Page 74 of Mortal Shift
“This is it,” Fletcher said as we reached the door at the farthest end of the hall. I looked for a keyhole or card reader on the door, but there was nothing, and I turned my confusion to Fletcher.
“How does it unlock?”
He laughed. “This isn’t a prison.”
As if to underscore his point, he tapped twice on the door and then swung it open. And then every other thought left my mind. There she was, after all these months, right in front of me, sitting up on the bed in a nightgown with a book open in front of her. She broke into a wide smile at the sight of Fletcher, and then her gaze slid to one side of him, and found me.
Her mouth fell open, and the rest of her froze, her hand hovering over the top of the open book.
“Cali?” She slammed the book shut and climbed from the bed. “You’ve come!”
I made to rush in and hug her, but an annoying pressure wrapped around my wrist and held me back. I rounded on Cole.
“You gave your word,” he said simply, and I felt like telling him to shove his games so far up his ass they’d be spewing out of his mouth for a month to come. But I could feel Fletcher’s anxiety vibrating out of him beside me, so I rolled my eyes and buried the urge to give Cole a reverse enema with his own stupidity, because maybe—and only maybe—he wasn’t quite so stupid, after all.
I gave my mom a lopsided smile, then remembered the notepad in my hands. I flipped it open and scrawled on it in large letters, holding it up for her to see.
Hi, Mom.
She frowned. “Why are you writing?”
I flipped the page and scribbled again, for longer this time.
It’s complicated. But it doesn’t matter. Are you okay?
She looked confused, but not confused in the way she got after an episode, like she didn’t know who she was or why the sky was blue. She looked like she was confused about why I was acting so weirdly, and it made my heart swell.
Sherecognizedthat I was acting weirdly. How long had it been since she’d last been with it enough to question the way I was acting? I bit my lip.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Nurse Fletcher and Doctor Malik are taking excellent care of me. But that isn’t important. How are you?” She moved closer and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And who’s this handsome young man who can’t take his eyes from you?”
I twisted round and found that Cole was indeed watching me, and in that split second I caught his unguarded expression, and it was almost…tender. Must’ve been the light. I shook it off and turned back to my mom.
I chewed the top of the pen, and wrote,
An idiot. Ignore him. Are you
I paused a second, then scribbled out the last two words.
How are you feeling?
She squinted at the words, her brow furrowing at my alteration, maybe wondering about what I’d been going to write—or maybe already knowing.
“My episodes have been happening less,” she said, and then sent a grateful smile to her jailor. “And they’re not as severe as, well, as that last night. Cali, I’m sososorry for what I put you through.”
A sob clawed its way up my throat and I forced it back down again. My feet started to take a step forward before I caught them just short of the room’s boundary. My mom seemed to know what I was thinking though, or maybe she was just craving it as much I had been. She stepped out of the room and wrapped me in her arms. My gaze flicked to Fletcher, but he made no effort to stop her, and I clung to her, holding her close and letting our embrace say everything I couldn’t put into words—even if I hadn’t been bound by our promise and the alpha’s command.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but eventually Cole grew restless.
“We should go,” he said, casting a glance down the empty hallway. I nodded, but it still took me a moment longer to bring myself to let go of my mom.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, her voice catching. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m getting better. You’ve looked after me for long enough; now it’s time to look after yourself.”
I lifted the notepad and flicked to a clean page and wrote in big, bold letters.
I love you.
I gave her the sheet and she clutched it to her chest as we stepped back, her eyes bright with unshed moisture, and I could feel heat rushing to my own. I wanted, more than anything, just to stay right here with her, to protect her, to watch her get better and better and become the woman I remembered from my early childhood.
