Her chin lifted, and she shifted Holly so they were both facing me. Finally the little girl stopped crying, staring. "I know everything about you," she said. "I see inside you. It pours from you. You won't let yourself love anyone. Like that vamp. But unlike Ivy, who's merely afraid, you really can't love anyone. You're never going to have the happy ending. Never. No matter how you look for it, it's out of reach. Everyone you love you will eventually kill. You are alone even now, you just don't realize it."
My jaw was clenched, and my hands were fisted. "It won't work, Mia," I said, thinking she was trying to upset me to make herself stronger. "Put the baby down and your hands behind your head. I'll make sure Holly is okay." Damn it, why hadn't I brought my splat gun?
"You want my baby?" Mia mocked. "Fine. Take her."
She was holding Holly out to me, and thinking she was starting to understand, I reached out. Holly gurgled happily. I felt the unfamiliar weight of an entirely new person fill my arms. Mia backed up a step, a harsh gleam in her eye as she glanced at the open lot behind me. A car was coming, and its lights shined into the dead end, making it bright.
"Thank you, Mia," I said, reaching to take Holly's hand before she hit my face. "I'll do what I can to keep Holly with you."
Holly's cold, sticky little fingers met mine, and my hand closed reflexively around them.
Pain came from nowhere. My heart jumped, and I gasped, unable to cry out. Fire blazed across my skin, and I found my voice.
A harsh guttural scream ripped through the icy night, and I sank to my knees. My skin was on fire, and my soul was burning. It was burning from my chest outward.
I couldn't take a new breath, it hurt that much. People were shouting, but they were too far away. My pulse was firing madly, and every beat pushed the fire through my pores. It was being stripped from me—my aura was being ripped away, and my fear was feeding it.
Holly gurgled happily, but I couldn't think to move. She was killing me. Mia was letting Holly kill me, and I couldn't stop it!
I managed a harsh gasp, and then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain vanished. I felt an icy wash of black flow through me, in time with my fading pulse. Holly cooed, and I felt her being lifted from me. Her lack of weight unbalanced me, and I slowly collapsed to the pavement. But still, the wash of black flowed through me, and it was as if I could feel the frightening nothing within me, growing larger. I couldn't stop it. Couldn't even think how.
Mia helped me down, and grateful for small favors, I stared at her exquisite boots. God, they must have cost more than my last three months of rent combined. I could feel the night air raw on my unprotected soul. And finally Holly stripped the last from me, the flood of black slowing to a trickle and stopping to leave only a fading, empty warmth.
I tried to breathe, but it wasn't enough. The snow hurt where it hit my skin, and I whimpered.
"I will not let them take Holly," Mia said as she stood over me. "You're filthy animals, and you'd kill her, even if only by accident. I worked too hard for her. She's mine."
My fingers twitched, accidentally rolling a gray pebble between my cold skin and the pavement. Mia stepped away and vanished, her footsteps fading quickly. I heard the slamming of a car door and then the car's idling away. All that was left was the falling snow, each flake making a soft tap as it landed on my eyelashes and cheeks.
I couldn't close my eyes, but it didn't seem to matter as my fingers quit moving and the heavy blackness finally smothered me.
There was a faint scent of orange antiseptic, and the one-sided come and go of a distant, professional conversation. Closer, the sound of a TV murmured, only the low parts audible, as if through thick walls. I dozed in a pleasant muffled state, comfortable and somnolent. I'd been cold and in pain. Now I was warm and feeling pretty damn good, perfectly content to slip further into a dreamless state.
But the distinctive smell of the sheets tucked up to my chin tickled my memory, winding insidiously through my brain looking for a conscious thought. Then it found one.
"Shit!" I barked, adrenaline slamming through me. I bolted upright, eyes wide and an unreasonable fear jerking me from my drugged haze. I was in the hospital.
"Rache?"
Panicked, I turned to the sound of pixy wings, sweat beading up on me. Jenks was inches from my nose. His tiny features were pinched and afraid, scaring me. "Rache, it's okay," he said as an orange haze drifted from him to color my drawn-up knees. "You're okay. Look at me! You're okay!"
