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17
MIA
My boys are back.
Or else they’re on their way back.
Nobody speaks of that stage between shifts when a person is not a human or a beast but something in between, incomprehensible and terrible. It guts me to see it—see them as they twist on the ground, their bodies changing, tearing and knitting back together, bones and joints cracking and reforming, muscles stretching and snapping into new shapes.
Above all, it hurts me as it hurts them.
But it doesn’t scare me because I love them and every form they take is dear to me, every process they go through is mine, too.
Finally, they curl up, human in the place of the beasts, bloodied and filthy and naked, their limbs still twitching. They don’t seem to be conscious, though.
Is it supposed to be like that?
God, I want to grab my cousin and shove all the pain she gave them into her, give her a taste of her own medicine.
“We have to hurry,” Percy says. “We tried to keep the teachers back but we don’t know how much they’ve seen.”
The wall of vampires blocking the view of the beasts from the crowd is still there, but I understand what he means.
“Tell the teachers a story, that what they saw was… I don’t know, owls and eagles and that the students took magic mushrooms or something—”
He’s laughing. “Leave it to me, Vasilissa.”
“Why are you also calling me that? What’s up with you guys? I—” The words stick in my throat. “Just don’t call me that. That’s not me.”
He gives a little bow, like Elijah earlier—then again he’s always been oddly formal when he’s not a plain pain in the ass. “We’ll move them to their rooms,” he says. “With your permission.”
“Wait,” I say, “don’t move them just yet.”
His brows go up.
“Give me two minutes.”
“Sure,” he says, his quizzical gaze following me as I pull on my socks and shoes, half askew, and hurry to where Vanessa is standing. My brain is buzzing. What happens when too many incredible things happen in one day?
“…sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast…”
Yeah, Alice, but what if you found out that the impossible things are real and present, and that before breakfast you have to deal with them and plan for what’s coming next? Riddle me that, Carrol. What would Alice do?
“Van!” I call out. “Have you got a blade?”
She’s standing by the water, her gaze distant. When I approach, she looks up, blinks. “Blade? As in a knife?”
“That’s what blades usually are.”
Her mouth twitches in an almost smile but it’s strained. “I have a switchblade.”
“Yeah, that will do. Give it to me.”
I don’t even ask why she’d have one with her. Don’t even question why I’m giving orders, taking control, or why she obeys without a word. It’s a small switchblade with a black wooden handle and a flame etched on it in silver. It’s an old-fashioned thing, the blade a short, broad leaf of metal with a serrated edge.
As I walk away from her, I clutch it in my hand, let its solid, hard lines press into my palm and fingers, reminding myself that yes, this is real and yes, I have to do something about it because the world doesn’t owe me and I have to make things right or nobody else will.
It’s up to me to make a difference. After all, the stakes are high for the world but even higher for me. I can’t lose my boys. Can’t let them die, no matter what happens after that, whether they decide to go their own way or not. At the very least, I need them alive to make that decision.
