But this time it wasn’t just me and Michael waiting. It was me, Michael, Axel, Claudia, Lucas, and Samantha.
I couldn’t believe how life always came back around. I didn’t think it would. I thought Van was wrong. I didn’t want him to be wrong, but this little voice in my mind just kept thinking that we’d never find her.
And now we had found her. Except she was in a hospital room.
A hospital room where I wasn’t allowed inside.
At first, I hadn’t been allowed in because I’d been arrested. We called our friends in the FBI to vouch for us, and that took forever. They didn’t believe it was really Tessa in there.
And then once they decided to maybe believe us—it was a whole other thing to make them let us deal with it. They wanted to ask Tessa questions and run DNA and a whole bunch of other stupid shit.
They couldn’t ask her anything. I did, and she had some sort of massive seizure.
I wasn’t sure what we were going to do now. We were waiting for her to wake up before we tried any magic.
But I’d seen Tessa. For a second, I’d touched her, and I could see through all the magic.
She was back here. She was okay. Or she had been until I started pushing her to break through the magic.
Why had I done that? I should’ve been thankful that I had found her. I shouldn’t have pushed. Now she’d been unconscious for almost a full day, and it felt like I was on the verge of losing her again.
Why wasn’t she awake?
I needed her to wake up.
She had to wake up.
I got up and started pacing.
“Dastien,” Claudia called out to me. “She’s a werewolf. She’ll be okay. Something like this can’t kill her. It’s just the magic.”
She didn’t know that. She couldn’t fucking know that. Tessa had been kidnapped for six hundred and twenty-seven days. Who knew what they’d done to her? Who knew what that magic had done to her? “Have you ever seen any magic do that?” I knew I shouldn’t yell at her, but I couldn’t stop myself.
She flinched, and Lucas’s arm went around her, protecting her.
I was a jerk. Yelling at Claudia was like kicking a puppy. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
She stared at the ground for a second before looking up at me again. “I’ve never seen magic do that, but I don’t know enough about fey magic. That could be a normal reaction.” Her voice was quieter now. “Cosette’s almost here. She’ll know more. She can figure this out.”
“Tessa’s in a fucking coma! How can Cosette figure that out?” I wiped a hand down my face. “Sorry.”
“That word only means something if you change your behavior.” Lucas had been patient with me, but I could hear in his voice that he was about to be done with that.
“I am sorry.” I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles for a second, before trying to speak again. “I’m sorry that I’m losing control and patience and everything else. I just—”
“It’s okay.” Claudia put her hand on Lucas’s arm, stopping him from speaking. “I’m not upset. If yelling helps you, then you can yell at me.”
Now I felt like an even bigger asshole.
A nurse cleared her throat. I turned too quickly—moved too quickly—and the sickly sweet stench of fear filled the hallway.
I was scaring everyone. “I’m sorry. Did you need something?”
“No. The yelling…”
“I’m sorry. I’ll keep it down.”
“Thank you. I’ve got other patients…” The nurse trailed off, but she didn’t need to say anymore.