“Are you ok?” Dani demanded her focus locked on Cassie’s blood stained side.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured her gently.
Cassie padded slowly up the stairs, very aware of every ache and bruise as each movement intensified the pain. Though she was not looking forward to retelling the horrifying events of the night, she was grateful for the distraction that Dani offered. Otherwise, she would be consumed with her worry for Devon, and her fear of everything that had been revealed tonight.
How many women were in his past? How many of them had he loved? And who was Annabelle?
Cassie shuddered; her hands trembled as she pulled the zipper on her dress down. She didn’t want to think about those questions, it would only rattle her already shaken confidence more. Tossing her destroyed dress on top of her bed, she took a shower, washing the blood from her as she tried to scrub herself clean of the memories choking her. No matter how hard she scrubbed though, she could not clean away the events of the night.
Tears burned the back of her throat once more, but she refused to shed them again. She hated the weakness she had allowed to slip through earlier with Devon. She was a big girl; she had been in life threatening situations before. She should be able to handle her reaction to them far better than she had today.
Although, she’d never had an experience as bad as the one tonight. She really had thought her life was over, truly felt that she was experiencing the last few horrifying moments. And she had never been confronted with a beautiful, psychotic girlfriend from centuries past before. Cassie shuddered, scrubbing at her skin with renewed vigor.
Though she tried not to think of Isla, it was all she could think about. How long had they been together? Had he loved her? She didn’t want to contemplate the things they had done together, but she couldn’t stop the images that flashed through her mind, the jealousy and fear that consumed her. She was nothing like Isla. That woman had experience; she knew what a man liked, what a man wanted. She knew what Devon liked. She had satisfied him with her body, and Cassie was certain, with her blood. She had satisfied him in ways that Cassie had not, and maybe never could. Revulsion swarmed through her, nearly threatening to drown her in its thick waves.
Her certainty that she wanted to join Devon had been shaken, if not destroyed. His was a world that she didn’t understand, it was a world of cruelty and death and misery. One that she wasn’t certain she could belong to and she knew she could never truly fit into it. It was a world that very well might destroy her.
Despite the hot water, Cassie was shivering and numb when she climbed out of the shower. She dressed slowly, feeling hollow and devastated. The night had started out with so much promise, it was all gone now. Like a log that had been burnt out, all of her hope had been turned to a pile of ash that was choking her from the inside out. And no matter how much she wanted to hope that things would be ok, that Devon would explain everything, she wasn’t sure that it would ever be right again. She wasn’t sure that they could ever be the same again.
Ever so carefully, she cleaned and bandaged her wounds with the ample medical supplies she kept under the sink. She was not at all surprised to find that though the gashes were still deep, the blood had stopped, and the healing process was well under way. She had always healed fast, ever since she was a little girl, and she had never been sick.
She used to wonder about it until Luther walked into her life, now she just chocked it up to her Hunter capabilities. Even if Chris and Melissa did not heal quite as fast as her, they had never had a cold either. Once her wounds were bandaged, she fingered her cracked rib lightly, wincing as a sharp pain tore through her. Though she could not use disinfectant and bandages on it, it would heal just as swiftly as the gashes on her side.
Slipping her favorite baggy sweatshirt on, Cassie wrapped her arms around herself as she made her way to the kitchen. Chris and Dani were already sitting at the counter, their spoons clicking against their bowls. Chris pushed a strawberry sundae with no whip cream and extra cherries toward her. Though she had asked for the sundae, she shook her head, her appetite gone. Her body was already a block of ice, she didn’t want to add more coldness to it.
Making her way to the window, Cassie stared out at the dark night. She recalled when she had first met Devon, when she had sensed his presence out there, watching over her. That was before he had started coming to her room. That was when things had been simple and easy, when she had thought him human and had wanted to keep him protected. How foolish she had been. She could no more protect him then she could stop a charging elephant. Her protection was unnecessary, her strength nothing compared to his.
Now as she searched the night, she felt nothing out there, no good or evil. It was simply an empty void that did nothing to ease the void inside of her. Even Chris’s house was silent; his mother apparently having passed out already, or retreated to bed with whatever man she had brought home tonight.
Cassie turned swiftly away, focusing on Chris and Dani. “Did you tell her anything yet?”
“No.” Chris pushed his bowl aside, but instead of reaching for hers as he normally would have, he leaned back in his chair. Apparently the events of the night had affected his appetite too. Folding his long legs before him, his eyes were sad and distant as he surveyed her. “I thought that you should be here.”
Cassie nodded, leaning against the sink as she began to fill Dani in on the details of the night. When she could not continue on, Chris picked it up for her. Dani sat silently, her eyes growing wider, her half eaten sundae forgotten. When Chris finished, Cassie turned back to the window, once again searching the empty night.
“So, now there are two?” Dani asked quietly, her voice hoarse with fear.
“Yes.”
“Is this Isla also an Elder? What can she do?”
“We don’t know,” Chris answered. “We didn’t ask Devon yet.”
“Piss me off,” Cassie mumbled, ignoring the twinge that pulled at her heart as hurt and jealousy reared their ugly heads once more.
“How are you feeling?” Chris inquired, obviously eager to change the conversation.
Cassie shrugged absently. “I’ll be fine.” She turned swiftly away from the window, unable to stand the silence of the night anymore. “I’m going to go to sleep,” she lied, knowing that there would be no sleep until Devon arrived, safe and sound. Knowing she would not sleep until he answered some of the many questions swirling rapidly through her mind.