Epilogue
I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus despite how long I had been in the library.
We’d stayed at the farmhouse for a couple of days already and I still didn’t have a good idea of how we were going to undo all this.
Leo and Petros had already been targeted and had reports from friends that their personal apartments had been trashed in the attempt to find them.
Naomi had also managed to find out that similar had happened to our apartment in Vegas. They were looking for us.
While I knew we were safe here for a while, and I tried every morning to persuade the rest of my team to leave, it wouldn’t last. I had to find out what was going on and get the situation under control.
I feared that I would find myself up against a significant number of other academy hunters, however.
Killing vampires was one thing, especially when very few of them were like Leandro, but could I kill fellow humans who had been misled into thinking I was trying to take out the academy? I didn’t want to find out.
I couldn’t sleep. Since the first night here anyway.
I had slept then more out of exhaustion and drained resignation, but no matter what Leo had done to my body after that night, I hadn’t been able to sleep properly.
I had nightmares, or woke up unable to shake the overwhelming feeling that I’d missed something.
We’d talked at length to Bob and he’d told us everything he knew about my parents and them leaving the academy suddenly. It wasn’t much more than he’d told me the night we’d arrived, but he had council on handling the rest.
None of us had responded to any messages and we hadn’t used our phones here at all. It wasn’t easy, but none of us had contacted family either. That part was making my friends struggle. They wanted to make sure their loved ones were okay.
And that was one of the biggest reasons I couldn’t cope with this situation and sleep properly.
I had to figure this out. We needed a next move and we needed it soon, but I also appreciated everyone being at rest. Leo was even getting along with my uncle Bob as if they had known each other for some time.
It didn’t seem to matter that he was Brethren. Not to any of the people here with me. It was as if they’d come to accept that the two vampires with us were just part of our life now. That I was in love and it mattered.
Yawning, I got to my feet and shut the short diary my mother had tried to keep once.
There was nothing in it that was useful.
I paced across the floor in front of the fireplace, warming up after sitting for so long.
The fire had burned down, but the embers and smoldering remains of the logs were still emitting enough heat it was helpful.
Trying to ease out some of the muscle stiffness, I kept slowly walking back and forth. After a couple of minutes of stretching and pacing I noticed Leo at the door.
“I heard you moving around and came to see if you needed anything. Or wanted some food.”
I shook my head, but I appreciated the company. “There’s nothing in here that I don’t recognize or know about. I can’t find anything helpful. Bob is convinced that my parents knew something, but I can’t find it.”
Leandro came all the way over to me and pulled me into a hug. I leaned my head on his shoulder, trying to let go of the weight for a few seconds.
“I’m sorry that I’ve not been more helpful. My uncle is refusing to acknowledge that I didn’t do this. He’s been sending my phone messages every day telling me that there are other vampires coming after me and they have what they need to take me out.”
Leo tried to smile and I pulled back to get a good look at him. This was harder for him in many ways than it was me. I at least had a home to go to and some friends here with me. He had Petros and me and that was it.
“Anyway, let me help you in some way. Where might your parents have hid private documents in here?” Leo slipped away from me and began to look around. He went over to the shelves, but I’d already looked through every book.
One of the first things I had done beside checking the obvious places like locked desk drawers, I had looked inside every single book for a secret compartment, bookmark, piece of paper, picture. Anything.
I let Leo look, however, just in case I had missed something.
At the same time, I leaned against the desk and tried to imagine my mother being in the room. She was in this room a lot, but she usually locked the door when she did spend a long time in here. Had she been up to something?
The mantelpiece over the fireplace had once been covered in snow globes and various other knickknacks from the places my mother had visited, but very few of them were there now.
I didn’t know where they had gone, but I’d requested some of them and had a couple in my apartment.
Or I’d had. Right now, I wasn’t sure that they were still okay.
Of the remaining snow globes, most of them were far lower on water than I had ever seen them. The contents were all sticking above the water line and the glitter or snow in each of them was in clumps.
All except one. It wasn’t new. I recognized the globe and knew that it had been here since I was a little girl. It had been one of many that my mother hadn’t let me play with. She hadn’t let me touch this one, so I’d not done so since I walked in.
Not sure how I felt about it now, I walked closer and inspected it better. I found myself reaching out and touching the globe. It didn’t even shift under my hand but I decided to lift it and give it a good shake.
No matter how I tried, however, I couldn’t lift it. The snow globe was stuck to the mantelpiece.
Frowning, I tried to move it in any way. It didn’t go back or forth, but as I tried to push to the left, it shifted a fraction and there was a loud clunk from the bookshelf on that side of the mantelpiece.
I glanced over at Leo to see if he’d heard it, and he was already staring at the same location. Our gazes met as we hurried to the shelf.
Reaching out, I noticed that there was now a very small gap on the right-hand side of it. The bookshelf was loose, as if it was on hinges and came into the library.
Finally feeling a little like I might have my answers, I reached out and opened the door to another small room.
The next room was a secondary study and library area, much like this one, but there was little light and another desk.
I hurried inside and my eyes were immediately drawn to the documents left out on the desk.
There was a letter in an envelope with my name on it.
Beside that were two very full journals.
They were familiar and I realized they were ones I had seen my mother with when I was very young.
“It seems we have found the jackpot,” Leandro said, staying near the door. “Maybe we’re going to have what we need after all.
I nodded, not really paying attention as I hurried to the desk and the envelope.
I pulled it open to find a letter to me from my parents, but also a copy of their will.
This one wasn’t the same as the version I’d been shown by lawyers once they’d died.
There were a lot more assets listed and some detailed instructions on where to find specific items and safe places to travel. ”
As I scanned through it all, I got the impression that I was supposed to have found this a long time earlier.
Leandro came to me and put his arms around me. “You’ve done it. Found what your parents left for you to discover. They meant for you to be here and you’re going to put this to good use.”
I nodded, smiling properly for the first time since we’d got here. My parents had known what was truly going on and they’d cared enough to leave me the information I needed. We might just be able to take on the academy and the Brethren after all.
~