Page 103 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Disposable.

And in the middle of the quad, with students bleeding and undead clawing at the edges of reality, Lucinda had found a new way to cut me open.

CHAPTER 15

By the time the last of the campus undead was either pinned, or burned, the quad looked like a disaster movie set with worse lighting.

Mina’s friends kept their cameras up, because apparently survival and content creation were equally important. Mina herself moved through the chaos with frantic purpose, shouting instructions that sounded half like a director and half like a lifeguard.

“Keep filming the fountain, not the blood,” she snapped at one of her crew. “If you get a close-up of someone dying, I will personally hex you.”

A few students had started copying her, yelling things like, “It’s performance art,” and “It’s a stunt,” as they backed away. It was working better than it had any right to.

The problem was the injured student at the fountain. He still lay on the stone lip, pale, shaking, and I could not get my healing to catch. I tried again and again, each attempt running into the same resistance. It felt like pressing warm hands against glass. Heat spread across the surface, but nothing went through.

Cal crouched beside me, stone heavy and protective, scanning for threats while I worked. His presence helped my nerves, but the bond with the egg pulled at my ribs with every push of power, like the baby was quietly reminding me that my reserves were already spoken for.

When Lucinda arrived and cut into me with those cruel words, I did what I always did around her. I swallowed the urge to scream, filed my humiliation away for later, and kept trying to help, anyway.

It did not matter.

The student’s breath stayed shallow. My hands remained useless.

A siren wailed nearby. A pair of security officers rushed in from the walkway, shouting for students to move back. Somewhere behind the library steps, someone vomited.

Eve threaded her way to us and gave me a warm smile.

Delia arrived with Spencer and vampire reinforcements not long after, moving with the same grim efficiency they had at the hospital. Delia’s eyes swept the quad, then landed on the cluster of phones still held up.

Her expression went flat.

“You,” she said, pointing at the nearest group of gawkers. “You saw an elaborate performance. Your phone battery died at the exact wrong moment.”

People blinked, dazed. A few lowered their devices as if they had forgotten why they were holding them in the first place.

Spencer moved closer to the injured student and flicked his gaze at me. “You can’t heal him.”

“I’m trying,” I said, voice tight.

Spencer’s attention heightened for a heartbeat, then he nodded once as if he had filed it under future problems. “Delia, clear the witnesses. I’ll move him.”

Cal stood, scanning the quad, and I felt that quiet animal protectiveness from him again. The kind that made me both grateful and dangerously aware of him at the same time. “The paramedics have arrived, leave the boy to them.”

He led me away as Eve’s phone buzzed.

She looked down. Her face tightened, then she lifted her eyes toward us. “Hunter.”

“What now?” Faith muttered, stepping close enough that her shoulder brushed mine. She sounded as if the universe had personally offended her, which, in fairness, it had.

Eve read the message again, then said, “Another council meeting. Now. Hunter wants us there. He says to meet him at the chambers.”

My stomach sank. “Now.”

Eve nodded. “Lucinda demanded you be present.”

Lucinda, still near Caton, heard her name and turned. “Of course I demanded it. She has been at the center of every failure.”

Faith’s head snapped toward her. “You are unbelievable.”