Darkest Day (2 page)

Suze jiggled Ridge as he lifted him again. “All of it?” The gleam in his eye should have been a warning.

“Every last drop of it, Suze. Squeeze it out if you have to.”

2

Winn

In a huge show of light, Suze blinked out, taking Ridge with him.

I wish I understood what’d happened. Ridge had entered on his own. Twice. He’d disappeared twice. Mac had come in with the exact same greeting.

The exact same.

Same words.

Same body language.

Same everything.

It should have surprised me, but it didn’t. Her confusion did, though.
Does she not remember?
She fit against my side, warming up the spot that had gone cold with her two disappearances—and did every time she left me.

“Could you … get me … water?”

She rose, the same area going cold once again. Water spilled from the sink and plinked into a plastic cup.

I’d vowed, as I floated between night and day with an inability to speak or move, to screw the Council’s rules about what I could and couldn’t say or tell Mac. She’d picked me as her teacher, and whether my job had finished or not, I meant to tell her everything. I also needed to ask her about what had just happened.

She brought the cup over and held it to my lips, letting me sip the freshness of cool water. It coated my throat on its way down, soothing as it hit my stomach, and a grumbled response squeezed my middle.

“I’m … so tired.”

Her head snuggled against my chest. “I’m really, really, sorry, Winn.”

I blinked, real blinks, bigger than the ones from before Ridge had walked in the first time, from when I’d practiced reopening my eyes. Wanting to not think about Ridge for a moment, I asked, “Did I … die?”

She tilted up toward me. “Doc’s words were ‘sustained clinical death’ or some mumbo-jumbo. I mean, they told your dad, and I overheard. But they also said it was a miracle you came back.” On a sigh, she said, “I’m so sorry, Winn. I didn’t know it would be this bad. I just thought they’d make you die and the doctor people would zap you back.” She kissed me for the tenth time. “I really didn’t know.”

“Sss … okay.”

“No, it’s not. You can barely hold your eyes open.” Warm breath wafted over my nose as she kissed each of my lids in a gesture I’d never, ever have expected to come from Mac.

With my arm around her, I squeezed, a wimpy movement given my lack of energy. “They don’t know what really happened, do they?”

“Of course not. I told your dad, though. Thought he deserved some answers.”

“Who …” A cough took over, and Mac held the cup up to my lips again. “Who sent me in?”

“Don’t know. The Council is supposedly looking into it. I’m done—”

“Waiting for them to … give you answers?” They’d done enough damage. To both of us.

“Yeah. That’s why I sent Suze off with that request. I’ve had it with the Council.”

“Mac?”

“Huh?” Her tone told me she knew what I’d say.

“We … need to talk about what happened.” I ran my hand up and down her back. My seethe followed with her sitting up straight as the muscles in my arm sent waves of pain back and forth.

“You need drugs, Winn. Let me get the nurse.”

I reached for the call button before she could, ignoring my cringe. Despite her being right, I didn’t want anyone else to interrupt us. We needed to talk. In private. Right then. “No, we really just—” A shift of my butt on the bed sent another wave of aches to my toes.

Mac jumped off and stood next to me. “What can I do?”

“Don’t leave.” The twist to my back as I adjusted didn’t help. “And don’t let them give me any drugs. I don’t want to go all googly-eyed.”

Mac laughed.

“Just … stay with me.” With a nudge from my very sore arm, she slid up against me. From there, I could look at her, and with a deep sigh, I realized I could see her chocolate eyes without any problem, except that my lids still wanted to shut. Pain radiated from every bone, from every inch of my body, yet with her next to me, I could bear it.

The door swung open. “Hoo-eee.” The nurse laughed and angled her head back toward the outside. “I told ya, Carol. I said, I’m gonna bet that boy’s awake ‘cause I ain’t heard nothing from that girl in at least thirty minutes.”

Mac smiled against the side of my neck. “Ever since your dad got them to let me stay, I’ve been a little annoying.”

The nurse released the door and traipsed her way toward me. “I also knew you were going to wake up today.” She winked at me as she patted Mac’s hand. “How you feelin’?”

“Like death warmed over.”

Mac chuckled, sending throbs through my ribs.

“That’s nothing a few meds won’t fix up.” She adjusted the IV and replaced the empty bag with a full one. “Think you might want some breakfast?”

My stomach grumbled its answer.

“Good then. And I’ll be calling your dad and
other
sister.” Another wink came my way.

“Thank you,” I said.

With my arm around Mac and my senses working again, I relaxed into the bed and stared out the window. Buds had formed on the trees in the time I’d been gone. A week in a day. I had to agree with the Council in one and only one way: a return to the in-between did not interest me.

• • •

I
returned after a second batch of tests to Mac pacing my room. She whirled the moment I rose from the wheelchair and propped my butt up on the bed. Happily redressed in my jeans and T-shirt, I expected I’d be let out of my jail at any moment.

As soon as the door swished shut behind the nurse, Mac laid her hands next to me. “You will not believe this.”

“What?”

She pushed off, stalking to the window, where the day’s brightness came through. “Suze got nothing out of Ridge.”

“What d’you mean …
nothing
?”

She spun, her eyes full of anger. “It’s like he knows nothing about anything. Not about the party and his use of magic there. Not about coming in here and trying to send you back to the in-between …
two times
.”

We’d talked between my tests so we both knew the scene had played out twice. ‘Why?’ still remained the biggest question.

“I have no idea how it stopped, how he came back in. It’s so … weird. It’s beyond weird. It’s beyond breaking the rules even, you know?”

I might have learned a lot about the non-human population, but I knew less than Mac seemed to think I did. Pulling her back to the Ridge topic, I asked, “So, Suze did something to make Ridge speak, but he didn’t say anything?”

Mac tugged at her hair. “No. He used the standard demon procedure for extracting truth.”

“Is that a drug?”

She shook her head. “Scared him witless.”

A small laugh pulled at my torso muscles, making them ache. “Do you think, maybe, that’s not the way to go? Or … maybe Suze isn’t the best candidate for truth extracting.”

Mac shrugged. “He’s all I have. I don’t trust the Council, Winn. I seriously don’t. Not anymore.”

“I know you don’t
want
to trust them, but you’re going to have to rule with them in a few months. Maybe … you need to focus more on that.”

Her eyebrows flickered up and down. “I need to find out what’s going on with Ridge, and I need to do it my way.” Mac’s fist beat against her palm.

“You should. Absolutely. But, Mac, I need to tell you what I learned before—”

A small knock preceded the door to the room opening. “Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas. It’s time for you to go home.”

• • •

A
s soon as we closed the doors on Mac’s car, with me in the passenger seat, Zoe pounced, wanting to know more about her mom, why Mac had gone back, and how I’d gone and returned from the in-between if humans couldn’t leave. I didn’t care about most of the questions she’d asked, except the last, and one more I had of my own that Zoe knew nothing about: my mom.

As we pulled into my driveway, beside Suze’s Hummer, the man himself, standing next to the truck, dressed as a nurse from the nineteen fifties, took my attention. Suze had gone back to full-sized demon, as opposed to what I’d seen in the in-between, but selected the wrong gender. Then again, what did I know about demon genders?

His crushing hug squeezed until it seemed like my insides would become my outsides. “You’re back! You’re really back! You’re back! You’re back!” We spun around and around, dizzying lines and colors blurring my vision.

“Might want to let him breathe, Suze,” Mac said.

He dropped me like a brick off a two-story building and caught me before I hit the ground.

“Why are you dressed like an old fashioned nurse?” Zoe’s comfort level with Suze had grown a lot since she’d first met him.

“I’m hereby, duly authorized, to ensure the health, safety and security of one Winford Richmond Thomas.”

He has a new job? Me?
Suze had been entrusted with Mac’s safety from day one, and mine only when Mac asked for it.

“As a nurse?” Zoe’s confusion mirrored mine.

“What else? He was sick. I have to make him better.” Suze lifted me into his arms.

“Uh … Suze?” I asked, cradled like a baby.

He started toward the house. “Yes?”

“Can I walk? Please?”

“But you might fall. You might bonk your head and not be able to heal. You might trip because—”

Because I’m human.
“I’ll take my chances.”

He stopped. “Are you sure?”

Mac’s laugh didn’t help my cause. “Yes. Totally sure,” I said.

With a tentative motion, he set me down. “Okay, sport. Maybe you need some food. Or some rest. Maybe a little of both.”

“How about we just go in.” I waved toward the house.

“Um …” Suze tapped his lip. “Okay.” He bobbed his head. “Yes. Okay. Now would be a good time.”

I eyed Mac, a little concerned and a lot worried by Suze’s answer.

As we stepped onto the porch, the front door opened, and a bunch of people spilled out. My friends. My family. Mac’s family, though not Lucas, thank goodness. Josie. Caroline. Maddie. Moira. Pete. Robin. Cleo. They held a huge ‘Welcome home, Winn’ sign as if I’d gone on a trip or been captive in a foreign country.

Which, as I saw it, I kinda had been.

I nodded and smiled, making my way to the living room, where Mac took the spot next to me on the couch.

Pete, and Caroline with her blue, black and brown braided hair, red glasses and green eyes, joined us first as others filtered in.

“You caught that flu. God, man, everyone’s worried about it now,” Pete said. “The CDC was even called because of how bad it was for you. A few people at school caught it, too.”

I faced Suze, still in his nurse’s uniform. “Yeah, really bad strain,” he said. “But good ole Winn here is one hundred percent cured. You can’t get it from him or anything. Not contagious like that.”

“Yeah, we bet we know how he got it.” Pete mock-punched me in the shoulder as the rest of the group laughed.

Caroline’s smile suggested she had her own guesses. Maddie, with her blonde curls and sparkling green eyes, stood on the fringes of the circle with as fake a smile as I’d ever seen on her face. She and I needed to talk, however awkward I predicted the conversation might be.

“We have food to fatten you up, Winn.” Suze wiggled his way toward the kitchen.

Pete leaned close in. “What’s with the guy in the nurse getup. He gay?”

“No. Just a little … confused.” I pushed to stand. “I want to change. Feel free to get some food or whatever.”

Mac started after me, but I shook my head. A minute alone would be good, not that I’d been overwhelmed by people in the previous days. More than anything, I wanted time to decompress, like a soldier after a big fight. He didn’t walk right back into life; he transitioned.
Yeah, that’s what I need.

• • •

The familiarity of my room took away much of the stress and tension that had built up of the previous days.

I’d survived the in-between. I had a future ahead of me, but without my girlfriend, as her number one task should have been saying goodbye to me.

“I don’t feel like celebrating.” I dropped to my bed.

Thankfully, no one commented back.

Rising again, I walked to my window. To the place Mac said she’d come through one night as a ghost. To my computer, where I stored all my notes about Mac’s life, my time with her, and had written down everything I could remember—all the details I should have told her in the last three months instead of trying to teach her by making her ask the right questions.

“Who am I kidding? I wasn’t cut out for this.” Ignoring my laptop, I fell back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do for a girl who’s going to walk about of my life in three months? Who has no choice but to walk away?”

I knew the answer but didn’t want to admit it.

Footsteps registered on the stairs, probably Mac venturing out of the human population to pull me from my growing funk.

I rose, yet again, and moved to my dresser, pulled out clothes, preparing to wave them at her so she’d know why I’d closed the door on her.

“Winn?” Maddie’s voice had me spinning sooner than I’d planned, and I found her standing in the open doorframe.

My clothes flew out of my hand and fell to the floor.

“Sorry, did I catch you off guard?”

Grabbing my underwear, I shoved them behind me. “Yeah. A little.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Uh … no … problem.” I threw my stuff back in my top drawer.

“Can I come in?” With her hands behind her back, she meandered my way before I could say ‘no’. She’d visited my house before but had never come up to my room. Her eyes shifted to a deep grey, and she ran up to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Oh, Winn! I’m so sorry!”

I tried not to hug her back, but my hands involuntarily dropped to her waist.

She snuggled her head against my chest. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have—at my house—and before. I didn’t mean—” Deep sobs broke words I didn’t understand.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Everything.”

“Everything? Everything what? I’ve been … sick, Maddie. You didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Did you?