I nod, but don’t say anything, unsure how he’ll feel once he knows all of it. Another confession sits on my tongue that’s plagued me for the past two weeks. I took Kaleb’s advice and didn’t return to the hospital…until yesterday, that is. Knowing I was about to collect what I needed to bring Felix back, I had to see the McGowen boy again. To make peace with what I was about to do, I guess, but it didn’t work. Instead, I felt more like a monster, choosing to research what I needed to put Felix in his body instead of how to save him.
“Callie love,” Nolan murmurs, brushing his fingers across my cheek, catching tears I didn’t realize I was shedding.
Leaning into his hand, I whisper, “Tell me I’m not a monster.”
“You’re not a monster,” he insists quickly, pulling me into his arms—the water bottle in his hand digging into my back. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I think I found Felix a body,” I confess, my words muffled by his shoulder. “But I…have to let him die first.”
“Fuck,” he curses into my hair, the fingers of his free hand soothingly running through my tresses.
While he tries to absorb what I said, I breathe him in, enjoying the feeling of his warmth and the spicy scent of his cologne mixed with hints of engine grease. He picked up another project car to work on outside of the one at school. It wasn’t said directly, but working on cars distracts him as much as helps him think. Considering what we’re trying to do, he needs a lot of distractions.
Finally, Nolan utters, “You said ‘let,’ meaning you could heal him?”
“I think so,” I answer, my hands slowly reaching around his waist, the water bottle in my hand cumbersome. “I mean, I can heal myself and bring people back from the dead. It isn’t a stretch to think I could help him too.”
“But without your magic, he’d die naturally?” he questions, his words measured, but there’s a strain in his normally sultry voice he can’t hide.
Sounding flat and distant, I respond, “I overheard the doctor saying to the boy’s mother that his health was deteriorating. If he…doesn’t wake up from his coma soon, it’s unlikely he ever will. He has a month or two before his entire body will shut down.”
Nolan releases an uneasy breath, then takes our water bottles and puts them down on the windowsill. With our hands free, he gathers me in his arms again, holding me tight. Since the Felix debacle, he’s been more careful with the way he touches me. Not distant, but not like this, with his hands roaming my back and his lips against my hair. This quiet moment together is nice despite me being a mess inside.
Small tremors quake through his body, and he clears his throat a few times before saying anything. “You can’t…it’s not…shit,” he hisses, his fingers digging harder into my back as they slide along the muscles bracketing my spine. “You’re not God—the Goddess—whoever.” He swallows heavily. “Spirit witches are supposed to keep balance, right? That’s what Mildred said.”
“Yes,” I croak, my hands gripping the back of his shirt.
“Okay,” he breathes, his chin bumping the top of my head as he nods. “So to heal him would upset that balance, right? If the humans can’t save the human boy, then it means that the natural order would be for him to die.”
“Following that logic, wouldn’t the natural order be for Felix to move on…or stop existing?” I counter, reaching between us to wipe at my eyes.
Nolan pulls back far enough to meet my gaze. Guilt and grief pull at his sharp features. Earnestly, he answers, “Felix didn’t die for human reasons. He died because our world touched his.” He hesitates, then with a harsh bitterness, he states, “Demons killed him because he was friends with us. Bringing him back would be righting that wrong.”
I laugh without humor. “Your twisted logic saves the day again.”
“I prefer to call it ‘out of the box thinking,’” he replies, squeezing me hard then releasing me. He hands me my water bottle again, and this time I take a sip.
We haven’t really been alone since his birthday. He hasn’t fed from me since then either, and I’ve worked really hard on not thinking whom he might be feeding from instead. Now that we’re together and really talking, the things Gina told me about him come to mind.
I’m about to face all of my nightmare fuel, so why not clear the air? What’s a little more emotional distress?My mental sarcasm has a brutal edge to it.
“Nolan, can I…?” I start to ask, only to have Felix pop into the room. I hate that I’m so relieved to push the discussion off for yet another day.
“Connor is on his way,” Felix announces, releasing a deep breath through pursed lips. “He should be here in twenty minutes or so, depending how much of a lead foot Sam has.”
It’s curious that Sam is driving instead of Connor, but I don’t comment on it. Maybe it’s an Alpha thing.
“Want to watch something while we wait?” Nolan asks, his fingers drumming along his water bottle. He’s been in a kind of host mode all morning, unable to sit for too long before finding something else to do or check on.
“Sure,” Felix replies, though he doesn’t appear too interested in it. He seems equally jittery as Nolan and me. Running his hand through his hair, he asks in a feigned casualness, “Any word on D and Kaleb?”
“No,” I answer with a sad sigh, moving to sit on one of the couches and sip more of my water. “They’ll either show up or they won’t.”
“We’ll give them until Con gets here,” Nolan declares, flipping through channels, but finding nothing of interest. “They’re on the passenger manifest, just in case, but we won’t wait forever for them.”
“That’s…fair,” Felix murmurs, hovering on the couch next to me. He stares at his feet, his disappointment evident in his drooping shoulders and furrowed brow.
“It’s going to be okay,” I console him, not sure if it’s true or not, but feeling it needs to be said. As unhappy as Donovan and Kaleb are with our choices, I can’t imagine they’d reject Felix outright once he’s alive again. They love him too much for that.
