Page 164 of Claimed

“Yep,” Jared agrees. “Got the impression from hearing the message the owner of this place is no stranger to the human crime underworld. Don’t get the sense he knows anything about Wyatt Meadows or those girls being supernatural.”

Maybe this explains the reaction in the locator spell. Meadows planned to come but won’t now that he knows the pimp is pissed at him.

Bailey is calling again.

“One sec,” I say to them and answer the phone. “Not a good time if this is a social call.”

“I’m at the hospital in town. M-Mom’s here. She’s unconscious. It’s…” She makes a choking sound. “We don’t know what’s wrong with her, Greyson. I’m scared.”

“Where’s Dad?” I ask.

I hear my sister smoking. Bailey smokes cigarettes when she’s upset.

“He’s on a fishing trip with Ace and Andy. I can’t get ahold of them.”

“Where’d they go?”

“Andy’s cabin.”

“Cell service up there is always shit.”

“Lorenzo is driving up there now to get Dad,” Bailey says.

“Tell me what’s wrong with her.”

“She dropped. She just literally dropped in the kitchen while we were gabbing about nothing, and I couldn’t wake her up. Cat’s there with you, so Amie rushed over and did CPR but called an ambulance when Mom wouldn’t wake up. She said Mom’s not responding to stimuli, her breathing is irregular, and one of her pupils is larger than the other.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Mase and Amie are here with me, Amie’s talking to the doctors. She says they’ll run some tests and let us know what they think it is. I’m really, really scared, Grey. Dad won’t be here for at least six hours and Mom smells really funny. I… I…”

“Smells like what?”

“I don’t know, but nobody here smells it. Just me. It’s like… I dunno… like… some flower I’ve never smelled, I think. It’s faint but I can kind of taste it… cloying and I… I don’t know.”

“I’m on my way,” I say.

“Okay.”

“Call me if anything changes.”

“Uh huh.” She sniffles.

I call Linc and tell him, asking him to let Stacy know.

Linc phones me back two minutes later.

“Linc?”

“It’s me,” my mate says. “Lincoln just told me. What happened?”

“Sorry to pass that as a message, Blossom. Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.” I put her on speaker and put the phone on the dash. “There. Bailey said they don’t know what’s wrong with her. They’re at the hospital in town. My father’s hours away on a fishing trip somewhere with no service. I would’ve come back and got you first but didn’t want to lose an hour driving back to you and heading back out again. They’re running tests. She just dropped in the kitchen a few hours ago.”

“I truly hope she’s okay,” she says.

“Gonna try and get to the bottom of it. Dani said earlier I could use her gifts to assess what sort of healing someone needs, so I need to get there. Gonna call Dani now and run this by her. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? I’ll get a message to Linc or Jase when I know more. Jase and Jared should be back soon. No sign of your brother at that massage parlor.”

“Drive carefully.”

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