Page 5 of Surviving in Everton

“Tell me about it. I don’t know what’s worse, the not knowing, or the knowing. I guess we’ll find out soon though, they just pulled up,” Declan tells us. Someone must be thinking pretty damn loud for him to hear them. I know he didn’t hear the car pull up, because I’ve been listening very intently and I didn’t hear a thing.

The front door opens, and Hudson walks in carrying Rowen in his arms. I start freaking out thinking something’s wrong with her, but once I get a good look at her I see she’s just asleep. Apparently, I stopped breathing when I saw Hud carrying Rowe, because at the sight of her sleeping in his arms, my breath rushes out of me in a relieved sigh. He walks over and sits down with her still in his arms. He gets settled in on the couch and arranges her so she’s more comfortable. We’re all just standing around watching him, waiting for him to drop a bomb on us.

“Rowe is beyond stressed out right now. She was getting tired on the way home so I told her to go to sleep and offered to tell y’all what the doctor said for her. She readily agreed and promptly passed out,” he informs us.

“Okay… So? What’d he say? What’s wrong with her?” I demand.

Hudson gives me a strong look of disapproval. “Keep your voice down, she needs her rest.”

I rub my hands over my face then pull on my hair. “Okay, okay. If I calm down and promise not to raise my voice again, will you tell us what the fuck is going on?” I grind the last bit out, but I keep my volume down. Hudson doesn’t look impressed.

“Alright, I’ll tell you, but y’all should probably sit down,” he suggests.

Fuck, it’s never good when people say you should sit down before giving you news. Of course, we already knew it wasn’t going to be good, but still. We all follow his advice and find seats close enough we can talk quietly.

“Right. As you know, earlier Rowe had some blood work and an MRI done. Well, Dr. Johnston wanted to do a magic exam too, so that’s partly what took so long,” he tells us, and I’m getting just a little impatient for him to get to the damn point already.

“Okay? What did the exam tell him? WHAT DID HE SAY, HUDSON?” I demand in exasperation.

He looks down at Rowe’s peaceful face then looks back up at me. He glances at everyone else, then finally tells us the news we’ve been dreading. “She has a brain tumor.”

We all sit there in silence. Too shocked to speak. Finally, Declan composes himself enough to ask Hudson, “What do you mean a brain tumor? What kind of tumor?”

Hudson sighs. “The doc says it’s a magic-induced tumor. He said it’s essentially a ball of magic sitting on her brain.”

“From the potion?” I interrupt.

“Yeah. I guess whoever made it didn’t know what they were doing. He said he remembers reading about a similar case where the person was repeatedly given a potion, but it seems the potion only needed to be given once. I guess once the magic gets into the body, it sticks around. All they would have had to do was reactivate the spell more or less. So every time Rowe was given the potion it was putting more and more magic into her, without a way to get out. So the magic all came together to congregate in her brain. I guess it’s on the part of her brain that controls memory, so that’s part of the reason for her memory problems. Of course, that’s added to the fact that the potion is STILL working,” he growls softly.

Wait, what? “What do you mean it’s still working?” I growl back, just barely remembering to keep my volume down for Rowe.

“I don’t know, man,” he sighs. “That’s what the doc said. We’re just waiting for him to do more research now and hopefully, he found something during his exam that can help us. He did say if we can figure outwhomade the potion and exactlywhatpotion they used, we should be able to make a counter spell to fix it.”

We all heave a collective sigh of relief. “Thank fuck. So now we have to figure out who the fuck did this to our girl,” I growl. That asshole is going to regret ever being born when I’m done with them.

“Yes. That is definitely our priority right now, along with taking care of Rowe. Dr. Johnston wants to monitor her, make sure she doesn’t get worse. Plus, obviously, Rowe doesn’t want the kids to know what’s going on,” Hudson sighs and moves his attention back to Rowe with a look that screams of his frustration, desperation, and heartache. Feelings I’m all too familiar with right now.

“So what do we do now? I can’t just sit around waiting for news from the doctor,” I snarl softly. Everyone nods their heads in agreement. Sitting around waiting isn’t our style.

“I don’t know. If you don’t want to wait for the doctor to hopefully tell us he found something that would lead us to the asshole responsible, we could do our own research and see what other magic users went to the same college as Rowe. Maybe that’s where Harris met them?” Hudson suggests.

“How the hell are we gonna figure that out? It was a big college, the magic user could have been from anywhere,” I groan, cracking my knuckles as I pace back and forth.

“Actually… I know a guy that went to school with Rowen,” Ayden offers. “West Mitchell, you remember him? Real shy, nerdy guy? He came in for an oil change the other day. I’ll have to call him, see if he knows any other magic users that went there.”

“That’s a good start. Thanks, Ayden,” Hudson agrees.

We fall into a tense silence. Everyone lost to their own thoughts and fears. After a while, we’re all drawn out of our musings by the alarm Ayden set on the playhouse. Then the kids come rushing into the house asking about dinner. I look at my watch thinking it can’t possibly be that time already, but I guess our conversation and subsequent zoning out, lasted longer than I thought.

Rowe starts to stir on Hudson’s lap from the commotion and wakes up groggily. “Mmmm, what’s going on?” she asks sleepily and my heart thaws, like every time I’m around her.

“It’s about dinner time, sweetheart,” Hudson tells her softly then kisses the top of her head. "Violet was just asking what we’re having. How do you feel about pizza, baby?” he suggests.

She nods into his shoulder. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“How you feeling Rowe?” Ayden asks her gently.

She sits up and looks around. “Oh, sorry I guess I was still half asleep. I didn’t register where I was.”

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