Page 87 of Blood from the Marrow
Dutch stood, placing the bottle on the kitchen counter. “We’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got,” he said in a way that felt like more kindness than Marisol deserved. “I’m going to walk around those pretty rose gardens.” He squeezed Marisol’s shoulder when he passed her then disappeared out the front door.
Marisol was suddenly sitting alone in Clara and Dutch’s living room and had no idea what to do about that. She chugged half the beer before shooting to her feet. Attention darting between the front door and the bedroom door, Marisol debated which way to go.
Despite knowing she should just leave, Marisol drifted toward the bedroom. Eyes closed, she approached the door on the right. Standing there, heart hammering and back sweating, she lifted her hand but couldn’t bring herself to knock.
What was she going to say? Should she apologize? Should she forgive her? Her thoughts were a tangle and her stomach a churning pit of indecision.
And then came the sound of muffled crying. Her chest ached, throat burned. Marisol remembered all the times she’d cried alone in her own bedroom. Wondered how many times her grandmother had stood on the other side of a locked door exactly like this.
Marisol couldn’t conjure a spark of anger. All she had was regret and pity and sadness that had reached down into the very root of her soul and tangled itself around her. She was sad, and angry about being sad, and angry about how unfair her lot in life had been.
Pressing her forehead to the door, Marisol wished she could unravel it all. That she could go back and ask her mother to stay. Tell her to take her and her grandmother along with them. Together in miserable conditions was better than having been left behind. Squeezing her eyes shut so tight a thousand points of silvery light appeared in the dark, Marisol accepted that there could never be a way to undo anything. That all she had was the possibility of a future, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know how to quiet the part of her who was still raging at the injustice of her circumstances. The part who wanted her mom but didn’t know how to accept her.
The emotions clashing in her chest were overwhelming. Marisol staggered away from the door, shame and grief pushing her back. She didn’t look away from her feet as she ran. Ran out of the house. Out of the garden. But unfortunately not out of her skin.
She muttered an apology when she slammed into a vampire coming out of the main house while she barreled in. Marisol didn’t stop until she was back in their room where Elena and Zuri were sitting on the couch.
If Marisol hadn’t been aware that she must have looked unhinged, covered in sweat and tears, the way Zuri and Elena jumped toward her would have given it away.
“Oh, baby,” Zuri whispered when she pulled her into a tight embrace.
Marisol buried her face in the curve of Zuri’s neck. She inhaled her and clung to her when the knot in her chest went slack. When her legs weakened and holding herself up was impossible.
At Marisol’s back, Elena was silent, but the press of her body eased the unbearable pressure threatening to crack Marisol’s sternum in two. Crushed between them, the sheer force of their arms around her held Marisol together when breaking felt inevitable.
When the tears came again, Elena kissed her ear and whispered soothing words in the Spanish she so rarely used. She was safe. She was home. She was loved. Elena repeated it until Marisol started to believe it.
They stood there like that until Elena ushered them into the bedroom. Until they wedged Marisol between them in the bed like they knew all she needed was the press of their bodies close to hers. That she needed them like a ship needed an anchor. A balloon needed a teether. A tree needed roots.
In the dark, the three of them lay together, arms and legs intertwined but not a single one of them asleep. Marisol felt their vigilance against her skin. They were watching her even with their eyes closed. Waiting for a sign that she might burst into tears again—tears she didn’t have the words to explain.
She thought about her grandmother. Wondered what she’d say. She wished she could tell her what Zuri had said about her mother leaving the necklace. That it hadn’t been in some moment of ugliness. The way Zuri had described it was so profoundly sad. So hopeless.
Clara had only been in her early twenties. Just over a decade younger than Marisol was now. Marisol’s chest burned with the impossibility of her choice.
She closed her eyes and tried to channel her grandmother’s endless capacity for forgiveness. The woman had never once spoken Clara’s name with bitterness, despite being left to raise a granddaughter alone. Her grandmother’s voice drifted through her mind, soft and patient the way it had been during Marisol’s worst moments.Mija, what does your heart tell you?she would have asked, hands gentle as she smoothed Marisol’s hair back from her face.
Intellectually, Marisol understood. She even empathized. But she didn’t know if her heart could forgive thirty-two years of absence. A lifetime of feeling like she hadn’t been worth staying for.
Her irritated eyes burned again. But this time, when she relaxed her tired body, she decided that she wanted to try to forgive. To move forward. If nothing else, because it’s what her grandmother would have given anything to have. A second chance.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A blindingcrack of lightning split the air above the pool, followed immediately by a gust of wind so intense it sent the patio umbrellas spinning like fucking pinwheels. Zuri stepped back instinctively even though she was far from the training session that looked like a supernatural demolition derby.
Watching the synchronized chaos, Zuri was impressed by the way some people had come together so quickly. Judith and Sofia had somehow teamed up in a real Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito odd-couple scenario. Slight Sofia gave Judith a signal. Instead of telling the vampire to fuck right the hell off, Judith crouched down like a lineman about to barrel into her opponent.
And then Zuri’s tattoo burned with her sister’s use of magic. Avani, standing at the far edge of the pool deck, was moving her arms like she was practicing Tai Chi. In a hypnotizing, fluid motion, she stirred up the wind. Putting her arms together, Avani seemed to gather the air and infuse it with her power so she could bend it to her will.
Sofia took off in a blinding run. With Avani’s wind at her back, even her blur was nearly impossible to see. Zuri might have lost track of her if Judith hadn’t exploded up from hercrouch. Avani’s power picked Judith up, massive black wings spread, and held her aloft several feet off the ground.
Holding her breath, Zuri watched Sofia appear on Judith’s shoulders. She leapt from Judith to reach impossible heights while Judith extended her protective energy outward like a forcefield Zuri couldn’t see but could feel in her chest.
For a split second, they moved like they’d been working as a single unit for years instead of days. Sofia’s vampire grace and Judith’s raw power melded together to create something beautiful. Like a deadly Cirque du Soleil act. Suspended in mid-air, Judith’s eyes tracked Sofia’s movement while she contorted herself like a hawk aiming to pounce.
Then everything went to shit.
Across the yard, one of the storm-winged Aglion, whose control was for shit, shot off a lightning strike. The “shit, watch out,” came too late. As if it were happening in slow motion, Zuri tracked the wild bolt flashing in the dark and unfurling toward Sofia, who couldn’t spin out of Avani’s airstream fast enough.
