“You wouldn’t do that,” Jaxon finally tells me. “I know you, Grace. You would never have come back if you thought Hudson was still a threat.”
“I agree,” my uncle eventually says. As he continues, I try to hold on to his words and not the silence that preceded them. “So let’s operate under that assumption for now. That you only came back because it was safe to do so. That means Hudson is most likely gone, and we don’t have to be worried.”
And yet he still looks worried. Of course he does. Because no matter how much we all want to believe that Hudson is gone, there’s one major flaw with their logic—mainly that they’re both talking about me being here like I decided to come back.
But what if I didn’t? If I didn’t make a conscious choice to become a gargoyle all those months ago, maybe I didn’t make a conscious choice to become human again now. And if that’s the case, where exactly is Hudson?
Dead?
Frozen in stone in some alternate reality?
Or hiding out somewhere here at Katmere, just waiting for his chance to exact revenge on Jaxon?
I don’t like the sound of any of the alternatives, but the last one is definitely the worst. In the end, I put it aside because freaking out won’t do me any good.
But we have to start somewhere, so I decide to go along with Uncle Finn’s assumption—mostly because I like it better than all the alternatives put together. “Okay. Let’s assume that, if I had control of Hudson, I wouldn’t have just let him go. Now what?”
“Now we chill out a little bit. We stop worrying about Hudson and start worrying about you.” My uncle smiles encouragingly. “Marise should be here any minute and if, after she checks you out, she decides you’re healthy, then I think we should let things ride for a while. See what you remember in a few days, after you’ve eaten and had some rest and gotten back to a normal routine.”
“Let things ride?” Jaxon asks, his voice dripping with the same incredulity I’m feeling inside.
“Yes.” For the first time, there’s a hint of steel in my uncle’s voice. “What Grace needs right now is for things to go back to normal.”
I think he’s forgetting that having a psychopathic vampire on my ass has pretty much been the norm for me since I got to this school. The fact that we have apparently switched Lia out for Hudson just feels like par for the course at this point. Which is depressing, to say the least, but also true.
I swear, if I were reading this story, I’d say the plot twists were getting ridiculous. But I’m not reading it. I’m living it, and that is so much worse.
“What Grace needs,” Jaxon corrects, “is to feel safe. Which she won’t be able to do until we make sure Hudson isn’t a threat.”
“No, what Grace needs,” my uncle continues, “is routine. There’s safety in knowing what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen. She’ll be better off—”
“Grace will be better off,” I interrupt as annoyance bubbles to the surface, “if her uncle and her boyfriend start talking to her instead of about her. Since I have a semi-functioning brain and, you know, agency in my own life.”
To their credit, they both look shamefaced at the verbal slap down. As they should. I may not be a vampire or a warlock, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to lie down and let “the menfolk” make decisions about my life for me. Especially not when both of them seem to be of the “wrap Grace in cotton and protect her” opinion. Which also really isn’t going to fly with me.
“You’re right,” my uncle agrees in a much more subdued tone. “What do you want to do, Grace?”
I think for a minute. “I want things to be normal—or at least as normal as they can get for a girl who lives with a witch and is dating a vampire. But I also want to figure out what happened with Hudson. I feel like we’ve got to find him if we have any chance at all of keeping everyone safe.”
“I’m not worried about keeping everyone safe,” Jaxon growls. “I’m just worried about keeping you safe.”
It’s a good line and, not going to lie, it melts me a little on the inside. But on the outside, I stay tough, because someone has to figure out this mess, and since I’m the only one with a front-row seat—even if I don’t remember what I saw from that seat—that someone is going to have to be me.
I clench my fists in frustration, ignoring the pain that shoots through my already abused fingertips as I do. This is important, really important. I have to remember what happened to Hudson.