Chapter 40
Chapter forty
Cora
And then the beast pounced.
The scream ripped from Cora’s throat, loud and guttural, as if it might ward off the creature intent on ripping her to pieces.
“Cora? Cora, please calm down.”
Words. Someone was saying words, but all she could do was throw her arms in front of her face. Words couldn’t save her from vicious teeth and claws.
“Cora, please, look at me.”
Saiden?
The sound of his voice slipped through a crack in her broken psyche and soothed enough of the terror for her to take a deep breath. Air rushed into her lungs, and her eyes popped open.
“Saiden?” she croaked out, recognizing the brilliant brown eyes in front of her. She tried to focus on him, but everything was bright. Too bright. And there were so many people, all shouting. Why was everyone shouting?
“It’s okay, Cora. Just breathe and focus on my face. Everything will be alright.”
She wanted to do what he asked. She trusted Saiden. Cared about Saiden. But the voices were so loud, and the harsh explosions of light fried her retinas. It was all too much. She had to get away from there. Get somewhere quieter.
She tried to scramble away from Saiden, but he held her down on the bed.
A memory sparked. The bed. She knew this bed, recognized the black comforter. And, oh God, the scent. It was like she could smell nothing else but him.
Saiden’s bedroom. The compound. She was back in the mansion with Saiden. So why wasn’t he helping? Why was he holding her there?
“Tressa, do you mind pitching in a little?”
Saiden’s words skated through her mind, triggering more memories. She knew Tressa. The sweet female vampire who looked like she belonged on an island soaking up the sun instead of hiding from it. She was the one who was all big laughs and wide smiles. Fun and happy, like a spring day.
“I am trying, Saiden. It’s just not working.”
“What do you mean it’s not working?”
“What do you think I mean, dumbass? She’s clearly not calming down.”
Arguing. Why were Saiden and Tressa arguing? They liked each other. Cousins. Family. Were they arguing over her? Was that why everyone was shouting? Did she do something bad?
Bad. Compound. Cousins. Bad.
The floodgates opened and memories started pouring in. There was an attack. They came back to the compound, and something was wrong. Everyone was gone. Saiden went to investigate, and then…
She racked her brain, sorting through all the visuals, trying to decipher dream from reality.
There was nothing. Empty. A black void slowly being filled with images brighter than the sun and noises louder than a nightclub.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Saiden barked, and Cora flinched at the cacophony threatening to pierce her eardrums.
“Too much. It’s all too much.” Her voice trembled through the spinning and whirling.
Like one of the circus rides. Maybe she was still there, still in the circus.
Saved from the dangerous tiger only to be trapped inside a tilt-a-whirl of sensations designed to smother her under so many lights and sounds that she could never leave.
“She’s overloading,” a calm British voice filtered in from somewhere off to the right. “I’ve seen it happen before. She wasn’t prepared ahead of time, so she has no idea what’s happening. Let me put her back to sleep, and we can move her somewhere dark and quiet.”
Sleep? No, she didn’t want to go back to sleep. That’s where the beast waited for her. The Circus of the Damned. She couldn’t go back there.
Cool hands cupped her cheeks, and a porcelain face blocked out some of the strobing lights. A female with harsh features and chestnut hair evaluated her.
Raven. She knew Raven. Raven was a friend. But why wasn’t she helping her then? Why wasn’t anybody here helping her?
“Sleep,” Raven urged. “Be at peace and sleep.”
“No,” Cora yelped, wrenching herself from Raven’s firm grip and scrambling backward until she slammed into the headboard. Trapped. She was trapped in this torture.
“What the hell, Raven?” Saiden growled, and Cora tried to focus on him again. It would be a lot easier if he would just stand still.
“Bloody hell,” Raven muttered. “Either something is off with me and Tressa or… or I have no idea what’s going on.”
The others went quiet for a moment, and the brief silence allowed Cora to think clearly long enough to beg Saiden, “What’s happening to me?”
“Are you all really this na?ve?”
A new voice. One that was peaceful, calming, and it flipped a switch inside Cora’s brain. Slowly she turned to the bedroom door. Angel, she thought as she stared at the ethereal beauty. Eliana, she corrected a moment later as that memory clicked into place in her mind.
Then Saiden’s mom flicked a switch on the wall and tossed a blanket of gray over the world.
Not an angel, but a savior all the same.
“Cora,” Eliana said slowly. “I need to put these in your ears, okay? It’ll help.”
She nodded slowly. Help. She needed help.
Eliana pushed little bits of orange rubber into her ears, and all the screaming dulled to a low thrum of voices.
Not a circus anymore. Now it felt like a packed theater right before the movie started. Dim and mostly quiet with a smattering of hushed conversation.
Cora slid herself off the headboard so she could relax back against the pillows.
“Do none of you remember your turn?” Eliana asked, glaring at Saiden and his cousins who stood with their heads drooped.
“Do you not remember how heightened everything was at first, and how the Essence is still coursing through her, shifting and changing her mind and body? The transformation will interfere with any other Gift for hours yet. I swear, I thought you were all smarter than this.”
A mom, Cora realized. Not a vampire. Not an angel. Just a mom scolding her misbehaving children. She’d seen it happen in movies but never in real life. She never got to have a mom. Never got scolded.
She’d missed out on so much growing up. Would miss out on so much more when her illness took her.
Her illness.
“Am I dying?” she asked no one in particular. The doctors tried to prepare her, but they’d also said symptoms could be highly unpredictable. Was this what they meant? Was her body failing her already?
She thought she had more time.
“No, Cora,” Saiden assured her in a hushed tone as he sat on the bed. “You’re not dying, I promise.”
His eyes were larger than normal. As if hope and love filled them up like a balloon close to bursting.
“Saiden, what’s going on?” she asked, focusing on those vibrant irises.
She remembered indulgent brown eyes with a fleck or two of gold, but now she found herself tumbling into wide pools of dark chocolate strewn with lacy ribbons of caramel and bursting with golden stardust. They were still his, just even more exquisite.
“I need you to listen very carefully, and try to remain calm,” he replied.
Those words were about as effective as tossing water on a grease fire, Cora decided when the thudding bass in the room cranked up a notch, and she realized it was the sound of her own heart.
Her heart shouldn’t be that loud, though.
“Something happened,” Saiden began in a low, steady voice. The kind of voice you only use when things have gone so far south that you might as well buy a pina colada and enjoy the beach.
“We were attacked last night,” he continued.
She knew that, but it didn’t have anything to do with her. She remembered something was wrong at the compound, but she was fine. She stayed in the car. She…
She didn’t lock the doors.
Fear detonated inside her like fireworks. Everything was high pitch whistles, burning cinders, and shattering explosions. Saiden was still talking, but she couldn’t hear him. Didn’t want to hear him because what he was saying wasn’t possible.
Too loud.
Too bright.
Her mouth hurt.
She shook her head. Not possible. She was still dreaming. Maybe if she could find her way back to the circus, she could force herself to wake up. Maybe…
Too many maybes. None of them actualities.
She forced herself to look at Saiden. To look deeper into his eyes than she would have ever thought possible.
“Please tell me I’m not…” The words caught in her throat, and tears crept into the corners of her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t…” No amount of pushing or pulling would dislodge the question. Once she asked, once she knew, it became real.
But it couldn’t be real. What she was considering was simply impossible. And she wasn’t scared of impossible things. She ate impossible things for breakfast. Or was that fear she ate? Both, she decided. Clearly, she had a very big breakfast.
So just ask, she commanded herself. Get assurance that the impossible is still impossible, then deal with whatever is actually happening.
“Am I a vampire?” Cora asked, the question holding more weight than the words deserved to be burdened with.
No taking them back now, though. They were out in the world, prepared to determine her fate.
Unfortunately, fate was a raging C U Next Tuesday who’d made it her mission to continually fuck with Cora year after year. She saw the answer in his eyes long before the soul-damning word escaped his lips.
“Yes,” Saiden whispered, the single word so quiet that the very fact she heard him was confirmation enough.
Something erupted inside her like a volcano, demanding to be released.
It dug its claws into her throat and coated her lungs in acid.
Higher and higher it rose, ready to be unleashed on the monster in front of her.
Murderer, it screamed. Killer. It climbed up and up, and when she could hold it in no longer…
Cora threw up her very big breakfast.