“I’d rather become one of them than become someone cruel enough to kill a friend without thought.” I bit my lip and forced my left leg into the car, and I couldn’t help the pained howl.
“You’ve stolen from your family. In 400 years, nothing so shameful as this has ever happened on the Hunter Land. You know what you must do with the vampire. You know what you need to do.” Jo was still trying to reason with me. She still had hope that I wasn’t so far gone.
“I know.”
I closed the door on Jo and Cora and locked my car. My numb fingers fumbled with the keys. It would be two hours of this quaking pain until I reached Cibola. I saw no other choice.
I didn’t look at the two disappointed mothers as I backed my car out and turned it to the downhill slide to the paved mountain road a mile or two away.
My shoulder was on fire every time I moved the steering wheel and every time the car jostled over a bump.
It was barely adequate punishment for my complete failure as a Hunter and far less pain than I deserved.