He shakes his head. “That’s a whole other shitstorm. She’s put a spell over her house, so nobody can get in or out. Pamphrock has at least one hundred slayers surrounding the place, waiting for her to drop the spell so they can get in and take Rebecca back.”
“Jesus. I feel terrible. I should never have involved her in all this.”
“Listen, what’s done is done. At least we know where Rebecca is. And as you said, Emilia just wants to mother her, not harm her. The main thing is that the spell was successful. You should be congratulating yourself for that.”
“Yeah the spell worked and then everything went to shit. I’m seriously starting to believe I’m hexed or something.”
Finn strokes a hand down my cheek. “Stop beating yourself up and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” I tell him, before trudging my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
Despite my exhaustion, I don’t go to sleep right away. Instead I cry for Noreen. Rita and I have even more in common now, both of us motherless – fatherless too in a way.
I know this feeling of grief all too well. It consumed me when Matthew killed himself, and now I can feel it creeping its way in again. The hurt claims my insides like a plague. Somewhere in between all the tears I shed I lose consciousness. I’d hardly call it sleeping because it’s too much of a restless state. In my head I see myself plunging a stake into Eliza’s heart and Whitfield stabbing Noreen with his sword. The images spin in a constant loop.
The next two days are awful. Rita hardly leaves her room and acts out whenever I try to do anything for her. She barely eats a thing and her eyes stay that unnerving shade of black. Alvie makes a phone call to a woman named Hayley, who had been friends with Noreen, to inform her of her passing. Hayley ends up coming to the house with her partner and foster son, as well as her foster son’s girlfriend – Florence. Hayley brings the girl for a very special reason; she’s an Empath with the ability to heal emotions – and Rita’s emotions are in dire need of some healing right now.
When they arrive I find her so strange, always staring at me in fascination. She tells me that I have an aura the likes of which she’s never seen before, and I put it down to my blood. My spirits lift as I think that she could help bring Rita out of the comatose depressive state she’s fallen into. Unfortunately, I realise just how deeply Rita’s grief runs, because when the girl tries to work on her she actually faints with the effort it takes. The sadness in Rita was so thick that even an Empath couldn?
??t wash it away fully.
Ethan comes over just as I’m nursing Florence back to health, blathering on about a fight he had with Delilah. The tension between us was almost too much to take, especially after all that happened during the vampires’ attack.
He kept on looking at me like he didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss me or bite me. It didn’t help that I was wearing the Keep Calm and Carry Garlic t-shirt, which certainly ruffled his feathers. Two days have passed since then and I haven’t seen him again. Delilah’s the only one who comes over to the house.
Since her healing with Florence, Rita seems a good deal better. We even managed to get her to leave her room long enough to attend Noreen’s funeral, which Alvie and Gabriel worked together to arrange. She’s still grieving, but it’s more on a par with human grief now. I’ll never forget the imagery of her out on the road, surrounded by nothing but purple flames.
It’s only on the third day after her healing that I realise the results weren’t strong enough. We’re sitting having something to eat in the RV one evening when I try to bring up the topic of Emilia and Rebecca. The spell around Emilia’s house still hasn’t let up, and the slayers are beginning to think they might need to find a witch or a warlock to try and counteract the spell.
“Do you know what, Tegan?” says Rita, interrupting me midway through my account. “I’m so sick to fucking death of hearing about your problems. Nobody cares, so just shut up.”
I frown at her, whispering, “I wasn’t talking about my problems. I was telling you about Rebecca.”
“Yeah and it all connects back to poor little you. Emilia’s a selfish, evil bitch and she’s your grandmother, boo fucking hoo. Just get the hell out of here. I’m sick of listening to you.”
Jesus. I never realised I could be so irritating. Rita’s eyes flash purple and I rise from my seat. Losing Noreen has changed something in her and I’m at a loss to know what to do about it. She’d always spoken her mind, but now she seems to be going out of her way to be cruel.
When I step outside I hear her smashing something to the floor. It sounds like a glass shattering. My heart clenches for her. I try not to feel hurt by her harsh words, because I know she wouldn’t be acting like this if she weren’t in so much pain. I just hope that she’ll heal with time.
I notice that it’s started to rain heavily, but I don’t feel like going back inside the house. The place is too empty, with everybody out attending to various tasks. It only functions to punctuate Noreen’s absence.
I need to walk and clear my head. I need figure out a way to bring the old Rita back. I just can’t accept that the horrible, rude person I just spoke to is the Rita I’m going to have from now on. I want her to be my friend again.
I’m only wearing a t-shirt and the rain is so heavy that it actually hurts as it batters down on me. I walk down the street, with no real destination in mind. Since the majority of Pamphrock’s men have been focused on the whole Emilia Petrovsky predicament, there haven’t been as many slayers out patrolling the streets.
This means that Theodore’s chaos has started to take a hold of the people again. Yesterday Finn’s next door neighbour, a usually polite and reserved woman named Maria, tried to beat up her teenage son out in their front garden in a fit of rage. Knowing exactly what had happened to her, I’d gone over and used my magic to push the mist out of her. A bit of an awkward conversation ensued, with me not being able to properly explain to her what had just happened. She thought that maybe it was early menopause, and I had to just let her think that.
In the back of my mind I feel it’s a little selfish of Pamphrock to care more about his daughter than the people of the city, but it’s hardly his sole responsibility to keep everyone safe.
I find a bench in a park and sit down. It’s soaking wet, but then again, so am I. I probably shouldn’t be out alone like this, given the dangers I could face, but I’ve always had this small self-destructive streak. This little voice in my head that urges me to do hazardous things, simply for the thrill of feeling alive.
It’s probably what pushed me to walk head first into Ethan’s world after that first night I’d discovered he was a vampire. The rational part of my brain told me to run away, but the misadventurous side told me to walk right into the fire, who cares if I get burned. Subconsciously I’d just wanted to feel something, anything, other than my all-consuming grief, even if that something was fear.
A man with an umbrella strolls by me, stopping and asking if I’m okay, sitting coat-less and umbrella-less in the rain as I am. His face shows nothing but concern, yet in my dark mood I tell him to piss off and leave me alone. He hurries away, muttering something at me that ends suspiciously with “itch”.
I don’t know how long I spend sitting on the bench. I put my hand inside my jeans pocket to pull out Edwards’ coin. After all these days, it feels less and less likely that he’s going to show up. I’m beginning to wonder if he was even real at all. Perhaps I dreamt him.
Thinking this, a little sob escapes me, my tears mixing with the rain that’s still pounding down on me. I cry for my dad and for Rita’s mum. I cry for the people living in this godforsaken city. And finally, I cry for myself and the loss of my innocence now that I’ve killed another living being.