Ina nodded, looking duly shamed. “I didn’t know what Cora was, only that I was intoxicated by her energy. Now, I can see the darkest secret inside of you, inside everyone. Every time I look into someone’s eyes, I fall into a hole, seeing the one thing they want most to hide at that moment. It’s how I knew you had run away. It’s how I knew tonight what Clancy was hiding out here in the forest. I knew it the moment I looked into my brother’s eyes.”
Finn’s hands slipped from the door. He seemed to stumble to the ground because he disappeared from our sight. Ina shrieked and dropped down, too.
I started to jump to my feet, but Giovanni squeezed me tighter, holding me against his side. “Don’t let them separate us,” he whispered in my ear. “We are stronger if we are together.” His blue eyes were scared and a bit wild. Trapped-animal wild. My mind flashed back to our kiss. I flushed and wondered if he remembered.
I looked from him to Gráinne, who was wringing the hem of her skirt and pacing. We were caged together. We should be free together. I squeezed his hand. “I promise I won’t leave either of you here.”
I ran to the door and peered through the opening. Finn lay crumpled on the floor, his arms clutched around himself, his knees up to his chin. His teeth rattled like he was freezing cold. His aura reminded me of little Max. Close to his body. Smudgy. Gray. “What’s wrong with him?”
Ina crouched over Finn and smoothed his face tenderly, motherly. She looked over her shoulder at me, her face awash with tears and grief. “He refuses to nourish. Our need is much greater at first, until we learn to conserve energy—and he didn’t take you to the death. The fact that you’re a Scintilla is the only reason he’s lasted these past couple of days. He’ll die if he doesn’t nourish soon.”
“Christo!” Giovanni cursed. “You say nourishment like he’s a baby at the breast! Who cares if he dies? It’ll save hundreds of lives if he does!”
I swallowed hard. I care. I care if he dies. I turned to Giovanni. “If we didn’t care, we’d be just like them.” I pressed against the door. “Can he take from someone without killing them? Just to get his strength back? Can he take from you?” I asked Ina. “You’re his mother.”
“No. An Arrazi cannot take from another Arrazi. But you can save him.” Her eyes pleaded.
“I’d rather die,” Finn groaned. He pushed himself to a sitting position. “Open the door, Mother. Get them out of here. Now!”
Ina jumped when he rattled off a string of numbers. She went hurriedly to the wall and typed the numbers on the security keypad. My hands curled tighter with every beep, but a commotion at the end of the hallway caught her attention before she finished. Her fingers poised over the pad.
“Open it! Hurry!” Finn growled and fell back again, writhing in apparent pain.
Footsteps echoed down the hall as Ina punched in the rest of the code. I couldn’t yet see who approached. Finn’s eyes were glued to the hallway. I watched his face for reaction. He met my gaze. I bounced on my feet, panicked.
The door sprang open. Two men rushed through. Finn’s father…and…
And mine.
I jumped into my father’s arms. He held me tightly and planted kisses in my hair. Our bodies shook together with sobs. My daddy was here. He’d get me out safely. Take me home. I clung tightly to him, but someone dragged at my back, tugging me away from my rock.
“Don’t touch her!” Gráinne shrieked, nearly choking me by yanking on my shirt. “Let her go!” She pulled with more strength than I thought her capable of, and out of control, like someone drowning.
Reluctantly, I let go of my father. Poor thing. I turned to explain who he was but stopped short. Gráinne’s face was drained of all color, and she hadn’t had much color to begin with. She wasn’t looking at me but over my shoulder, at my father. Her birdlike hand covered her heart. A dried-leaf of a whisper escaped her lips. “B-Benito?”
Forty-Eight
My father clutched my hand as he moved toward Gráinne. But when he reached her, his grasp slipped softly from mine. Her delicate face nestled in his hands like a heart made of snow. “Grace?”
I blinked tears. Everything fell away, leaving nothing but my parents standing in front of me, staring in awe. I was blinded by the intense light of them, the heartbreaking beauty of two lost souls finding each other again. It was like watching a supernova reassemble itself.
I wept where I stood.
Then my father reached for my hand again, reminding me that the last piece was me.
I fell into their embrace. We huddled and gripped each other tightly. Gráinne looked at me as if for the first time. Now she knew.
“We need to go,” someone whispered urgently. “Quickly.” We broke apart, but more whole than ever, and started for the door.
Fergus helped Giovanni up from the bed and threw his arm under his shoulders to support him. I hadn’t realized Giovanni was too weak still to walk on his own. Clearly he didn’t like being aided by someone he considered an enemy because he was trying in vain to pull away.
“You want to be stubborn or you want to be free?” I snapped.
The five of us spilled into the hallway where Finn still crouched on the floor against the wall. His mother had propped him up against the dark slate. His head rested on his arms over his knees. I stopped and stared, unsure what to do.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
Finn didn’t look up. “My father will get you to a safe place,” he answered with effort.
“Are you really willing to die?” I asked in a whisper.
“Go. Hurry!” he croaked.
Ina ran her hand over her forehead. “We’re both doctors, and we can’t save our own son.” Her eyes implored, her voice barely audible, “Please, Cora.”
Finn spoke through gritted teeth. “I. Will. Not.”
I jogged away from him toward the rest of the anxious group waiting for me at the end of the hall. My dad stretched his hand out toward me.
I stopped.
Turned.
And ran back to Finn.
I kneeled on the floor next to his shaking body. “Do it,” I said, inwardly cringing. “Take only enough to be okay,” I added, uncertain whether he could control what he took from me.
“Cora!” my father yelled.
“No.” Finn tried to push me away, ineffectually. “I won’t hurt you again, Cora. I promise I won’t. I’d rather die.” His body may have been weak, but his eyes were alight with fire. He meant what he said. And he’d die keeping that promise.
One of my tears landed on his cheek. The rain is lovely on you, I remembered him saying.
I placed my hands on both sides of his face and lifted his chin. He wrapped his around my forearms and tried to pull them away. “I was wrong to think I’d never hurt you. I know I need to let you go. Because I love you, I need to let you go.” He dragged a ragged breath into his body. “I don’t want this,” he said. “I don’t want to be this.”
“It’s who you are,” I whispered. “And this is who I am.”
Again, he knocked my hands away from him. I nodded, resigned. “Fine. But look at me,” I said, livid because he made my heart ache fresh and raw. I wanted to stop being punched, over and over again, with the impossibility of us. For the rest of my life, would I always feel like the other half of me had been ripped away? I could barely speak through my tears. “When I kiss you good-bye for the last time, I want you to look at me.”
We stared into each other, like all of those times before, dropping into a warm pool of wonder in each other’s eyes. I bent and put my lips to his. I let my mind reel through our history from that first moment in the hospital, to the night he carried me out of the coffee shop, our kiss in the redwoods, being so happy to see him again in Ireland that I thought I might never go home, to the seconds before he changed, when I was willing to give him all of myself because I loved him with all my heart.