No… No what? They couldn’t deny that they’d met. Butwhythey’d met…Oh.
The way Lydia-Violet had spoken about her father clicked into place. Of course this man—this lovely, protective, terrified man—would not take well to learning that his daughter had been pursuing the same transformation that killed her mother. Oh god. Lydia-Violet’s mother had been killed by a vampire. And here she was…
Rahil was missing something, he was sure, he just didn’t know what, and as much as he hated lying to Mercer, the pleading in Lydia-Violet’s gaze slayed Rahil’s objections. He couldn’t break her heart like this, especially when he didn’t know everything yet. But Mercer was still watching him, with an increasing ferocity in his gaze that made Rahil worry that if he left the question unanswered much longer, Merc would come to an even worse conclusion about Rahil’s dealings with his daughter than the already harsh reality of the situation.
“We, um...” He tried to smile and then thought better of it. “I needed someone to help with yardwork, and shopping, and you know—things I can’t do in the sun. She’s been riding her bike down the street in front of my place since the summer started, and my sons used to make a bit of money mowing lawns and stuff when they were her age, so I thought she might…” If he kept going much longer, it was going to sound like a full-fledged lie, so he ended with a shrug, and a pathetic look.
Lydia-Violet jumped in for him. “You wouldn’t let me babysit, so I found something else.”
“Lydia,” Mercer started, the war of emotions in his voice making it tremble. He drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and continued, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Definitely-Lydia shrugged. “You knew I was out on my bike some.”
“Not multiple miles away!” Mercer sounded like his throat was closing. Rahil fought the instinct to reach across the divide Merc had placed between them and squeeze his hand. “What if—”
“If something bad happened?” Lydia finished with an eye roll. “Ray was there. He could help.”
Rahil doubted the extent to which that was true, but he nodded anyway. “I would never have let anything happen to her,” he lied, wishing with every cell of his body that it could have been the truth, for her, for his sons, for his ex-wife who’d refused to let him turn her at the end, and for the woman hehadturned only to be met with horror and death.
Mercer’s scowl deepened.
Before he could speak, Lydia snapped, “You have tochill, Dad.” And with that, she stormed out of the shed.
Her father’s anger grew into a desperate kind of fury. He stormed after her, calling her name. With the sun high overhead, Rahil tried to keep within the building’s shade as he watched them cross the yard, unsure whether to stay or leave. Lydia refused to stop, throwing open the Bloncourts’ back door so hard it banged. Merc just stood there, halfway across the yard.
His shoulders slumped.
Rahil lifted his hand, like he could reach out, stretch through the sun and wrap an arm around Mercer and tell him that not everything would always be okay, butthatin itself was okay, too. That for him, things would get better. He was good; he was doing well. He had not ruined anything.
The desire scared Rahil enough to force him back, up against the shed wall, pressed into the shadows like the night creature he was. Emotional comforting and soft embraces was not where his relationship with Merc had ever been going. Merc would have to find that elsewhere, if he chose to accept it at all.
But when from inside the house, Lydia screamed, Rahil still ran in Mercer’s footsteps without a moment of hesitation.
14
MERCER
Mercer loved his daughter; more than his work, more than himself, more than life. It was why he’d spent so many years building this home for her, in a safe neighborhood with a job where he could drop things and run to her at a moment’s notice and a private scientist who kept her meds updated and coming. It was why hearing her risk all that for a silly part-time summer job made him so angry. So scared.
He didn’t even want to contemplate Rahil’s involvement in this yet.
It was also why all that frustration and hurt vanished at the sound of her scream.
A thousand terrible scenarios tried to flash through his mind, but they were too many, too fast, and all he felt was the pain and fear of them choking him as he ran. He tore through the back door, barely feeling the pound of his feet as he tripped and skidded, coming to a stop in the kitchen. Lydia sat on the floor, trembling.
In her arms, Kat seized.
The beagle’s eyes had rolled back, a pale line of foam around her lips. Her mouth hung open, and the residue of something white seemed to cling to the back of her tongue.
“Daddy?” Lydia pleaded.
“Oh, God.” Mercer didn’t know if it was a curse or a prayer. Both, he figured. It was all he seemed capable of.
Rahil almost knocked into him from behind, one arm wrapping around his back and the other grabbing him by the arm. He seemed to take in the scene much faster, immediately snapping, “She might be poisoned; could you use your spark to stop it?”
“I…” Mercer swallowed. This was a living creature—a hyper-complex organism, with far more elaborate arrangements of atoms than anything he worked with in his shed. But maybe… if he could just stall things long enough to get better help…
Mercer dropped to his knees beside Lydia, carefully taking Kat into his arms as he whispered encouragement—“I’ve got you, you’re going to be okay, you’re safe now, you’re safe,”—afraid it was all a lie; it had all always been a lie. And as gently as he could, he pushed his spark into Kat.
