Nico understood. He moved to the stairs and started the story, telling them all that had transpired since we got back from Australia. Their voices turned to a blur as I made my way down the hall. Gabriella shuffled her feet behind me as we went.
The bonus room was rarely used, or at least it hadn’t been used much since I’d moved in. It was a combination game room and theater room. There was a ping-pong table on one side of the room, along with a pinball machine and a couple of vintage arcade cabinets. One wall had a massive eighty-inch flat-screen TV and some thick leather chairs. On the back wall was the futon Nico had told me about and a door to a half bathroom.
“Here you go,” I said, helping her to sit on the couch. “I’ll grab a blanket and pillow. You can rest up. Sound good?”
My question was met with nothing more than a slight, almost imperceptible flicker in her eyes. I took that to be a good sign. Hopefully, that meant she was trying to break out of whatever was holding her. I stood and went to a closet on the other side of the room. It was pretty sparse inside, but there were a couple of blankets. No pillow, though. I brought them back and folded one blanket to act as a pillow, then guided her down and rested her head on it before draping the other blanket across her body.
Whatever she was going through must not have been enough to totally fry her mind. She must have been tired because as soon as her head touched the pillow, her eyes closed, and her breathing grew steady and deep. She was asleep before I could even turn the lights off. I stared at her, praying that things would get better. We had to figure out how to heal her. I pushed a strand of her hair out of her face and on a whim, leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
When I turned to leave, I found my parents standing in the doorway, watching me apprehensively. I sighed again. “Guys, like I said, not right now.”
“I’m sorry,” Dad said. “We’re only worried.”
Mom’s eyes flicked toward Gabriella on the couch. “You… uh… seem to care for her quite a bit.”
So, that’s what this was about. I stifled a growl of irritation. “Mom, I understand this is weird, but there’s too much shithappening now for us to worry about your hurt feelings. Yes, she lied to us about who she was. But this woman,” I said, sweeping a hand back toward the sleeping form, “gave birth to me. She is my birth mother, and nothing can ever change that. She also risked her life for me. That means a lot.”
“No,” Mom said, “I know. It’s just?—”
“Stop. You are still my real parents. You raised me and loved me. That will never change. Now, if you still have some ill feelings, then those can be hashed out later. Right now, I’m too damned tired to be concerned with yourfeelings. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”
Mom looked chastened, and Dad gave me a pained smile. “We’re sorry, sweetie,” he said. “You’re right. This isn’t about us. We’ll help in any way we can. You say the word. Okay?”
It was like a fist in my chest suddenly unclenched, and the backs of my eyes burned. I was dangerously close to crying, but I swallowed the emotions and nodded. “Thanks. That’s all I needed to hear.”
Mom and Dad left to walk around that neighborhood. They were most likely going to discuss the situation. I stood alone in the living room. My blood was boiling. My mind kept circling around that hatred. Again and again, I tried to focus on what Isme had told me. I couldn’t focus on the malice in my heart. If I was going to take the blood in that vial, I couldn’t do it with a soul full of this awful, burning hatred, but that was hard. The fact that Viola and her organization were out there doing all these things, and no one was there to make them pay for it, only sharpened my rage. It was difficult not to be angry when people like that were in the world.
If I stood there stewing on it by myself, things would only get worse. Nico was out on the back porch with Tiago and Luis. I stomped out to join them, hoping they could put me in a better mood.
“How is she?” Nico asked as I closed the door behind me.
“Asleep. I think. She’s lying down with her eyes closed anyway.” I looked at Tiago. “What did your pack elders say?”
“I called my father and laid it all out for him. He said he’s never heard of such a thing. It spooked him. None of the others were any help.”
“I called my dad, too. He didn’t have any info to add,” Nico said.
Before I could say anything, Sinthy stepped out to join us. I glanced up at her and said, “Sinthy, could you be wrong? Are you positive Gabriella isn’t a shifter anymore?”
“Wait,” she said, frowning. “That’s not what I said. I said her wolf was lost, not that she wasn’t a shifter anymore.”
Tiago, Nico, and I exchanged a look of confusion. I said, “But that’s the same thing, right?”
Sinthy shook her head. “Not necessarily. It’s close to the same thing, but not quite. Her wolf has been banished to the deepest recesses of her mind. Your wolf was suppressed for all those years, but that didn’t mean you weren’t a shifter.”
“What?” I looked at her dumbly. “I was human and became a shifter later.”
Sinthy shook her head patiently. “No. You are what you are. You were born the way you are. The first breath of air you took in this world was breathed into the lungs of a shifter. Just because your wolf was held at bay with drugs didn’t mean you were human. I’ve been in my room thinking about it. I think what’s happened to Gabriella is similar to what happened to you. Her wolf has been suppressed by the drug they used. The difference is that when it receded, it latched onto your mother’s mind, dragging it away into the darkness. It’s left a shell behind. You were half of what you were supposed to be; your mother is even less right now.”
A sudden surge of hope burst into my chest. “You mean this is reversible? Like we did with my wolf?”
Sinthy winced and looked at the ground. “Maybe. I was looking through my spell book, and I may have found something.”
I leaped to my feet and put my hands on her shoulders. “What is it? How soon can we start?”
Sinthy sighed. “It’s not a sure thing. And the spell is complicated. It’ll…” She finally met my eyes. “It will require something from you, Maddy.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Nico must not have either. He stood and held up a warning hand. “Hang on. What are we talking about here? I think Maddy’s been through enough for right now.”
