Chapter 201
The se
#wan 1 si a nightmore When we sing whats gong to hap
Pere I could answer, tome kaked on the from desk. We hard Barth awer it, then fedtops leading our way.
De Drare spared in the doorway with his black medical bag. Gond inniting, Athena How are we feeling today?
Time she said automatically.
He studied het Tace. You have more color than yesterday. That’s good.”
“The IV helped.
Excellent. Id like to do a quick check–up if you don’t mind.”
Athena nodded and Dr. Graze sat down across from us. He pulled out his stethoscope and listened to her heart, then her lungs. He checked her pulse and looked into her eyes with a small flashlight.
“Everything sounds normal,” he said. “Heart rate is back where it should be, breathing is clear. How’s your appetite?”
“Getting better,” she lied.
Any dizziness? Nausea?”
A little, but not too bad.”
Dr. Graze scribbled notes in his chart. “I think you’re recovering nicely. But I want you to take things slow for the next few days. No heavy lifting, no running around. Rest and plenty of fluids.”
“Okay.”
“And if you start feeling worse, or if anything strange happens, call me right away.”
I saw Athena’s whole body tense when he said ‘strange.”
After Dr. Graze left, the house felt too quiet. Sarah went upstairs to make some calls. Orion locked himself in his home office. Athena and I sat in the living room with nothing but our fears for company.
“I should probably try to sleep more,” she said after we’d been silent for twenty minutes.
“Want me to stay with you?”
For just a second, I saw her want to say yes. But then she shook her head. “I think I need some time alone.”
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It stung, but I got 1. She was trying to protect me from whatever was going on in her hand. Maybe from wher
“Okay, I said. “But I’ll be right here if you need me.”
She got up and walked toward the stairs. At the bottom, she stopped and turned back.
*Tristan?”
‘Yeah?”
Thank you for not running away.”
My chest tightened. “I would never run away from you. Never.”
She gave me a sad smile and disappeared upstairs.
I sat alone in the living room and tried not to think about what would happen if this got worse. If whatever was inside her got stronger. If she stopped
being able to fight it off.
But the thoughts came anyway. They crawled into my head and made themselves at home. What if she hurt someone by accident? What if she hurt me?
What if she hurt herself trying to stop it?
I heard Athena moving around upstairs. The floorboards creaked as she paced back and forth. She was probably doing the same thing I was – thinking
about all the ways this could go wrong.
Sarah came back downstairs an hour later. She looked tired.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
‘I called in sick to work for the rest of the week,” she said. “I can’t leave her right now.”
“What about the kids? When will they get back?”
“They’re staying until we figure this out. I told them Athena has the flu.”
More lies. We were all getting good at lying.
“She’s scared, Sarah said. “She’s terrified of what she might do.”
I nodded. We were all terrified.
“Maybe I should try to talk to her,” Sarah said.
“She wanted to be alone.”
“Sometimes being alone is the last thing someone needs.”
Sarah went upstairs. I heard her knock on the guest room door, heard Athena’s muffled voice telling her to come in. Their conversation was too quiet for me to make out the words, but it went on for a long time.
When Sarah came back down, she looked even more worried than before.
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Chapter 201
That wanders that stige if we came to its meaty, Frida
Yether d We were all just ing
* we went along, hoping or the best
Orion came at of his office arvend neon. He locked fed hewn wresting with something
Tve been doing research,” he said. “Looking into stories about shifters with talabiles. Trying to find anything that
Did you find anything? Sarah asked.
“Maybe. There are some old legends about shifters who could absorb life force. But they’re just stories. I can’t tell whats real and what’s
“What do the stories say?” I asked.
Orion hesitated. That it usually ends badly.”
The words bung in the air like a death sentence. We all knew what he meant. The people in those stories didn’t learn to control their powers. They ther died trying or became monsters.
Those are just stories, Sarah said firmly. “This is real life. Well find a way to help her.”
But I could see the doubt in her eyes. We all wanted to believe there was a solution, but none of us knew what it was.
Athena came downstairs around two in the afternoon. She looked pale and shaky.
“I heard voices,” she said. “Thought I should come down.”
“How are you feeling? Orion asked.
‘Like I’m falling apart,” she said, and for once, she didn’t try to pretend everything was fine.
My phone rang disrupting our conversation, I pulled it out. Derek’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hey, I answered.
“Tristan, I need to talk to you guys. I found something. Information about what happened in that cave.”
