Before I could answer her, another text from Donatello came through.
Give it 24 hours.Watch the news tomorrow.
“What does he mean by that?”Maddy asked.
“No clue, but I’m gonna trust him. He hasn’t failed us yet. We’ll just have to wait and see. Let me get that coffee.”
Maddy and I took it down to Gabriella. When we walked in with the tray of coffee, multiple sugars, cream, milk, and vanilla syrup, she shook her head at us. “Maddy, please. This is too much. I’m fine. Really. You have to stop treating me like I’m on my deathbed or something. I appreciate it, but you’re running yourself to death. Sit down with me.” She patted the futon.
Maddy’s cheeks went red. “Sorry. I was trying to take care of you. I still feel like everything that’s happened is all my fault.”
Maddy still struggled to deal with the fact that everything was not her fault. I wondered if she’d ever stop believing it. It had to be weighing on her.
Gabriella waved her off. “Don’t apologize for caring. But please, stop killing yourself to take care of me.”
One thing had been gnawing at my mind since we’d gotten Gabriella back. A question that I needed answered. The more information we had, the better. Now that she was safe and seemed to be back to herself, I felt like the time was right to ask the question.
I poured her a cup of coffee and sat down with them. “Gabriella? Can you tell us what happened after we opened the vault beneath the castle?”
She sighed and sipped at her drink. “It was bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so furious in my life. Viola shed that perfect little posh exterior she maintains. She was raging around the facility, screaming at me, her staff, and herself. It was honestly a little frightening. She was yelling that she hoped Edemas was burning in hell where he belonged.
“This was not only after you all escaped but after she checked the camera footage and saw that there was no vial in the vault. She saw you pull out the scroll, but that was all. That set her off like nothing else. Knowing that Edemas had tricked them for centuries. I thought she was going to have a stroke, but we weren’t that lucky.”
“What happened afterward?” I asked. “After she calmed down.”
Gabriella nodded. “It took some time, but she eventually got her team to extract Maddy’s blood from the mechanism in the vault. She’d planned to use Edemas’s blood to do something, but without it, she and her scientists decided Maddy’s would be the next best thing. I only know all this because she loves to hear her own voice and gloat. She’d come into my cell and tell me all these awful things she had planned. That bitch wanted me to suffer, knowing I couldn’t do anything to help.”
“That’s how they figured out the blood could be made into a poison,” Maddy said, making it more of a statement than a question.
“Right. I was… the first shifter she tested it on. You can’t imagine how terrifying it is to not be able to control your body. My wolf was so frightened and confused. It made it hard for either of us to think or make decisions. Like there was a fog over our minds.” She shook her head like she was trying to get the thought out of her head. “I’ve seen some of the footage of the attacks. Those shifters aren’t in their right minds. Viola wants the world to think that’s what we’re like whenever we shift. But it isn’t. The drug doesn’t only force us to change—it also clouds our thoughts and puts us into a panic. When they injected me, I thought everyone I saw wanted to kill me. It was horrible. They can’t help themselves. It’s absolutely awful.” She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes.
The videos online and on the news were like watching a horror movie. Viola had more to answer for than simply what she’d done to us personally. Every one of those deaths could be traced back to her and her organization.
“How did you manage to change back, though?” I asked. “As far as we can tell, you’re the only one who has been able to.”
“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I had to change back but couldn’t use the typical mental mechanism we all use. I used every ounce of willpower and energy I could muster. I did it, but something inside my mind broke. It’s like when you use a crowbar to open a locked door. Eventually, you’ll get it open, but it won’t work right afterward.”
From the door behind us, a voice said, “That’s a pretty good analogy.” We turned to see Sinthy walking through the door toward us. “How are you feeling, Gabriella?”
“Much better now. Thanks to you,” Gabriella said. “I can’t express how much it means to me that you were able to bring me back.”
Sinthy furrowed her brow and waved it away. “All I did was cast a spell. It was your love for Maddy that led you back.Without a love that strong, no spell would have been able to bring you back.”
I was starting to feel a little out of place. I was sure the three women would want to talk in private for a few minutes. I stood. “I’m gonna let you all have some time. I need to check on some things.”
As I left the room, my phone rang. I pulled it out, thinking it might be Donatello with more information. Instead, it was my brother Rafael. My heart sped up. He was working guard duty at the front gate today. He wouldn’t have called me unless something was wrong.
“Raf? What happened?”
“Nico, bro, you gotta get down here. To the gate, I mean.”
“Why?”
“Cops are here, along with a bunch of other pissed-off people from town. All they’re missing are pitchforks and torches. I need some help. I called Dad. He’s on his way as well.”
“Fuck. I’ll be right there.”
I headed outside and hopped into my car. It would have been simpler to shift and sprint down there in wolf form, but that didn’t seem like the best way to de-escalate. The last thing any nervous and angry people needed to see was a huge alpha wolf running toward them.
