I can promise this stranger I will save her baby. I can swear that I will return this child. I can save the little one, or I can refuse. I can turn away. I can let whatever is happening proceed uninterrupted without any help or assistance from me.
But somehow, I can’t do that.
“I swear it,” I whisper, looking up at the woman. She looks relieved. She’s not calm by any stretch of the imagination, and her eyes are flittering around, constantly looking to make sure someone isn’t there. She’s running from something terrible. Even I can see that. “You need a doctor,” I insist, but she shakes her head.
She takes my wrist, then, and bites me.
“What the fuck?” I ask, pulling my wrist back.
“You swore an oath,” the woman says.
I look at my wrist. It’s not bleeding, but there are two little puncture wounds where her incisors dug into my skin.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were going to fucking bite me,” I say. I look up, but the woman is gone. She’s disappeared into the night, and I’m standing in the parking lot, covered in blood, holding another woman’s baby, and I have bite marks in my wrist.
And I don’t know what to do.
What do I do?
Do I go to the police station?
Do I go to the hospital?
Should I drive around and look for the woman?
The baby seems unharmed, but where is Fablestone? And what does any of this have to do with me? Who’s Lucky? And why are they chasing Ellie?
Suddenly, it starts to rain, and I quickly get into the car, close the door, and lock it. The baby looks up at me and I realize I don’t even know her name, but something tells me this is all much bigger than I could possibly imagine.
Chapter Two
Cameron
“She’s been missing for four days,” Wilson says, shaking his head. He looks up at me like he knows what I’m about to say, like he knows what my next question is going to be, but he doesn’t. He has no fucking clue. Wilson Clarke might be the clan leader. He might be the one in charge. He might get to make all of the shots, but that doesn’t mean he knows shit about my sister.
He doesn’t know anything about Ellie.
She’s not dead.
She can’t be.
Not my Ellie.
“Don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, Cameron.” Wilson speaks firmly, but his eyes are gentle. He pities me, and that feels worse than the last sparks of hope that are dying in my chest.
She’s not dead.
“You’re a clan leader. Not a psychic,” I say.
“It’s been four fucking days, man,” Wilson says. “You know what that means. You know where she was going. You know, but you don’t want to accept it.”
“Would you?” I scream. I pick up a glass and throw it. The tumbler hits the wall and shatters, sprinkling to the floor in broken shards and slivers. “Would you want to think that scientists captured your sister? Tortured her? Bled her out to see if dragon’s blood really can cure cancer? Is what you’d want to think, Wilson? Fucking answer me, you piece of shit!”
Only Wilson doesn’t say anything, and I drop to the floor, sitting in front of his desk, wrapping my arms around my legs because she can’t be dead. Ellie can’t be dead. She just can’t. My sister is the sweetest, most wonderful woman in the whole fucking world. Lucky couldn’t have taken her and David. They couldn’t have stolen away my niece, Daisy. They just couldn’t have.
After a minute, I hear Wilson move, and he sits beside me on the floor.
“Be careful,” I whisper. “There’s glass.”