Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4) (25 page)

“You are one giant contradiction, Kyndra.” There was a slight rumble to his words that vibrated through my entire body.

“How?”

“You want your mother to love you, but when I tell you that I loved my son, you tell me it’s not good enough. You want me to save her, but you hate the way she treats you.”

“I want you to prove to me,” my words faded to a whisper, “that you are what you say you are.”

He lowered his face to my neck, his lips grazing my skin. “Do you?”

“Not like that.”

He let go of me, and I fell backwards on to the bed. “You of all people should know we aren’t living in a fantasy world. We don’t always get what we want. You need to adapt.”

“I’ve fucking adapted!” I screamed at him. “My whole fucking life everyone has reminded me I’m not good enough. Until I met you. You believe in me. You’ve let me start to be the person I want to be. I just want to know that you’re real. That you’re not some fucking fantasy.”

He sat down next to me on the bed, and I scrambled away from him. I didn’t want him to touch me. “Kyndra, I love you.” Those were the words I’d wanted to hear my whole life. From my mother, from anyone but Memere. Even though I still upset with Aidan, I melted. “But I’m not God, and I won’t play God, either. My days of killing people for sport are long over. I’m not angry anymore.”

“But Matt—“

“I’m done talking about him.” His eyes faded from red to black. “Don’t expect me to apologize.”

“Then how do you survive? I don’t even know.” The little bit of blood he’d taken from me couldn’t be enough to keep him going. Had he drank from Matt? Still, that would be long out of his system now.

“Energy.” He smiled. “Your energy feeds me. I feel happy when you’re happy. And when you’re upset, I feel that, too. I’ve felt sick the last few days, because you’re so anxious about your mother. Being on the Kyndra diet is a wild and crazy ride.” He laughed, but I wasn’t ready to laugh with him. “I used to go out and wander the city so I could pick up on the vibrations of people. It was one of the reasons I was out on Christmas Eve. I wanted to feel good about a day that I usually get left out of. And it led me to you.”

“All of your explanations fit in a nice neat box, but—“

“Because I’m telling you the truth.” His laughter faded, but a hint of the smile remained in his eyes. “Sometimes, you just have to accept that. You need to have faith.”

“You ask me to believe that everything I know about human nature is a lie.”

“You, of all people, should be the first one to accept that.” He brought one finger under my chin, to tip my face up to his. He kissed me so lightly, like a feather falling from the sky. “Your grandmother was the only person who ever believed in you. And you know all those other people are wrong. Maybe it’s time you stop being the butt of human nature’s joke.”

“I don’t understand what my shit luck has to do with believing you.” I sighed, hating myself for even starting this conversation. This was my night off, I didn’t want to spend it all angsty and emotional. It drained me. Or was it Aidan, draining my energy from me? Thinking about it made my brain hurt.

“I guess I don’t, either.” He looked away from me, disgusted. “I have to get to work.”

I watched him walk out of the room, conversation over, nothing solved as usual. He probably wanted to make sure he recorded every detail of the fight into his book. It just made me angrier. Not that he was doing it, but that I resented him for it. He was the only person in the world that loved me, and I insisted on torturing him because of it. I needed to make this better.

Joining him in the kitchen, I made coffee and toast without saying a word. “I have the night off,” I finally said.

“I think you need it.” He handed me the butter and jelly from the fridge. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Can we go somewhere? I want to start today over. I hate fighting with you over stupid things.”

“They’re not stupid things.” He leaned against the counter as I fixed my toast. “And I hate fighting with you, too. Did you have something in mind?”

I looked at the clock on the stove. It was still early evening. “Let’s go to a movie.”

He smiled. “That’s a great idea. Pick something out and let me know when it starts.”

“Anything you want to see? Because I could pick some chick flick.” I nudged at him playfully.

“That’s fine with me.” He nudged back, tickling me.

“Seriously, no opinion?” Although, I didn’t know what was in theaters, either.

“All I really want to see, Kyndra, is you happy.” He drew me in for a kiss. “Whatever it takes.”

Thirty-Three

Maybe I fed off of energy, too. After a night away from the hospital, and especially my mother, I felt refreshed like I’d spent the entire time at a spa. Date night was just what Aidan and I needed, to get out of the little bubble we’d carved out for ourselves and join the rest of the world. I did pick a chick flick, not to be a smart ass, but because we both decided it was the best movie playing. Afterwards, Aidan brought me to The Red Rooster Diner, just like the first time we met.

I couldn’t take my hands off of Aidan, even the next day, thankful for a new beginning of sorts.

“I’m not getting anything done,” he said when I stopped kissing him.

“I’m going to work in a couple hours.” I grabbed his bottom lip with my teeth and pulled. “Then you can write whatever you want.”

“I will.” He followed me as I leaned back, his tongue stroking against mine. “You’ve given me a lot to write about.”

“So, is this going to be the last of these books?” If he insisted I was Marielle, he found me. Game over. Series over. The end.

He looked thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I really never thought the series would end. Maybe they’ll just take a different turn now.”

“Like what?” I asked. “Are you going to change my name?”

“Do you want me to?”

Now it was my turn to think. “I don’t know. There aren’t a lot of Kyndras.”

He kissed my hand. “There’s only one Kyndra.”

I blushed. “Well, do you think people will know?”

“That you’re sleeping with Allison Duprois? Probably not.”

“Good point,” I laughed. “I like having you to myself. I don’t want to share what we have with the world. They wouldn’t understand.”

I didn’t even understand.

“Screw them.” And that was the end of that conversation until I peeled myself away from him to get ready for work.

I didn’t want to go. But as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and wrapped it around my hand to twist it into a tight bun, I pushed that thought out of my head. My mother wasn’t going to ruin this for me. She’d already put her stranglehold on my childhood, but now that I had earned the title of adult, I’d be damned if I’d just hand that over to her, too.

After the night that I walked in to my mother in cardiac arrest, I would be forever thankful when things seemed like business as usual. Mikhail winked at me when I walked in, and instead of looking away, I smiled brightly and waved at him.

“What did I miss?” Stephanie had beat me to the desk, no surprise since Aidan and I stayed in the drop-off lane until the very last minute. I was still catching my breath from my effort to punch in on time.

“We have a couple of new people. I’ll go over the specifics as we go to their rooms. We lost Edna, unfortunately. She had surgery yesterday and the trauma was just too much for her. That sucked last night. Other than that, everyone is settled in and relatively quiet.”

No mention of my mom. I wanted to ask so badly, but I couldn’t. But that meant she hadn’t mentioned me to anyone, either. My heart sank. She would never keep her mouth shut on my behalf.

The fact she hadn’t said anything stabbed me right in the heart. Yeah, it was contradictory, but that little light that flickered deep inside of me still insisted she’d be so proud she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. Instead, she did everything she could to snuff that flame.

Two more rooms until we made it to hers. Stephanie gave me the specifics on our new guests, but I only heard every other word. It was hard to focus on our regular tasks. I just wanted to get back to my mom.

All was quiet in her room. She was down for the count for the night.

Hi, Joanna,” Stephanie leaned in close to her ear. “Can you hear me? It’s Stephanie and Kyndra. We’re just going to check your stats and clean you up, okay?”

“Is she getting better?” Now I could ask without drawing any weird attention to myself.

“No better, no worse.” Stephanie’s lip curled up in what looked like disappointment.

“But she woke up the other night.”

“She did?” Stephanie looked down at the computer screen in front of her, squinting and scrolling through notes. “I don’t think so.”

“I talked to her.”
Oh my God
,
Kyndra
.
Shut up
.
You’re going to get yourself in trouble
.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Stephanie looked pissed. Shit. “That’s really important.”

“I didn’t know that it was a new thing.” That sounded good. I hoped, anyway. I went back to cleaning my mother’s backside. Who knew shit could be so ironically poetic?

“Next time you notice anything unusual about any of our patients, you’ve got to tell me.” Stephanie’s tone had evened out. “It could be really important for the doctors to know.”

“I’m sorry.” I really, really was. “I guess I just didn’t think.”

“It’s all right. I don’t see any significant changes in her condition. Are you ready to roll her over to your side?”

“Yeah.” I studied my mother’s lifeless face as we rolled her toward me.

“I’m just going to put some lotion on your back and check your abrasions.” Stephanie spoke loudly. We always told the patients what we were doing; if they could hear us, we had no idea.

I held my mom on her side, still watching to see if she had any reaction. She opened her eyes again, and turned her head slightly toward Stephanie’s side of the room.

I gasped. “Did you see that? Her head moved. Her eyes are open.” It took everything I had to hold on to her.

“No, I was busy, but that’s great!” Stephanie responded, and I’m pretty sure she kept talking, but I didn’t hear anything, because I swear I saw Memere, floating behind her.

I didn’t know if I wanted to scream, cry, or rush over to her. She was more like a cloud, and I knew if I tried to touch her, my hand would go right through my vision. But no matter what her form was, I saw her.

“Kyndra, hold on to her!” Stephanie cried. “If she’s conscious, she might be in a lot of pain.”

I tore my eyes away from the vision of Memere, back to my mother. I held on to her shoulder for dear life, close to passing out. Her eyes were fixed on me, in a strange way, not quite lifeless, but close. She smiled as they rolled back in her head.

The machines all went haywire.

“Fuck!” Stephanie exclaimed. “Sorry. Kyndra, get the residents.”

I couldn’t move.

“Now!”

I ran out to the desk, everyone was alarmed to see the look on my face. “My mother needs you.” I could barely get the words out.

“What?” Mikhail wrinkled his nose in confusion.

Shit. What did I just say? “Joanna. Something’s really wrong. Get in there, now!”

Everyone’s eyes widened at me ordering around the bosses, but no one said anything about it as they all hurried to my mom’s room. One of the nurses wheeled over a defibrillator. Shit, her heart again.

“One, two, three,” I heard Mikhail count before the sickening thump against her chest. There was no room for me to watch what happened. I wasn’t the only one standing helplessly outside of the room. But I was the only one who could be losing her mom.

Thirty-Four

Time moved in a way that made me motion sick while the rest of the team worked. Faster than I could comprehend, then not at all. I leaned against the wall, useless. Helpless. As much as I wanted to peek in around the corner, to see what was going on, my body wouldn’t let me. Every so often, a countdown, a thump, and then disappointment.

How much more time did they have? If they were still trying to get her heart to beat, it meant that it wasn’t beating. Which meant…

I couldn’t think about that. If I let myself think that word right now, I gave it power. I needed to keep positive. But death, I knew it well, and it had one hand over my mom’s mouth and one hand around my throat.

More people filed in, men wearing ties and white coats. The crowd in the hallway, waiting for someone to make them useful, moved out of the way to let them by. Doctors, not residents or interns. Shit. They’d called in the big guns.

The noise level rose in the room, and I looked at some of the other CNAs, trying to get a sense for what was going on. No one was looking back at me, they were looking into the room. The machines added to the cacophony until they drowned everyone out in a nauseating squeal.

Someone put their hand on my shoulder, but when I turned, no one was there. No one behind me in the hallway at all.