Liam watched me, his expression sad.“Then you must consider the possibility that this is a human ailment. Not everything has a magical explanation.”
That was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted this to be something I could fix. I wanted to take that look of fear from my sister’s eyes.
“But it could be?” I asked.
He hesitated, before reluctantly nodding.
That’s all I needed to know. I might not be able to prove it, but I knew that Fae bitch had something to do with it. I would make her pay for messing with my family.
After that we sat in silence, the sun becoming more present in the sky, turning the window outside the room into a painting that still, after all this time, managed to take my breath away and remind me humans were just a small part of the greater whole.
I’d seen many sunrises in the military, some beautiful, some lackluster, some bashful and shy.I’d missed them when I became a vampire. Now I counted each one I saw as the blessing they were.
It was while I was staring out the window, my hand on Linda’s that Jenna stepped into the room, lingering in the doorway as her gaze slid from Liam back to me.
He ignored her hint, staying by my side as she finally moved into the room after a long pause. He’d gone still, his expression cooling considerably as she approached.
I glanced at him in confusion, noting my mother peering through the window in the door. The abrupt reversal in his manner suddenly made sense.
I didn’t pay much attention to his coldness or the way his gaze had turned unfriendly, grateful for Jenna’s return.
As much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t going to hold out for much longer. The sun was beginning to win out over my will. I could still function, but exhaustion lurked just under the surface. If I thought too hard about how tired I was, I knew I wouldn’t make it out of this chair, let alone the hospital.
“Aileen, can we have a minute?” Jenna asked.
The question made me blink dumbly, the fatigue slowing my thoughts. I looked up at Liam.
His answer was simple.“No.”
I frowned at him. He gazed down at me, the unhappiness there surprising me, especially considering the moment we’d just shared.
It woke me up a little, alerted me to the fact something wasn’t quite right. I straightened in the chair and looked at my sister, finally tuning into the look on her face. One that was part shame and part stubbornness. It was an expression completely at odds with the Jenna who had just left here.
I couldn’t help but brace myself. Liam’s caution invaded me and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to spend any time alone with her.
“Just say what you need to say,” I said, my voice hardening just slightly. I forgot my promise to myself, that I was going to make more of an effort to understand where they were coming from, that I wasn’t going to treat them as potential hostiles anymore.
Jenna’s lips firmed and she stepped forward.“Alright, I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to donate blood. I checked Linda’s blood type and it matches yours.”
I stared at her, processing her words. They didn’t make sense. I was familiar with blood donation practices, everyone in the military is, given what we do. You want to know the extent we’ll go to for each other, have someone call out over the base’s speaker for people with a certain blood type to report to donate for a wounded soldier, and you’ll see everyone with that blood type drop everything to run and volunteer. So many, the medics had to turn people away.
I’d even donated quite a few times both for military purposes and civilian ones. The United States had a large pool of donated blood. The only time they asked family members to donate was if there was a rare blood type or antigen in the mix.
I was A positive. That wasn’t exactly rare. There should have been plenty available unless the city had suffered a rash of incidents all involving people with that blood type.
I didn’t answer Jenna, standing and making my way to the door.
“Aileen,” Jenna protested.
I stopped and turned to her, the expression on my face hard.
Jenna’s expression turned pleading.“Just donate the blood. Please.”
I turned and walked out of the room.
My mother waited in the hallway, her arms folded over her chest and an expression on her face that saidI’d reacted just the way she thought I would.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, perfectly calm.
