“Darling,” Sinclair said, kneeling beside me, “you are my soul and my life, but this is not even remotely about you.”
“How can yousay that?” I cried. “My best friend isdying —”
“I'm not dying,” Jessica said sharply. Far above me, perched upon her bar stool, she looked more than ever like an impatient Egyptian goddess. “I knew it, Iknew it. This is how you get. This is why I didn't say anything.”
“How could you keep this from me?” I screeched upward. “I toldyou whenI died.”
“I'm not dying,” she said again, louder. “I've been to seven different specialists and they're all pretty optimistic.”
“Seven? Specialists?” I rolled back and forth on the tile and groaned. “They all knew before I did? I'm like,eighth on your to-know list?” Tenth, I realized, when you counted Eric and Tina. “This is horrible! What kind of friend can I be? I've been sitting around chatting with Spanish murderers and you've been hauling your buns to cancer doctors?”
“I wouldn't put it quite like that,” she admitted.
“How long have you been sick?”
“I got the diagnosis a month ago.” To Sinclair: “Here we go.”
“A month ago? Month? As in four weeks, as in thirty days?”
“Thirty-one,” Tina pointed out helpfully.
I ignored her. “You didn't think you couldmention it? You had other things on your mind? Why thehell didn't you say anything?” I felt faint, but I was already lying down. That was something. “How could you do this to me?”
“I'm sorry.” Jessica sniffed. “I guess I was being selfish.”
“You're goddamned fucking right you were!”
“Elizabeth.”
I turned on them like a rabid hyena. “You guysknew ? Youknew and you didn'tsay anything?”
Jessica looked thoughtful. “You two haven't been spying on me or anything, have you?”
“No, of course not,” Tina said. She was patting my hand, kneeling on my other side. Jessica slid off the stool and stood at my feet. Tina looked up at Jess and added, “We didn't need spies to figure this one out.”
“Also,” Jessica said, “that'd be a crummy thing to do to your friend.”
“Yes, yes. As Eric suggested, your scent has been a little anemic lately. There are multiple reasons why this might be, but each reason has its own particular, well, sub-scent. When Eric and I put our heads together, we matched yours with the woman in that nursing home. She also suffered from myeloma. It's rare to be that close to someone who has had it for so long, but the sub-scent is distinctive.”
“And Betsy's the Queen, and you vampires should always tell your Queen everything. So. One way to look at it is thatyou guys should have told me.”
The corner of Jessica's mouth twisted in a wry smile. “That's right, they're the ones who screwed up, not me. It's all on them.”
“Nice try,” I yelled from the floor. “You are still in a shitload of trouble, birdbrain. I can't believe this is happening to me!”
“I know,” she sighed. “What a terrible week you're having.”
I glared up at her. “When I get off this floor I'm kicking the shit out of you. Then you'llreally need a doctor.”
She grinned down at me. “Happy birthday.”
Chapter 11
The kitchen door swung open before Jessica, Eric, Tina, or I could say another word. “I'm home!” Antonia the werewolf called, Garrett right behind her.
“Not now, Toni.”
“How many fucking times I have to tell you? AnTONE-ee-uh. Just because your lousy stepmother has the same name doesn't mean I have to change mine.”
“Notnow .”
“Oh.” She looked down at me. Garrett did, too. “Jessica finally told you, huh?”
Eleventh!
“Duck and cover,” Tina muttered, but I was in no condition to launch myself at our resident psychic werewolf.
“You saw it in a vision?” Jessica asked.
“Hell, no. You smell totally bland. What, you guys didn't know?” Toni was looking around at all of us. With her short, Aeon Flux-like dark hair and big brown eyes, she should have looked more innocent than she sounded. And I didn't know what was up with the old T-shirt and Daisy Duke shorts (and flip-flops! In April!) but right now, her grotesque fashion screwup was the least of my problem. “Huh. Guess I should have said something before I left.”
“Think so?” I snarked from the floor. “As your punishment, you are now and forever known as Toni.”
“The hell!”
“Jessica's sick,” Garrett said helpfully. “Also, there's a zombie in the attic.”
“Shut up. Help me up. Goddammit, I'm kicking some serious ass in a minute.”
“I'm outta here,” Toni said at once, turning to leave. “Just wanted you to know I'm back from the Cape.”
“Well,thanks for sharing .” God, she was the most fucking annoying person in the fucking history of fucking people! Ever! Though, to be fair, I may have been feeling overly sensitive at that moment.
“Come on up to the bedroom and welcome me back,” Toni was saying to Garrett as they left the kitchen.Ugh . I prayed I wouldn't be able to hear them doing it.
“What are your immediate plans?” Sinclair asked Jessica as he grabbed my elbow and lifted me effortlessly to my feet. Apparently, I was done wallowing.
“Chemo, probably. We're still figuring out options.”
“How sick are you?” I asked anxiously.
“Not sick at all, compared to how I'll feel when they shoot radiation into me,” she said with glum humor. “I'm just tired a lot these days. I actually thought I might be… well…”
“Pregnant?” Tina suggested quietly.
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. I'd been tired, and I'd—well, there were other symptoms. And Nick and I—anyway. I was wrong. Definitely not pregnant.”
“Does Nick know?”
She looked away. “Nobody knows except you guys.”
“Oh.” I knew Jess very well, better than anybody (I was pretty sure), and I knew why she hadn't said anything. I didn't like it, but I could figure it out.
“If you thought you were carrying his child, then perhaps you should tell him you're ill.”
“I don't want to. I didn't want to tell you guys, remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” I still had tile marks mashed into my butt, for God's sake.
“It's like—it's not real if nobody alive knows. Right?” She smiled crookedly, dark eyes filling with tears. “It's not happening to me if the only people who know are dead.”
I felt like a total toad, watching her cry. “Come on, don't do that.” I hugged her. Had she lost weight? Was she bonier than usual? I was embarrassed that I didn't know. And why hadn'tI smelled anything different? Sure I was still rather new at this, but couldn't I learn stuff like that? Was I that damned selfish? So wrapped up in my own troubles that I didn't care when my best friend caught cancer?
And hey,could you catch cancer? I didn't know a thing about it. That would change as soon as I could get my ass to a computer. Or my hands on those seven fucking specialists.
“You're living with the king and queen of the vampires, a werewolf, an actor,and a doctor.”
“And a Libra,” Tina piped up, a rare joke.
“Right. We'll help you. We'll fix it.”
“You're an idiot,” Jessica sobbed in my arms.
“That's the spirit!”
“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” she finally offered.Finally . “It's just all this stuff with Sophie and Liam and Alonzo. And your birthday and your wedding. I didn't want to be the downer, you know?”
I knew. And that's when I got my idea. My really, ridiculously, atrociously bad idea.