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“Something you think could help send her back?”
“Not exactly…” He flips to a page he has bookmarked, his gaze drifting to Reid on the bed. “Is he okay enough to wake up? He’ll want to hear this.”
“I’m awake,” Reid calls, his voice low and raspy.
“What did you find, Connor?”
“A lot of what this guy talks about sounds like insanity and rambles, but there was a detail that I couldn’t shake. When describing what it was like coming into contact with shadow selves, he describes them as having no heartbeat.” He stares at me expectantly as if this is some grand revelation.
I try to think back to the times I’ve interacted with V—would I have noticed if she didn’t have a pulse? It would be odd for sure, but I don’t know if—
The sheets rustle behind us as Reid sits up, and I open my mouth to protest him moving around too much, but the intensity in his eyes as he and Connor exchange a look stops me cold.
“No heartbeat,” Reid repeats.
Connor nods.
“What is going on?” I demand. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone needs to go find Quinn,” says Reid. “Now.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
The longer ittakes Connor to find Quinn, the more my anxiety grows. She’shuman. I barely survived that explosion, and that was with Reid acting like a body shield, my blood magic,andmy half-vampire healing. If she’d been close to the blast…
Reid can’t lose her a second time.Ican’t watch Reid lose her a second time.
Enough time passes that the healers come back around for Reid’s second wave of healing, but he declines the extra painkillers they offer.
“Reid—” I try to protest.
“I need to be awake,” he insists quietly. “The pain isn’t bad. I promise.”
He and I both know he’s lying, but I get him another blood bag and help him into a seated position against the headboard.
Just when I start to feel like I can’t take it anymore and I’ll find someone else to sit with Reid for a few minutes so I can track down Quinn myself, the door opens.
Reid’s sigh of relief is audible as I jump up from the bed and hurry toward them. Despite my barely knowing her, Quinn seems unsurprised when I pull her into a hug, then hold her at arm’s length checking for injury, but she doesn’t have a scratch on her.
“I left to go to the bathroom,” she explains. “I don’t—I don’t even want to think about what could have happened…” She trails off as she takes in Reid on the bed.
Despite looking infinitely better than he had a few hours ago, Quinn’s face falls, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone cross a room faster.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assures her, but his voice is weak and low.
She presses the back of her hand to his forehead, murmuring something too low for me to hear, and I can’t help but smile at the humanness of it all.
He gives her a smile as weak as his voice. “You sound better,” he says.
“The village healer had seen something similar before,” she explains. “The first few remedies didn’t work, but we kept trying.”
I have no idea what he means bysound better.
“The village is actually what we wanted to talk to you about,” says Connor behind me before I can ask.
The village?
“No one there had a heartbeat,” continues Connor. “Why?”
