Page 91 of The Hunting Moon
And although Winnie hates that she can see anything of herself in her cousin, she also knows what it feels like to wake up and wonder why one of your parents isn’t coming home.
“Room two thirteen,” Jay says, and when Winnie pulls away from Marcus, she finds a tension has crept into Jay’s shoulders, into his jaw.Vigilance,she realizes,because nightmares don’t mix well with humans.He doesn’t want to venture back into the hospital with Winnie and Marcus; he has evaded swarms of Alphas thus far, but it’s best not to press his daywalking luck.
So Winnie nods at him. “I’ll find you later,” she murmurs, shifting her weight so she can follow Marcus as he shuffles like a revenant toward the hospital doors. But where she expects to see a matching nod from Jay, she instead finds he is staring at her.
Just staring, still as the boy she sketched onto paper three nights ago.
The winds change. From south to north, they shift. Or maybe it’s justthat they intensify, like the forest is giving a final okay. A physical nudge at Jay’s back that says,I release you for the moment, human. Do not waste this time.
So Jay doesn’t. He closes the space between himself and Winnie, cups her face with gentle, callused hands, and kisses her.
It’s just a kiss on her forehead. A brief pressure of his lips against her skin, but it’s more than enough. A gesture that is too heavy to be carried away by the wind. That is too uncompromising, too three-dimensional, too simple to be misinterpreted.
Yes, I used to like you.
Yes, I like you now.
Then he withdraws, and Winnie lets him go. She already said she would find him later, and this moment between them—this kiss across shadows into a bright fever—was his answering promise that he would hold her to it.
Winnie and Marcus find Rachel on the second floor, hooked up to a beeping machine and a dangling sack of IV fluids. She is wide awake and unsettlingly alert, her dark eyes as bright as if she just woke up from a full night’s rest. She has no bruises, no dirt streaks, and even the cut that Winnie noticed in the night is gone.
Which Winnie supposes shouldn’t surprise her. Melusine blood can heal a mortal wound, so the direct magic of a melusine must heal even more. Winnie might not remember every detail from her time beneath the waterfall’s waves, but that haunting music will never leave her—nor that mischievous flicker of scales and silvery light.
So although cables and tubes sling off Rachel, they are clearly just precautionary. As if even the Mondays are puzzled as to why Jay brought her in here. No bandages bind her chest that was ruined a few hours ago, and Winnie can’t help but notice there are no bite marks on Rachel’s bare arms.
Rachel has just enough time to sit up before Marcus has flung himself across the room and into her arms. They embrace with all the ferocity of Wednesday bears, and Winnie doesn’t miss the tears building in Rachel’s eyes. Like this was all she wanted at this moment. Like after a night of helland forest claws, all she needed to make the world right was a hug from her son.
There is so much essence in this moment.
Winnie thinks of the sketches Dad made for Darian.
When at last Marcus pulls free, he beams at Rachel with a face Winnie knows well because she wore it a thousand times growing up.I want to be just like you, Mom. I want to eat the pizza and stop feeling like a kid who’s scared of the night.
Rachel gives an embarrassed scrub at Marcus’s hair, and wipes her eyes. Then she finally twists Winnie’s way. And it’s like watching Jay all over again, like he and Rachel have some Lead Hunter manual that says,Step one: Lock up all emotions. Step two: Take control of the situation.
“Hey, kid,” Rachel says as Winnie cautiously approaches the hospital bed.What does Rachel remember?Winnie’s brain pounds in time to her steps.What is she going to tell, and to whom?
Her answer comes in seconds: “Good thing Jay was on the hunt with me tonight,” Rachel murmurs, and there’s a soft lethalness to her voice—a warning that Winnie has heard before. “And it’s a good thing,” Rachel continues, eyebrows arching, “that you and your family were nowhere near me when those Dianas jumped us.”
Ah,Winnie thinks as Marcus squawks, “Dianas? You got jumped by Dianas?” But Rachel ignores her son, opting instead to hold Winnie’s gaze for the duration of several mechanical beeps.
There is no ignoring the implication in that stare.Here,Rachel’s eyes seem to say.I am giving you this easy, precooked lie. Now microwave it for thirty seconds, and we’ll all be good to go.
It is the same look Winnie saw after her third trial, when Rachel came to her bedroom and admitted she’d known all about the banshee head. This time, though, the secret isn’t that her niece failed the first trial. And the lie isn’t just a simple cover-up to keep her niece a Wednesday hunter.
This secret is about a werewolf the whole town fears. This lie is about a boy Winnie begged her to save.
“When I talk to Jeremiah Tuesday,” Rachel finishes, “I’ll make sure he knows to leave you, your mom, and Darian alone.” Then she cuts her gaze away, a hard punctuation mark to end their conversation, and she pulls her son back in for another bear hug.
“Okay,” Winnie murmurs, because what else can she say? She is suddenly the very uncomfortable third wheel in a touching family tableau. Plus, for right now, everythingisokay. Somehow, everyone Winnie cared about survived the night.
And somehow, forright now,there are no Dianas trying to kill her. No nightmares trying to feast on her. No Tuesdays wanting to interrogate her or even Luminaries howling to ask,Was it fun to jump?
It won’t last, because of course it won’t last. Winnie has at least seventy-three new questions for her running list ofWhat I Don’t Know—starting withIf Dad was framed, then where is he?And followed byDoes Rachel know anything about what happened to him?But her vocal cords can’t form words any longer, even if she wanted them to. Her bones have given up their fight, and her muscles just desperately want to sleep.
So Winnie nods at her aunt—who nods more solemnly back. Then she rounds about to scuffle into the hall. Her combat boots shed a trail of dirt behind her. The beeps of an unnecessary machine chase after.
CHAPTER48
