Chapter 226 THE RESURRECTION AND RECONCILIATION
KAI’S POINT OF VIEW.
"Aurora!" I choked out, my hands trembling as I gripped her shoulders, my heart barely beating as the seconds passed by painfully slow.
She didn't answer either of us, not yet anyway. Everleigh and I watched with fright as her body convulsed once, and then twice, her back arching off the bench as the antidote collided with the poison in her racing through her bloodstream so it could get to her heart.
I remember watching many kids die to this very thing; my mother would kidnap them while we were in Spain, and force me to watch as they writhed in pain until they died. She told me she needed someone to carry on her work if she ever passed, and as her son, I should have the honor.
She had not cared that she’d scar me with the horrific memory of this. All she needed was a successor as sick as she was. I watched, breathless, my heart twisting painfully until I had a headache, as the black, vine-like necrosis that had been racing toward her heart began to wither and pull away. It retreated down her shoulders, fading from an angry red to a bruised purple, and finally vanishing back into the puncture wounds.
Aurora’s eyes, the reddish, perfect green ones I’d fallen in love with as a child, stared into mine. They were barely focused, but they were open and full of life, and that was enough for me.
"Kai..." she rasped, and I gasped at the sound of her voice. A voice I feared I’d never hear again. It was a broken, weak whisper, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. "She….it’s not Doctor Misha…..it’s not her.” She rushed out, her voice filled with fear. I shook my head to pacify her.
"It's okay, Little Bird. I know….we know. And I’ve got you. You’re safe now." I sobbed, pulling her upright and tucking her head into the hollow of my neck. I didn't care that I was covered in my mother's blood. I didn't care that the nurse was currently whimpering in the hallway. I only cared about the warmth returning to her skin. The fact that she would live, that Marloise didn’t steal her from me again.
"We have to go," Everleigh hissed, her voice sharp with a new kind of urgency. She was now standing by the door, her eyes darting between us and the hallway where the sound of heavy boots was finally echoing from outside. "The police are now in the lobby. Silas said he’s three minutes out, but we don't have three minutes."
I stood up, scooped Aurora into my arms, and turned toward the exit. I didn't look at the corpse on the floor. Marloise Mercer was a ghost now, and I was done being haunted, or the whimpering kid she loved to torment.
As we burst into the hallway, the timid nurse tried to block us again, his face pale as he clutched his clipboard like a shield pressed to his chest. "You... you're a murderer! You can't just……"
I didn't even slow down. I leaned into his space, my eyes reflecting the cold, Mercer darkness that Marloise had spent years trying to perfect. In case the idiot didn’t see it, I was very unconcerned with the man I could become when Aurora’s safety and life were in danger. I felt her slow, shallow breathing against my neck; the warmth of it sent waves of courage into my heart.
"I am a man saving his wife," I growled, my voice vibrating with a threat that made his knees buckle clearly. He gulped, probably seeing the darkness in my gaze. "If you value your life, your license, or your ability to earn so much as a shilling working in this world, not just this country, you will move. Now."