“You’re human, Evelyn. Bearing one of our children could kill you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When a human gets pregnant with their mate or mates, the child isn’t human.”
“So?” I ask, not understanding.
“One of us can’t knock you up. If you get pregnant, it won’t just be one of our kids; it will be all.”
“You have lost me,” I admit, trying to understand what he tells me.
Thaddeus puts his head in his hands, trying to figure out what to say next. Orion steps in for him.
“If we were all vampires, it would work, but Thaddeus is a Tribrid, and Ryland werewolf. If you get pregnant, the baby will be a tribrid. When a mate falls pregnant, the baby is a mix of its parents. You have more than one mate because Thaddeus is a tribrid, so therefore the baby would have all our DNA.”
“Why does it matter what it is?”
“Because humans can’t carry a Lycan baby, Evelyn. It would kill them,” he answers.
“But your mother is part human.”
Thaddeus shakes his head. “No, my mother is a witch and has Vampire DNA. They thought she was human, but she isn’t, and she did die having me. Her vampire DNA brought her back.”
“So, if I have a baby, would it be all your child? And it would kill me?”
“Yes,” Thaddeus answers.
I say nothing; what can I say? But suddenly, having that option taken away from me makes me want it. Getting up, I head for the stairs. Orion tries reaching for me, but I brush his hand off. I am just about to go up the first step when I hear the news anchor on TV mention the Parse hospital where Lana is. “Breaking News, we are outside the Parse Hospital, reporting on a domestic situation.”
I stop, glancing at the TV, and everyone else also does, too. They go to a live stream inside the hospital, and my stomach drops as I see April come on the screen.
Evelyn
The stream shows April, walking through the hospital corridors with a gun in her hand. April walks up the corridors and into a ward out of sight. The live stream continues to play when we hear a bang.
Ryland switches the TV off, and all eyes go to me as I walk over, grab the remote from Ryland, and turn the TV back on. My heart thumps against my chest as I flick through the channels to find the news report again. Ryland tries to take the remote from me, but I snatch it away from him.
I need to know; I need to know what happened. Where is Lana? My mind is racing, the cold tendrils of fear creep into me, my stomach drops as I instantly break out in a cold sweat. My hands are shaking as I clutch the remote and frantically flick past the channel. I press the back button, and a news anchor stands out the front of the hospital. Police block the entry to the hospital behind her.
The flashing of police lights flicker against the building as cops run around, trying to secure the hospital. People run from the building in complete chaos.
“What you saw on screen is the wife of the well-respected Sergeant Derrick Tanner. According to insiders, there has been a double murder and suicide. We believe the youngest victim of the double homicide is their adopted daughter, fourteen-year-old Lana Tanner. The girl resided with Mrs. Tanner while her husband recovered in hospital. It is unknown what caused these sudden events to unfold, but it is a tragedy we may never understand.”
Three images come on the screen, a picture of April, one of Derrick in his uniform before the fire-ravaged him, and lastly, a picture of Lana. Her beautiful face is full of light, the picture-perfect girl next door.
My lungs restrict and my legs buckle underneath me as I stare at the screen. I can see the news lady talk, but there’s no volume as I go completely dead to my surroundings. I can’t hear a thing going on around me; can’t think straight as I stare blankly into space.
This is my fault; I told Thaddeus not to kill her even though he wanted to. That was a mistake; I killed the only sister I ever had because I didn’t want to live with the guilt of taking April away from her. But instead, April took her husband and Lana’s life before taking her own.
I killed her; I set off the chain of events that led to her death. If only I would have listened to them. If only I never went to that house. If only I told Thaddeus to kill her, Lana would still be here.
My breath comes faster in short puffs when the realization dawns on me. I killed her; the closest person to family I ever had, is dead. The person I was willing to kill for died because I wanted to believe April still had good left in her, that her understanding was only tainted, and she wasn’t to blame for her actions.
Thaddeus is right, April deserved death. But Lana didn’t deserve this. This was never meant to affect her; I thought I was protecting her by letting April live because I was afraid she would end up in the system no child wants to be a part of. My idiocy killed her. My failure to see what she was capable of killed Lana. The little girl I fought to protect for an entire year, is now dead. Everything I did is for nothing, but more importantly, my mistake killed her.
* * *
Orion
The moment Lana’s picture comes up on the screen, she buckles, her legs go out from underneath her, her nails dig into her palms so hard she is drawing blood. She looks hollow as she stares at the screen, eyes wide and a dead look on her face as the color drains from it.
The emotions coming from the bond tell us how destroyed she is inside, yet she doesn’t say a word and is completely mute, trapped in her thoughts and guilt. She thinks this is her fault. Evelyn shuts down, completely shuts down. She is right in front of me, but with the look on her face, she might as well be a million miles away.
Thaddeus is a raging storm inside, the darkness creeps in. Ryland is the first to move. He hesitantly walks over to her frozen form, crumpled on the floor. We can all hear the erratic beating of her heart as it thumps against her chest, the shallowness of her breathing, like she can’t catch her breath. Her bottom lip trembles as she bites down on it hard enough to draw blood. Evelyn is breaking, and none of us know what to do other than stare at her.
Ryland reaches his hand out to brush her hair from her face, but she moves away and stands up. The remote slips from her hand and breaks apart on the floor, the batteries falling out as she turns almost robotically. She is there right in front of us, but nobody is home. Evelyn moves more on instinct, like a zombie as she walks up the stairs on autopilot. She doesn’t want anyone near her; doesn’t want us to touch her, like she knows she will break if we do.
“I need to go; I can’t be here,” Thaddeus says, as the storm within him rages to magnitude levels. He looks to the stairs, wanting to go to her, but won’t risk exploding near her.
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