An Hour of Need (11 page)

A
s I traveled
with Horatio and my father, we soon encountered a strange greenish fog. Before I could draw in more than a breath, my father clamped a hand over my mouth and blocked my nostrils. “Horatio, put up some kind of vacuum around us, will you?” he addressed the jinni.

Horatio’s nose curled as he eyed the smoke before he proceeded to create a bubble of clear air around us. My father removed his hand from my face, allowing me to breathe normally again.

“I passed through this smoke before,” my father explained, “and it doesn’t seem to have any effect on fae, but Grace might respond to it differently.”

“What is this?” I asked, gazing around.

“I assume it’s some kind of strong pesticide the hunters are using to keep this place clear of dangerous predators. But… I’m not sure,” he added, concerned.

My focus left the smoke and returned to Lawrence. My gut writhed. The thought of seeing him again, of standing face to face with him, was both exhilarating and terrifying. I knew it could be a completely wasted attempt—he might not be able to recall anything about me, and refuse to even hear me out… but I had to try.

“All right, we’re close now,” my father announced, our bubble passing through a particularly thick patch of smoke.

I could make out only the vague outline of square-shaped constructions among the treetops. We moved to the roof of a cylindrical walkway.

“You can take us inside, Horatio,” he whispered.

The jinni made us invisible, removed the protective bubble, and then used his magic to transport us within the cylinder. Inside, all was deathly quiet. It was like being locked up in a soundproof box. A chemical smell filled my nostrils, some kind of mild detergent.

Our breathing seemed loud in the quiet. “Follow us, Horatio,” my father said. He gripped me and pulled me forward, out of the walkway, through a small communal kitchen, and then down a hallway lined with doors leading to rooms on either side. When he finally stopped outside one of the doors, my skin was tingling.

“Now, Horatio,” my father whispered in a voice barely louder than a breath. “You and I need to stay invisible. But you can remove your magic from Grace. Then transport all three of us to the other side of this door. We will stand by, and watch what happens… Grace.” My father’s mouth lowered to my ear. “We won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

I nodded, though strangely, that was the last thing on my mind. Given the fact that I had no idea what state Lawrence would be in, perhaps my safety around him was something I should’ve been concerned about.

Horatio proceeded to execute my father’s instructions. The dimly lit hallway surrounding us disappeared and we found ourselves in a much darker room. Square and lit by a single dimmed lamp in one corner of the room, the room contained little more than a narrow desk, a chair, and a bed… A bed that held a young man. Lawrence.

My voice caught in my throat as I laid eyes on him, spread out across his mattress on his back, his face panned to the ceiling. He wore nightclothes—a white shirt that parted to reveal his toned upper chest, and loose black pants.

I looked behind me instinctively toward where I imagined my father and Horatio were standing, and gave them a final nod. It was more a gesture of resolve to myself than to them.

I moved cautiously across the slate-gray carpet toward the end of Lawrence’s bed. My eyes felt wide as saucers as I looked him over. His eyes were closed, and all signs indicated that he had fallen asleep. He breathed evenly, his firm lips ever so slightly parted. Gulping, I made my way around the side of the bed until I was standing level with his head.

“Lawrence,” I managed to whisper.

No response. Not even the slightest twitch of an eye. He remained still, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Lawrence,” I repeated.

Still no response. I dared reach out a hand and place it over his forehead. Surely my coldness should be enough to wake anybody up.

Still, he remained in slumber.

I had wanted to avoid grabbing him and shaking him—that certainly wasn’t the best way for him to wake up to a stranger in his room. But it seemed that I would have no choice. I planted both hands on his shoulders and shook him hard.

Still he didn’t wake.

What the heck is going on? It’s like he’s dead.

“Horatio,” I hissed. “I need some help.”

The jinni manifested himself and grabbed Lawrence by the ankle. With his supernatural strength, he yanked him right off the bed and dangled him upside down in mid air.

Okay
,
I’d been hoping Horatio would have been a little more subtle than that… but it still didn’t work.

I gaped at Lawrence’s sleeping form as Horatio plonked him back down on the bed. I found myself reaching for his neck to verify his pulse, to confirm that the heave and sigh of his chest was not just some kind of illusion. Yes, he was alive.

Then why in heaven’s name isn’t he waking up?

M
y mind was still flitting embarrassingly
often to Marion as we traveled to the portal in Bermuda. I supposed I had a thing for French girls.

But as we arrived and prepared to leap through the gate to Aviary, it was time to push her from my mind.

It had come as a surprise to all of us to find the portal unmanned. After what we’d done to Atticus, I would have thought hunters would be teeming everywhere by now.

But nope. It was quiet as a cemetery.

We gathered around the portal and piled through one by one. This portal was wide enough for the dragons—led by Jeriad—to pass through in their beastly forms, which was convenient. We let them jump through first to clear the way, in case there was any opposition waiting for us on the other end. Then the rest of us—witches, jinn, vampires, werewolves and another fae, Kailyn—followed. Arwen, Brock and Heath, three of the League’s newest recruits, had accompanied us, too.

I was the last to shoot through the abyss, and the second I arrived on the other side, I already knew something was wrong. Very wrong. The jungle was choked with thick green smoke, so thick that I could hardly see three feet in front of me. The sound of everyone coughing filled my ears. I breathed in cautiously, trying to detect if the smoke had any scent, but at least to my nose, it was odorless.

“What is this?” Jeriad rasped.

“We need to get away from this area!” I hissed, even as I tried to keep my voice down. We had no idea where hunters might be located. This could be some sort of trap for all I knew. We had to get to the cave where I’d left my brother and the others. I hoped they’d still be there.

“Shayla,” I called to one of the witches who had been spared to come with us. “Safi,” I addressed the nearest jinn I could make out through the smog. I pointed eastward, the approximate direction of the cave. “You need to start transporting us that way.”

“Argh!” Yuri choked just behind me. I whirled and, to my horror, found him fallen on the ground. He was clutching his throat and wheezing uncontrollably. Claudia, a couple of feet next to him, stumbled and tripped beside him.

I cursed.

All around me, our people were collapsing.

As I turned to yell at Shayla and the jinn to hurry the hell up, I realized that Shayla had broken down coughing too. Dashing to her in a panic, I almost tripped over Kiev’s form in the undergrowth. It seemed that the only supernaturals left unaffected were the fae and the jinn. Vampires, witches, werewolves, and heck, even the dragons had collapsed.

Dammit! What is this stuff? Fumes so strong they can debilitate even a dragon?

Whatever this smoke was, I prayed that it wasn’t fatal. As the jinn hurried to gather everyone together so that we could be sure to not leave anyone behind, Kailyn’s voice rang through the trees. “Oh, my God! Look!”

I swiveled and rushed toward her voice. She came into view about six feet away from me. She was crouched down on the ground, hovering over… my sister.

“Vivienne,” I gasped, dropping to my knees and clutching her shoulders. She was sprawled out on the damp soil, eyes closed. Her lips were swollen and purple, her clothes ripped. On one side of her head was a protruding bump.
What in heavens…

I scooped my sister up in my arms, relieved that she was still breathing at least.

But what was she doing all the way over here? They were supposed to be waiting for us in the cave.

“Where are the others?” I demanded aloud, as if expecting the jungle to throw me back an answer.

Then my eyes fell on another body, partly obscured by a bush. I hurried over and pushed the shrubbery aside to uncover Caleb. He was in no better state than Vivienne, bumps and bruises littering his body. It was like they had fallen… a long distance.

My head panned upward. More bodies hung above me, scattered awkwardly among the branches. Members of my family. All of them unconscious.

I didn’t have time to ask more questions. Thank God we hadn’t left here yet, and Kailyn had ventured a little further out in her search.

“Guys,” I called to the jinn, fearful they might leave prematurely. “Wait! We’ve got more people over here!” I carried Vivienne to the rest of our unconscious army while Kailyn carried Caleb, before we returned to begin disentangling the others from the trees. I spotted Sofia next, balancing precariously on her midriff, her hands and feet dangling on either side of a thick branch. I gathered her to me and handed her to Kailyn, who zoomed her back to the jinn. Next, we helped Xavier, Aiden, River and her siblings, Orlando and Rose, who had alarmingly wound up in the coils of a monstrous red-scaled snake. She’d been lucky to get out of its grip without being squeezed to a pulp, or eaten—I assumed her bitter vampire blood had been the only thing stalling the snake from digging its fangs into her. I approached the snake from behind, gripped its head and squeezed its neck until it gave her up.

Now those still missing were Grace, Ben, Horatio and Derek. As much as we searched among the branches of all the neighboring trees, and then headed to the ground to do a thorough search of the undergrowth, we couldn’t find them anywhere.

We couldn’t stall any longer. We had to get the others away from here—to some fresh air.

But now I was in a quandary. If those who were supposed to be in the cave had migrated here, perhaps that meant something had happened there. Maybe they’d been forced to leave. In which case, it made no sense to return there now.

Exhaling sharply, I hissed, “Take them back through the portal to Bermuda. Find a safe spot and do whatever you can to revive them. If you fail then take them back to The Shade.”

I hated the idea of everyone retreating so soon—of being outsmarted by the hunters so quickly—but there wasn’t room for pride in this situation. I was just terrified for everyone’s lives right now. I felt grateful that I had avoided alerting Jeramiah to this mission.

“And what will you do? Are you coming?” Safi called back. “And where is Horatio?”

It was probably a good thing that Horatio had insisted Aisha stay back from this mission, too, or she would be worried out of her mind for her husband.

I exchanged glances with Kailyn. It was clear from her expression that she would stay with me. “We need to stay and find the others,” I replied to Safi.

She nodded before she and the other jinn transported the rest of our people through the gate.

I let out a shallow sigh of relief. At least we had gotten
them
out of here.

What a mess this is…

Now we had to scour this jungle for the missing four.

Kailyn and I soared further away from the portal. As we passed poison tree after poison tree, I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t before. Something that had escaped my attention due to my brain being primarily focused on searching for the forms of my family among the branches.

The peachy-colored leaves. They looked different. Previously smooth and bloated, they now looked shriveled and wrinkly, as though the fluid had been sucked out of them.

I gazed around to check that we hadn’t just come across an anomaly, but we hadn’t. Every leaf within sight had been altered.

“Oh, dear,” Kailyn breathed. “Whatever this gas is, it seems to be serving a dual purpose…”

S
o this wasn’t exactly
how I’d imagined my reunion with Lawrence would go—standing tensely at the edge of the room while watching him being dangled up and down by Horatio like a sack of potatoes.

After the jinni had failed to wake him with that method, since Lawrence was still breathing and obviously not dead, I could only assume that his profound sleep had something to do with his recent transformation. Maybe this was normal. But we didn’t have all night to figure it out.

I spotted a mini-cooler beneath a dressing table. I stooped down to it and opened the door. It was filled with chilled glass bottles of water.

After all that shaking, would cold water have a chance of waking him? I gritted my teeth.
If I pour it over him the right way it should…

I emptied the cooler of water with the help of my father, and together we hurriedly unscrewed all the lids and placed the bottles on the bedside table closest to Lawrence’s head. I grabbed one of the sheets from his bed and folded it up so that it was just wide enough to fit over the lower portion of his face. Placing it firmly over his mouth and nose, I reached for the first bottle and tipped it onto the cloth.

I hated to resort to waterboarding, but this guy just wasn’t waking up.

The water spilling down Lawrence’s nostrils and blocking his airways finally made him stir. God only knew what spell he’d been under to make him sleep so deeply. As he coughed and spluttered, I quickly shot Horatio and my father a look, indicating that they make themselves invisible.

As they disappeared, Lawrence’s hands moved to his face. I managed to remove my hand just in time before his fingers curled around the wet sheet and threw it away from his face.

I staggered back as he sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and shining, his wet hair licking the sides of his face. The next thing I knew, he had jerked backward. He threw himself off the bed and whipped out a gun from a hidden pocket in the side of the mattress. Kneeling on the floor, he aimed it at me.

“Wait!” I hissed, holding up my hands. I was addressing Horatio and my father just as much as Lawrence. If they manifested now, this would all be over before we’d even started. It looked like it was going to be hard enough to get through to Lawrence on my own, let alone with two strange men in the room too.

“Who-Who are you?” Lawrence demanded. His familiar British voice took on a fierce tone I wasn’t used to.

I knelt before him on the bed. “My name is Grace,” I whispered urgently. “Grace Novak. You know me… Or knew me. I mean you no harm. Please. I just need to talk to you.” I prayed that the earnestness in my voice would get through to him, if nothing else.

His brown eyes raked over my face. “Grace?” he asked in a thankfully quieter tone. “I don’t know any Grace. Who are you, and what the bloody hell are you doing in my room?” His eyes ticked to the wet sheet. “You were
waterboarding
me?”

He rose to his feet slowly, the contours of his chest clearly visible beneath his wet shirt. He kept the gun steady in his hands.

“Only to wake you up!” I assured him.

“Are you a… vampire?” he asked, narrowing his eyes on me.

Crap
. I really must have been looking deathly pale by now for his first guess to be a bloodsucker. I was about to respond when his expression darkened. “Oh, I know. I saw you in that cave. You were among the rebels who kidnapped my father.”

“I was,” I whispered.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I gazed up at him. So clueless. So oblivious.
Where do I even start? He doesn’t remember a single thing…

I could only think that, as with all stories, I ought to start from the beginning.

“Will you sit down?” I asked quietly, realizing that I would find this a lot less intimidating without him towering over me. I was feeling so damn weak, so lethargic, since my last bout of tremors, it felt like a strain to hold my head tilted at this angle.

Lawrence hesitated. Then, keeping his gun aloft, he moved round the bed toward my side until he was standing behind me.

“Stand up,” he commanded me.

I acquiesced.

“Remove your backpack.”

I shrugged the bag off my shoulders and pushed it aside on the floor.

He strode in front of me, his brows deeply furrowed. His hands reached out and closed around my arms. His touch sent tingles down my spine as his palms traveled to my wrists before returning to the upper half of me. He continued to run his hands over my clothing, searching my back, chest and sides through my clothes. After inspecting my legs, from my thighs to my feet, he gestured to the mattress with a nod.

“I’ll give you a minute to explain yourself,” he said in a low voice. “Talk,
Ms. Novak
.”

I sank back onto the mattress, while he seated himself a safe distance away from me. His gun remained pointed at my chest.

The coldness in his eyes, the indifference, sent a chill stealing through me. Bracing myself, I ran my tongue over my cracked lower lip before beginning, “Have you ever heard of The Shade?”

He nodded. “Home to rebels with little to no respect for the work of the IBSI.”

I smiled bitterly.
You got that right.

“Well, you lived among us ‘rebels’ once,
Mr. Conway
,” I said. “And you got pretty comfortable on our island, too. You even begged us not to give you back to the IBSI when they came to reclaim you. You literally preferred to die than be handed back.”

His mask cracked, his jaw twitching. I could tell that I had unnerved him, but there was still no sign of actual recognition in his eyes.

“We found you locked up in an underground bunker,” I went on, “in The Woodlands. You had been heavily drugged, and lost all memory of your former life. Y-You looked about as sickly as I do now… I became your caregiver.”

He cleared his throat, his right hand loosening and repositioning around the gun’s handle. “I suggest you give me a strong reason to believe a word you’re saying.”

“For a start, I know your mother’s full name. Georgina Susanna Conway.”

His brows raised, but he didn’t look too impressed. “That’s hardly sufficient credibility for your story.”

I was seconds from spitting out,
And
I know she was murdered
.
By your cold-blooded brute of a father.
But somehow, I didn’t think this was the right time to spill that yet. Lawrence was having enough trouble trusting my story as it was. He’d been so thoroughly brainwashed, I doubted he had it in him to believe his father could have been responsible for her death.

“I visited your grandparents,” I proceeded. I figured my only option at this point was to keep hitting him with little pieces of information, keep planting little niggling doubts at the back of his mind that would eventually eat into his reason, even if any single piece of evidence I could offer him wasn’t strong enough. It was agony to think how much easier this would have been if I’d just had a photograph of the two of us with me. “Lovely folks. Spencer and Angela Hulse. They own a pub called the Old Fox and live in Bristol, England. When was the last time you saw or spoke to them?” I asked, hoping to overwhelm him with my knowledge.

His lips cracked apart. Disturbance flashed in his eyes.

“You… You’ve been stalking my family?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes,” I replied, reluctant. “I guess I have.”

My words had backfired on me. Instead of considering my message, the reason why I was telling him about my visit to his grandparents, his brain had gotten stuck on taking objection to a strange—apparently vampire—girl, stalking his family… which I guessed was fair enough.

His right hand clenched again around his gun and he rose to his feet.

But even as he stood armed before me, somehow, I still couldn’t bring myself to feel afraid of him. But maybe that was just stupidity on my part. God knew, I had been known to be stupid before.

“Please, Lawrence,” I urged, trying to keep my tone even, “will you just hear me out—”

He shook his head. Whatever window of openness I had seen in his eyes a few minutes before slammed shut. “How did you get in here?”

“Law—”

“Answer my question.” It turned flat, uncompromising. Despite the difference in accents, it suddenly reminded me chillingly of his father’s.

“The trap door, above the kitchen,” I murmured.

“You need to leave,” he said.

His forefinger glided over the trigger as I moved to appeal. “Leave,” he repeated, glaring at me. His voice dropped deeper. “Before I change my mind about letting you leave at all.”

He stepped backward, his left hand reaching for the door handle.

My desperation triggered a light to switch on in my brain.

“Wait,” I breathed. “Just. Wait.”

I rushed around the edge of the bed to where I had dropped my backpack to the floor.
My notebook. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Grabbing the pink notebook, I moved back to Lawrence.

From the look on his face as I had whirled on him, it seemed like he had been expecting me to withdraw a weapon. His eyes widened as I brandished the notebook.

“Take it,” I hissed, shoving it toward his free left hand.

He clasped it. Staring down at the book, he hardly breathed.

Does this ring a bell in your head? Do you recognize it, even in the slightest?

“I want you to read it,” I whispered, even as a bitter ache gripped my chest. I recalled the night we’d spent in that old abandoned castle—the last night we’d spent together—when I had been so hesitant to let him read what I’d written in this journal. Now here I was, urging him to take a peek.

I turned to the first page for him, remembering that my notes all referred to “Josh”, rather than Lawrence. “I referred to you with a different name on these pages,” I explained quickly, worried that he might immediately discount my notes. “I refer to you as Josh. Josh was the name you gave—”

“Josh.” The name expelled from Lawrence’s lips in a soft breath.

Hope surged through me as I searched his eyes. There was no sparkle of recollection within his irises as I had wished I’d see. Instead his eyes glazed over, as he whispered again, “Josh…”