Chapter 26
Fang slams the door and marches up the stairs. When Lissa climbed the tree to where he was perched, it didn't even take a second of explanation from her to send him at a full sprint towards home. He ignores Nudge banging on the basement door and Gazzy sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands and goes into the last room at the end of the hall, freezing in his tracks when he sees Max. She's facing away from him, but her head is still up though she's leaning forward in her chair, hand extended like it wants to hold Angels, but she doesn't want to break her.
"Max." He whispers, and her shoulders tense, but she doesn't turn around. He runs a hand through his hair, pulling out a few dried pine needles in a hope he was making himself more presentable.
"Where have you been?" She asks, and he rubs the back of his neck. He doesn't want to answer. He knows that he should have been by Max's side, taking care of her and Angel, but he was too busy with his head in the clouds to see that what he was doing was fighting against water.
"I thought I was keeping you safe." He says, and she stands with a fluid motion and turns, her ponytail swinging behind her, a dirty banner. The look on her face could kill, but the swollen purple and red bruise on her cheekbone sends his stomach down to his toes. She pushed the chair to her side in a calm, collected manner that is somehow much more threatening than if she was screaming and throwing things at him.
"You did a great job." Max quips bitterly, motioning towards her sister, who's lying on her side, motionless under a rough grey blanket, a thick white bandage taped to the back of her shaved head. Fang sighs, but can't tear his eyes away from Angel.
"She needs to go to a hospital." He manages, avoiding looking in Max's direction. She chokes on words, too angry to make a sentence for a few seconds. As soon as the words escape him, he takes them back. They both know that if Angel goes to a hospital, it just makes it all so much easier for Jude to find and eliminate her.
"No, she can't. When she dies, it will be with me." Max says, chilly and calculating, and Fang can only look past her at Angel, painfully motionless.
"I could try to help her." He whispers, and Max's cold glare melts off her face. She knows what he means, he could inject her with venom, and her wounds wound sew themselves back together, but what if she doesn't heal fast enough and she dies? What if she becomes a vampire, how could Max except Angel as that?
"No. Not yet." Max whispers back, going back to her chair, but her steps are stiff, and her eyes are back on Angel, the deep rise and fall of her chest and the glint from the lamp off her shorn hair. Max didn't want her sister to be a vampire, but if the time came when her life would be cut short, she might accept it. She bends forward in the chair, her eyes beginning to well with tears, and she wipes at them, determined not to let Fang see her cry.
"Okay, that's okay." Fang says, and he steps forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and leaning his head against her jaw. She lets the dam open and her tears flow freely, but she doesn't make a sounds, she just nuzzles her temple against his head, squeezing her eyes shut and pursing her lips as silent sobs wrack her body. Fang rubs her shoulder with his palm, and she chokes.
"What am I supposed to do with her?" Max asks with a hoarse voice, and Fang hugs her tighter.
"I can't let her die, I can't let her go to the hospital, and I can't let her turn." Max sobs, and she leans forward in Fangs arms, but he holds her up. Fang doesn't know what to say, theres a peach pit in his stomach and it's vibrating and making his stomach sink. His legs are weak and he feels nauseous, he genuinely doesn't know what to do for Angel.
"You can wait. Whatever decision you make will be the path taken." Fang tells her softly, and Max lets out a new wave of gutted sobs. If he had the heart, Fang would have cried with her, but it was his fault Angel was lying here. He was the one who couldn't forget Max, he led her into this mess. Max cries for hours in that chair, until she falls asleep, and Fang releases her. Outside the window is dark, and he can smell the cold outside the window.
He leaves the room, and goes downstairs, to where Ella is sitting on a couch with her shaking knees pulled up to her chest. She doesn't turn her eyes to him when he walks in, so he just leaves. The house is strange and empty, except for the sounds of the three heartbeats and Nudges loud thoughts from the basement.
Fang is tearing the boards from the barred door, and when they're gone, he yanks open the piecey door. Nudge isn't at the top of the stairs where she usually is, and he calls down the stairs and she appears in the dark at the bottom of the flight of the stairs.
"Come up here." He commands, and her feet take involuntary steps up the stairs to where he is. She can't look at him, and he tries to make his posture more friendly and less threatening.
"Angel was attacked." He tells her evenly, and she let's out a bitter laugh and her shoulders tense.
"I told you that would happen, didn't I?" She spits, and he frowns. He doesn't have time for her egotistical questioning.
"She was attacked at school, not here. She's comatose." He tells her, and she doesn't have a response to that, just the slight tensing of her thin shoulders. She's Angels friend, and she's trying as hard as she can to hold up a strong wall in front of Fang.
"So you were wrong. No matter where those three go, they'll be watched and attacked." Nudge whips her head up, orange and yellow eyes flashing in the dim light. She wanted Max and Angel to stay away from them because they might draw Judes coven to them. In her mind, it would have been better for her to kill them than for Jude to turn them, but Fang forced her down into the basement before she could do anything. And now, Angel was lying with a cracked head when Nudge could have protected Angel at school. She could have helped but all she did was listen to herself.
"So we have a choice. Do we send them out to sacrifice them, or do we let them join us?" Fang asks, and Nudges lip quivers before she sinks her teeth in it, forcing it to be still. She doesn't like either choice, but she knows which one is right. To send them out right now would be sending them straight to Jude. She hands her head, and Fang knows what answer she's come to just by her silence.
"I thought that. But can I trust you not to hurt them?" Fang asks, and she peers up at him. He's looking over his right shoulder, and she looks back down at her bare toes.
"You can trust me." She mutters, and he smiles and steps forward to squeeze her shoulder.
"Good." He says, but she's still wary of him as he steps away from the door and disappears from her sight out of the kitchen. She knows that his trust only goes so far, and if she breaks her promise, he won't hesitate to kill her. At least it'll be swift, she thinks with a sick feeling in her stomach.
Nudge wanders out into the kitchen, taking in the new smells of the house and the dim light filtering in from outside, where the sun has set an hour ago and the wind is shaking all the leaves. For the first time in weeks, her eyes shift back to brown and the room darkens and the shapes are softened. She sighs and pads over to the icebox in the corner, taking out a blood bag and tearing the top off with her teeth and sinking to sit cross legged on the floor. For a second, she wonders where the rest of the coven is, but she knows from what Lissa told her that they would be on patrol while Fang is in the house. She drains the rest of the bag, and tosses it away.
In the living room, A girl she doesn't know is sitting on the couch with her chin on her knees, breathing slow with her eyes closed. Nudge takes half a step forward, but recoils when she spots Fang in the corner of the room, watching her with his arms crossed. He's just watching her, but she can almost see the corner around him darken the longer she watches him. he motions with his head to the front door, and she reroutes her path to around with girl and to the door.
"Go wash up." He says with a snipped tone, and she picks up the pace and leaves as fast as she can, and outside the feeling of the grass under her feet and the cold wind whipping past her is heavenly after being in the basement for so long. Back at the house, there's a knock at the front door, and Fang shoves Ella up the stairs before can pick herself up off the couch. He waits for her to disappear from his sight at the bottom of the stairs, before opening the door.
"Fang. Thank god you're home." Fang moves to let Claire in, and she drops her olive green windbreaker on the floor. She brushes some of her hair back behind her ears, and she follows him into the living room and takes a seat at the couch while Fang sorts through the dusty liquor cabinet.
"What's going on?" He asks, and pours two cups of vintage whiskey. Claire accepts hers and Fang sits across the glass coffee table from her. She sighs and swirls the amber liquid in the glass.
"Dylan wants to send me out while the whole Jude thing blows over." She says, and Fang frowns, leaning forward in the chair as she downs her glass.
"Why?" He asks, rising to refill her glass.
"After what Nathan told us happened to Angel, Dylan has been trying to ship me out. Korea, Paris, Japan, London, anywhere I want." Fang brings her glass back, and she accepts it with a sad smile and a nod.
"What's wrong with that?" Fang asks again. He doesn't know how to play therapist, or how to comfort Claire if that's what she's looking for. But he doesn't want to tell her to just let Dylan send her somewhere safe.
"I want to help keep everyone safe. I'm old, strong, I could help! Let me stay with your coven, I could watch Max, help take care of Angel, I just don't want to leave." Claire asks, eyes wide and asking. She doesn't know if she's asking for much, or too much. Fang doesn't say anything, just watches her with narrow eyes and takes a sip from his glass. When he puts it down, she scoots to the edge of her seat, waiting for an answer.
"Sure. But if I get in trouble with Dylan for harboring you..." he threatens softly, but she just stands and leaps across the table to hug him.
"Thank you! I won't make any trouble and I can run patrols!" She squeals, and Fang wriggles out from her grasp. The moment he said yes, he got the feeling in his gut that he was going to get in trouble with his brother no matter what way he put the situation.
"But Claire, why would he want you to leave?" He asks Claire as she's marching towards the front door again. She freezes, looks over her shoulder at him and shrugs.
"He wouldn't tell me." She replies, and Fang nods, letting her leave out the front door. Dylan was always like this; he wouldn't tell you why he was doing it, he just thought he knew what was the best. Fang runs a hand through his tangly hair and marches back up the stairs to Max and Angels room. The open door casts a rectangle of light over Max, and he feels the fist around his heart loosen. With her eyes closed and blanket pulled up to her chin, she looks tired and sad. He closes the door, and climbs into the bed next to her in the dark. She shifts and snuffles, opening her arms to Fang and pressing her face into his chest when he sinks down next to her.
"You been crying?" He whispers, and she nods and hides her face from him. He smooths her hair and kisses the top of her head.
"Sleep."