Page 57 of Fanged Embrace
It took a few more moments of Ursula waving her hand in front of my face for me to register that I was being spoken to.
“Hmm?” I blinked rapidly, resurfacing from the depths of my own head. “Yeah. I mean no—no visions.”Like I could be so lucky.I set a wriggling Hazel down on her feet and she immediately sped off to bother her sister. I balanced my elbows on my knees and dropped my head in my hands. “Just… distracted today.”
Distracted was an understatement. I was downright distraught. Laurie’s scream still echoed in my ears; her broken voice had been ringing through my head all night. I couldn’t stop replaying it—I couldn’t get over her confession. Her ‘grand plan.’
She was hurting, so much more than even I had managed to notice. Her aura had overtaken the room last night when she’d dropped to the floor and wailed. It exploded outward with such incredible force I thought it would shatter the windows.
It broke my heart.
I sighed into my hands, pressing fingers to my temples like that could quiet the calamity in my skull. “There’s a lot going on right now.”
Ursula tilted her head to the side and scrutinized me, taking in the fatigue in my features and the dark rings under my eyes. “Are you sleeping all right?” When I slow blinked back at her, she narrowed her eyes. “Are you sleepingat all?”
I closed my eyes, sinking backward into the sofa cushions. “A little… now and then.”
That was a lie—I hadn’t slept a wink last night. I’d been up until the early hours of the morning, wandering the hallway outside Laurie’s bedroom and working to keep her nightmares at bay. It had taken every ounce of concentration this time. The bad dreams rushed at her like moths to a flame and I had fought desperately to keep her shielded from those night terrors.
Now I was walking around like a zombie, powered by a few vials of fresh blood and sheer force of will. But it was worth it, if it meant Laurie could get a good night's sleep. It was the least I could do—seeing as I couldn’t seem to do anything else.
I couldn’t help her. There was not a single thing I could say to make her change her mind, change herplan. I’d been racking my brain for some way to fix things, to make life a little more bearable for her, but I kept coming up short.
Ursula must have noted the way my face crumpled because she nudged my knee with hers. “Hey, whatever’s going on with you—I’m happy to help. I can craft some kick-ass sleep potions. Just say the word.”
I forced out a laugh and straightened my spine again. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. There’s actually something else I wanted to discuss with you?—”
We both glanced up when the twins came roaring by, Hazel pelting Hilda with an arsenal of stuffed animals clutched in her chubby arms.
“Hazel! Leave your sister alone!” Ursula’s stern tone fell on deaf ears, but Hazel got her comeuppance a moment later when Hilda grabbed a handful of Lego bricks and retaliated with a cackle of glee.
Under a hail of colorful plastic blocks, Hazel turned tail and dashed back the other way, dropping stuffed animals as she went. With her sister out of the picture, Hilda bumped down onto her bottom and began building Lego towers in peace.
After the unexpected drive-by, Ursula turned back to me, shaking her head with a sigh. “Jordan really has to stop feeding them cereal right before she drops them off. That shit is like 99% sugar and it turns them both into little monsters.”
A muffled crash from the other room drove her point home and Ursula rolled her eyes. “One sec.” She jumped to her feet, swearing under her breath as she stomped away to investigate the commotion. “Hazel, I swear to god, if you’re climbing the shelves again?—”
I laughed, settling back against the sofa when I noticed Hilda approaching. “Why, hello, little witchling.” I nudged my chin toward the next room where Ursula was scolding Hazel for playing with her potion bottles. “Don’t tell me you put your sister up to that.”
“Nu-uh,” Hilda answered—a little too quickly.
Her sheepish expression gave her away. Hilda may have been the more reserved of the two, but I knew for a fact she was just as much a trouble maker as her sister. She was just a little better at hiding it.
“Hmm, all right then.” I reached over to ruffle her hair andthe little girl shot me a toothy grin, pointed vampire fangs on full display. As she scampered off, I let my thoughts wander.
Hazel and Hilda—two halves of a whole, born of a union between witch and vampire. Hybrids, like Mary and the others we’d rescued. My thoughts slipped to Laurie and the child she’d lost. Her own hybrid daughter.
What happened to her baby? I didn’t know. Whether she’d died in the same facility Laurie escaped from, I couldn’t say. All I knew was that her loss bound Laurie to this fight, fueled her need for vengeance, and left her teetering on the edge of despair.
And there was nothing I could do to help her. I couldn’t even look to the future to see if it all worked out. It was like Laurie said; she had no future, because she had no intention of sticking around.
I should have realized what it meant before. I should have understood when I looked into her future and saw nothing, no one. It was because her path was set in stone and her mind was made up. I couldn’t see her future, because Laurie would not be there for it.
I huddled over my knees, so wrapped up in the agony of that singular thought that I barely noticed Ursula returning.
She was shaking her head as she sat down beside me, grumbling something about Jordan's bad parenting when she noticed my hunched position. “River, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yep.” I kept my head down, grasping for the calm mask I wore daily. After a brief moment of collecting my thoughts, funneling all of my spilled melancholy back into the hallways of my heart, the mask settled into place on my face. I sat upright again, smoothing down my hair with a deep sigh. “All good.”
Ursula looked unconvinced but she let it slide, gaze drifting to Hilda who was thoroughly invested in picking her nose. “Hazel is in timeout and Hilda seems… occupied.” She glanced back at me, pensive in her assessment of my expression. “So, what did you want to discuss?”
