Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3) (24 page)

He picked the gun back up, and he was towering over her, pointing the gun directly at her chest. She was lying on the floor; Rollin pulled the trigger again and she felt…She couldn’t breathe, something was crushing her chest…

And after the ringing of the second bullet was gone, there was a sucking, gurgling noise as Lena tried to grasp for breath.

It is yours? He asked, pointing the gun at Brandon. He used his foot to nudge Lena’s. Is this the child? Your son?

The world was spinning and darkening with each second she tried to breathe, that horrible hissing gurgle emanating from her chest as Brandon screamed. Her ears were ringing.

Brandon… She mustered, hardly able to keep her thoughts straight. Brandon, it’s okay, it’s going to be…

Suddenly, something warm sprayed across her face, and the floor next to her shook. She couldn’t see Rollin anymore. She couldn’t see anyone.
 Brandon, I’m here…

There was a cold hand under her shirt, pressing hard down on her chest; it startled her eyes open. Griffin’s face was floating over her.
 Brandon…

He’s fine. Can you breathe?

Lena was confused…Griffin?...But, Rollin…? No one…no one can know the truth about Brandon…Promise me…

And then the world was shifting and turning again. She thought she could hear someone calling her name. Whoever it was, she thought he sounded an awful lot like Ben Collins.

Lena!

“Pneumohemothorax. Her lung’s collapsed. We can’t do this here, I need equipment. We may need a hospital!”

Lena!

“Get the shower curtain! Help me lift her!”

Lena!

“Now help me lift her! Keep that over her chest—no, keep your hand over the other entrance wound or she’ll bleed out!”

And that was all. The world was swiftly warm around her, and there were no sounds, and only the one bright light overhead.

*****

Lena opened her eyes. Somehow, something was still crushing down on her chest, but when she looked she couldn’t see anything. She was in a large room, in a large bed, tucked under warm covers as someone sat gently humming a tune next to her. She looked over. It was Alexis Alarid; her family had been one of the first to be weeded out during the killing spree.

Alexis stopped humming when she saw Lena looking at her. She smiled. “You’ve been away for quite some time now.”

Lena tried to respond, but her chest ached so horribly. 
Where is Brandon?

Alexis’s expression faltered. “The baby?”

Where is he? I want to see him!
 Her urgency must have been apparent, because Alexis sprang to her feet.

“I don’t think…It’s not allowed.” She said, taking a step back. Pain ripping through her body, Lena swung her legs over the edge of the bed and started to get out of it. Alexis’s eyes went wide. “You cannot! You’re not allowed to be up! I—I’ll get him for you!”

And she darted from the room. To Lena, she was moving so fast that she looked like a blur of color; she felt like she was going to vomit. She lifted a hand to her chest, where the bullet had ripped into her, but the skin was completely smooth and unmarked. Looking back up at the door Alexis had disappeared through, she squinted, trying to decide if she had rejoined the world of the living, or if she was elsewhere. Her brain was fuzzy…Alexis was dead. Had been dead for several months, like the rest of her family. And Lena had just sent her to get Brandon.

“Alexis!” Lena called, mustering her strength and staggering to the door. Her legs shook and cramped like they hadn't been used in weeks. “Alexis, wait!”

She grabbed the door handle and threw the door wide open, bracing herself against the frame. An empty hall, full of doors. A portrait of Serafina Perry was on the opposite wall.

Where was she? In her head? She was usually more creative than this…

There was a commotion off to her left, and she turned to see Alexis moving quickly toward her, a bundle in her arms and a man in a white coat chasing after her.

“You can’t have him outside of the room! He’s not—Oh!” He said, looking up and seeing Lena standing next to the portrait of Serafina. “You’re not supposed to be up…”

Alexis was shoving Brandon into her arms. He was asleep; Alexis had her arms around her shoulders, steering Lena back into the bedroom. She tried to force Lena back into the bed, but she refused. She set Brandon down and started unwrapping him. He was completely unscathed, from the tips of his toes to the blond hair on top of his head. Except that someone had given him a haircut.

He woke up and started crying, his face turning scarlet. Lena immediately lifted him into her arms, pressing his head into her shoulder.
 
It’s okay…It’s okay…I’m here, it’s me, I’m here…

She turned to Alexis. “He needs a bottle. He’s hungry,” she said hoarsely, and Alexis was running out the door again.

She settled back into the bed and snuggled Brandon into the crook of her arm. Alexis was shortly back with a bottle, and Lena started feeding the baby in her arms. He looked skinnier than she remembered him, or possibly taller. Likely both. Alexis continued to stand over them at the side of the bed.

“I’m sorry…” Alexis started. Lena only glanced up at her before returning her gaze to Brandon. “He is…I mean, he is who Griffin says he is?”

Lena tried to close her eyes inconspicuously, and fought the urge to shake her head. She had no clue what Griffin had said, but only saw it creating problems for her if she contradicted whatever it was. “Yes. He’s who Griffin says he is.”

Alexis took a step back, then came back to the edge of the bed, her hand pressed to her mouth as she stared down at Brandon with tears in her eyes. She kissed her fingers and then swept her hand across Brandon’s head before turning to leave the room.

My sweet little Brandon… 
Lena whispered. 
Are you okay? Did you miss me?
   

It felt good to have him in her arms again. In her mind she had only been gone for those few seconds; the time she remembered from falling to the floor until waking up. But in her heart, she knew the two of them had been apart for almost too long.

Brandon was almost halfway done with his bottle when the door opened again and two people stepped in.

Lena barely had to look. He was skinnier than she remembered, too. Older. But still dressed just as well, still with the arrogant jaunt in his walk. The cat was trailing in behind him—it had grown two little nubs out of its head, the start of what would someday be the magnificent horns she had seen on the skeleton in Daray’s office. It looked more like a demon than a cat now.

“Get out.” She said simply.

But Griffin didn’t move, and neither did the doctor.

“He’s eating?” The doctor asked, stepping up to the bed. “We haven’t been able to keep him eating.”

“Maybe you’ve been doing it wrong.” Lena said sarcastically, taking another painful breath.

“And you? How are you feeling? Breathing trouble? Any abdominal pain?” The doctor looked as though he were going to start checking her over, but stepped away instead when Lena glared at him.

“Not in front of
 
him
.” She said, nodding at Griffin. She readjusted Brandon in her arms.

A tense moment ensued as Lena glared at Griffin and he stared impassively back at her. Some quiet words were exchanged, and the doctor bowed out and left the room.

Griffin raised his eyebrows as though he were having to deal with some manner of unnecessary social etiquette. “You’re in quite a mood. One might think you’d show a little more gratitude.”

“I told you six. Not one after six, not six-fifteen, not
 
six-goddam-thirty, Griffin!
 Where the hell were you?!” Brandon jumped in her arms when she started yelling, but otherwise just seemed happy to be seeing her again.

“I was there at six. I was there at five.” Griffin said simply, turning to lock the door and then strolling over to the bed.

Lena could hardly stand to do more than give him an icy stare. “It didn’t look that way from where I was, on the 
floor bleeding to death!”

“Calm down!” Griffin said in an annoyed tone of voice. “It was necessary.”
   

“Your being late, or my getting shot?!” Lena seethed.

Griffin took a moment to answer. “Both.”

Lena was taken aback. He was completely serious. “I’m sorry. What?”

“You should be sorry—I saved your life! I had to prove to them that you weren’t in league with them. I had to prove that the New Faith and the human-borns were really out to kill you.” He didn’t look worried, but he took a step back anyways.

It took a moment for Lena to process what he had just said. She very gently set Brandon off to the side, near the center of the bed. Griffin had let her get shot. He had
 
arranged
 for her to get shot. The image of Brandon dangling from one hand as Rollin used the gun to shoot her flashed before her eyes.

“Come here.” She said, her voice shaking.

“No.” Griffin said simply. “You told me—no, you 
begged
 me—to fix the situation, and that’s what I did. No one would have taken you back unless they knew you weren’t secretly aligning with the other side, so I leaked the message you sent hoping he’d show up—it was just too tempting. He’s been on a non-stop massacre since January, when you called me. The old faith thought you had gone into hiding and taken the child with you as a favor to your old friends with the New Faith.  And speaking of your old friends, because he saw it was a matter of public safety, Jason Rivera offered a bounty on your recovery with the child. Rollin graciously accepted the challenge. Rivera called it a start to better relations with human-borns. So I knew he would show. Two birds with one stone. I could have tried to bring you back without proving anything, but it wouldn’t have changed anything—no one would have trusted you here. They probably would have killed you both outright. So there you have it, princess, I’ve fixed it as best I can, but I don’t think anything can save us the damage you’ve caused since leaving.”

Lena was trying to get up. She steadied herself against the headboard. “You
 
let
 him shoot me! You sat outside and just waited for him to come in and 
shoot
 me! You bastard—you let him shoot me twice!”

“The first shot was bad. I think he was having trouble with the glove. He’s developed a trademark of chest shots. Hypoxia is a bad way for us to go, and he knew it. I had to let him take the chest shot—people found it very touching that you suffered the same as the rest of the victims had.” Griffin was now sitting in a chair across the room, watching her attempt to keep standing despite the pain that squirmed in her intestines. He was half smiling. “You know, I never thought you could have lost any weight. What the hell have you been up to these last few months?”

“Do you even get it?!”
 She screamed at him. “Do you even know how ridiculously reckless—I could have died! Do you see that kid there on the bed? Jesus—my grandfather died like that Griffin! Died! You could have orphaned him trying to play hero, or whatever the hell you thought you were doing!”

Griffin paused for a moment. He leaned forward in his chair, staring at Brandon with what seemed to be an overly exaggerated look of thoughtfulness on his face. “Really, Lena, I’m waiting for some simple thanks. You have no idea how many people I had to bribe and kill just to show up that day. And I wasn’t going to ask just yet, but since you’ve brought it up—you leave for over six months, and you come back with a three-month-old baby. That kid, there on the bed. A
 
Silenti
 baby. I think I’ve been very patient on that front, perhaps even uncharacteristically so. So now you’re going to tell me where the baby came from. I thought there were no secrets between us, after all, and you show up with a baby.”

And there it was. She could feel him watching her, maybe even prying into her mind slightly—he was genuinely curious, but at the same time…

“Are you interrogating me?” She said, in as even a tone of voice as she could manage.

“Do I need to?” He asked, still leveling his piercing gaze in her direction. He had a completely neutral expression on his face, as he always did when dealing with a business matter. It was unnerving.

“He’s mine.” Lena said simply, quickly, and mostly without thinking. She sat down on the edge of the bed and scooped Brandon back into her arms, picked up the bottle and resumed feeding him. Of the two, she would rather have the world think he was hers than ruin Olesia and Devin’s lives further.

Griffin sighed. He stood up and moved toward her until he was standing only a few feet away, arms crossed, staring down at her. Lena could smell the detergent on his laundry—it had been so long since she’d had clean clothes. “Silenti DNA is a tricky matter, Lena. We can only ever be so sure because it’s possible for parents to pass on DNA that they themselves never actually utilize. Now, to appease my own curiosity, I had Doctor Evans perform a test while you were out. Several, in fact. Do you know what they said?”

Lena felt the rage surging in her veins again. If not for the baby in her lap, she probably would have lunged for his throat right then. “That you’re a pompous brat and you had no right?”

“Not quite.” He said, the humor gone from his voice. “The initial test showed that this child only bore a slight resemblance to you—perhaps only a five-percent chance of being your child. But when he looked closer, he noticed something odd. Would you care to take a guess as to what it was?”

Lena glared up at him. “Are you coming to a point any time soon? Because I’m going to need another bottle if you’re not. Jesus, have you people been starving him or what…”

“He noticed that the two of you share certain rare genetic markers. Extremely rare. Found in only one family, ever. Your family. The Darays.”

Still staring into his eyes, Lena tried not to blink. Panic was rising in her throat. Griffin might be willing to keep the secret, and hopefully he had so far, but no one could ever find out about Olesia. It would raise too many questions. “I told you—he’s mine.”

“I would believe you.” Griffin said, still staring her down. “Except that your injuries were quite substantial, and the doctor discovered something quite…mysterious, I’ll put it…while examining you. The fact is,
 
princess
, that you’ve never been pregnant. So I’ll ask you again—where did the baby come from?”

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Lena finally looked away and nodded slightly. She couldn’t do this alone; that’s why she had sought Griffin out to begin with. As fate would have it, they had found each other again.

“What have you been telling people?” She asked quietly. Brandon had finished his bottle. She laid back down on the bed and pulled him up to rest on her chest.

“Well,” Griffin said, diverting his eyes. He was moving away from the bed again. “I confirmed the leading rumor. I said that he was mine. Ours.”

Lena closed her eyes. She felt a headache coming on. “What?”

“You told me no one could know the truth about him. You didn’t tell me what the truth was, so I was left with very few options. He could be yours—but I know for a fact this child isn’t ours, so that’s what I said.”

“Griffin,” Lena said, the anger in her voice failing to the depression she felt, “You cause problems just to cause them, don’t you? Do you realize what kind of life you’ve condemned this poor baby to?”

“It wasn’t the only reason. I practically had no choice.” Griffin’s voice was almost a little too peppy. Lena looked over and realized he was about to say something she wasn’t going to like. “When the picture first came out, people started talking. They wanted to know who the father was—“

“What picture?” Lena interjected.

“Some human-born snapped it in a diner in Missouri. You’re wearing a baggy sweatshirt and your face is a little fuller, and your hair looks...odd. Like maybe you were trying to not look like yourself.”

“Oh, God.” Lena muttered; she remembered. It was the night she had passed Kelsey off to her father; the night of Devin's first attempt at coloring her hair. They had been eating nothing but junk food for several days straight at that point, she had been feeling frumpy, it was cold out, and she had thrown on one of Devin’s sweatshirts to keep warm. “Continue.”

“Naturally, as Silenti do, they started fitting the pieces together. You’d kept to yourself so much while people were around last summer and fall.”

“Because I had just come out of that ordeal with Rollin and I really wasn’t feeling up to social games.” Lena said.

“You were spending a lot of time hanging around the family doctor, discussing things.”

“Because he was taking care of Devin.” Lena replied.

Griffin smiled sardonically. “No one expends that much energy just to save a human-born, they’re a dime a dozen, even now. And then I left, and people were suspicious enough about that.”

Lena sighed, seeing how things were falling together. “Because you’re a devious bastard.”

“And then you left on this unexplained road trip, taking a couple of human-borns with you, and aren’t seen or heard from after the first few days of being gone.”

“Howard told me not to contact anyone because the Alarids had gone missing…” Lena said, rubbing her brow. This was a big mess—and she knew she was going to have to clean it up. She just didn’t know how yet. “Speaking of, Alexis? I thought they were all dead?”

“Nicolas Alarid contacted me not too long after I went back to California.” Griffin picked up the chair he had been sitting in across the room and moved it closer to the bed. He sat down, leaned back, and put his feet up on the nightstand. “It seems the family was receiving threatening mail over their stance on letting human-borns onto the Council, as the Alarids had a staunch record of refusing representation to human-born families. They seemed to know details of the family’s everyday goings on, and Nicholas was starting to split the family up just in case there was a traitor in their midst. He sent Alexis to live with me; I tried to warn you not to go, because a large family like the Alarids taking such precautions is a sign that upheaval is imminent, but you refused to heed me.”

Lena tried to take it in—Alexis, his cousin, had been staying with him. It was her voice she had heard over the phone so many months ago.

“But anyways, back to what I was saying,” Griffin started again. “People started figuring out the timeline. The phone call you placed to me last January put your delivery date sometime not too soon before, which meant the child would have been conceived the previous spring. We spent quite a lot of unintended, unmonitored alone time together after the shooting in Texas, and people haven’t forgotten it. The timeline doesn’t match up exactly, but close enough for most. It’s what they want to believe, either to love us or hate us, so the details don’t exactly matter. ”

Lena was frowning; yes, it did fit. She had a hard enough time explaining away things that had absolutely no backing—there was no way people would believe the truth when there was so much evidence to the contrary. Griffin put his feet down and leaned in towards her. “Believe me, it’s nothing personal. It’s that as you’ve been known to say, people are happy with the lie. It fits, and it doesn’t require any manner of elaborate explanation for them to understand. Plus, it makes me the father of the most worshipped child in our world, putting me back in undisputed power and you back in favor with at least enough of our kind.” He was smiling in way that was almost too reminiscent of her grandfather. “I know you never wanted children, but we’re Silenti, Lena—this is what we do. I saw an opportunity and I took it. With this child, I can seize control of the Council for the Old Faith. I will bring order to this situation.”

Cocky bastard
. Lena was almost amused with his arrogance. He thought she would ever let him do such a thing? “I thought you didn’t believe in the religion anymore, Griffin. You realize what you’re doing? Perpetuating these lies?”