“Is this your mate?” she says to Isaac, still staring into my eyes and now moving through the crowd toward us.

“Yes, Lord Nataša,” Isaac answers, bowing his head once.

Lord? I feel my face crinkle at that masculine title.

“If you wish to keep her little human body in one piece,” she says so coldly, “you should teach her to know her place in my presence.”

Isaac’s head bows again, but this time he holds it there for five long seconds.

I don’t know what’s come over me, but my whole body seethes with anger. It’s like my mind has been split into two parts, two adversarial consciences. One knows that this situation is taking a grave turn and that I shouldn’t say or do anything else. The other half wants to tell this tyrant exactly what I think of her.

Unfortunately, the half that isn’t me is smothering the other.

“You’re threatening me?” I say and I can suddenly see the whites of every eye in the room.

Nataša stops cold, drawing back her chin in a slow, interrogative manner.

I notice Genna at my side go to reach out, maybe to place her hand on my shoulder again, maybe to ‘calm me down’ as she had been—I think—trying to do, but I recoil from her. “No,” I say to Genna and start to move toward Nataša. Isaac grabs me from behind, securing me in place with his arms tight around my waist.

What am I doing? I think to myself. Nataša could kill me!

I stop struggling against Isaac and just stand there, frozen in my own stupidity and confusion. I look back at him and his gaze is poignant and apprehensive.

I also notice that Genna is gone.

Nataša’s voice startles me, pulls me right out of the confused state of mind and drops me into a panicked one. I turn around to face her, feeling the heat secrete from her body just inches from mine.

“I-I’m sorry,” I say, pulling myself closer against Isaac. I try not to look at her, but my eyes can’t seem to stay focused downward. I notice instantly how sick I feel again, how dizzy I’m getting over the course of these long, traumatic seconds.

“Look at me,” she says and I raise my head.

Oh no...I shouldn’t have done that.

I take a deep breath and try to hold myself upright. The ceiling is starting to spin.

Isaac holds me rigidly and I can feel his heartbeat booming violently against my back. I doubt he knows I’m about to pass out. He’s focused on Nataša, ready to protect me from her if that’s what it comes down to.

Nataša grazes the side of my face with the back of her fingers. She even feels dangerous. It doesn’t matter that her touch is soft; it also feels deadly, like watching a Black Widow crawl slowly up my bare arm. I hold my breath and pray it doesn’t bite me.

“Interesting,” she says and I feel her fingers fall away from my cheek. Her eyes move to and from me and Isaac in a calculating exchange, until finally they rest on Isaac. “You still breathe,” she says to him, “so this tells me that either Vukašin has become merciful, or…” she looks at me one more time for barely a second, “he does not yet know.”

She smiles cunningly at Isaac. “Of course, we both know the answer to that, don’t we?” she says and her words cause my skin to prickle.

I can’t hold myself up for much longer.

Why won’t she leave us alone?

I need to breathe.

“But no matter,” Nataša says more dismissively, waving her hand in the space between us. “I have more important duties to supervise than the foolish actions of a subordinate.”

She looks right at me now. “Were it not for your…handicap…I would have killed you where you stand.”

She walks away, leaving me barely standing in a pool of trepidation. I feel my chest shrivel as I finally let out my breath and the ceiling and walls and bodies all spin around me as the floor comes out from under me.

I black out.

8

I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING from the second I blacked out up until now as I lay in Isaac’s bed, staring at the ceiling. How long have I been here? I can’t get my head together. It feels like my body is on one side of the room and my mind on another and slowly they’re meeting each other halfway. My hand comes up to rub my forehead, but even this movement feels strange and unbalanced.

My tongue feels weird, kind of heavy and it tastes like I’ve been sucking on a penny, though it’s not foul, just intense and unfamiliar. I need some water. I lift my upper body from the mattress and hold my weight up first by the palms of my hands until I feel it’s okay to let my back do the supporting.

The window is open, letting in a nice breeze as it dances against the long, flowing curtain before escaping into the room.

Isaac is standing outside in the hall talking to Harry.

“Is she alright?” I hear Harry say. He stares anxiously at Isaac, waiting for Isaac to let him pass.

“Go on in,” Isaac says and opens the door for him.

Wait…how could I have heard their words so clearly as if I had been standing right there with them, or been able to see Harry’s face as they stood on the other side of the closed door?

“Are you alright?” Harry says, coming up to the side of the bed. “What happened?” He reaches out and presses his hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.” He gazes at me anxiously and finally sits down next to me on the side of the bed.

I’m still trying to understand what happened just now. I can’t even begin to piece any of it together. Maybe the door was already open and I just thought I could decipher everything by their tone. Yes, that has to be it.

“I’m getting sick,” I finally say. “At least…,” I pause, testing how I feel now because I don’t feel sick anymore at all. I feel awake and healthy and revived, a lot like I felt in that short period of time downstairs right after Genna sat beside me on the couch. Except better. “I feel…well I feel great right now actually, but all day I’ve been having these bizarre off-and-on dizzy spells.” Nothing I’m saying actually feels right to me, but it seems enough for Harry to accept.

“You should see a doctor,” he says. “Get some meds in your system before Friday gets here. I’ll take you to the clinic myself if I have to. You can’t leave me to fend for myself in Portland. What if they all decide to wolf-out at the same time and eat me?” He’s joking of course and even Isaac can’t help but smile as he stands off to the side, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Harry?” I say and he stops talking and looks at me seriously. “Are you wearing lipstick?” I reach up and rub my thumb against the corner of his mouth like wiping a streak of dirt off a kid’s face. I look at my hand and then back up at him and smile. “Or are you wearing Daisy?”

Harry’s face turns beet red. He reaches up with his fingers in a claw-grip and covers my whole face with his hand, pushing me backward playfully. I gently slap his hand away, laughing softly.

“Seriously, Adria,” Harry continues as he stands from the bed, “you really should see a doctor. I admit that woman can make any guy piss his pants, but it’s not normal to be passing out like that.”

Reminded of Nataša, I don’t feel so playful anymore. In that brief span of time, I really had forgotten everything that happened downstairs. But this I knew was a conversation better suited for Isaac and so I decide to wait for Harry to leave the room before I start asking questions.

I look across at Isaac and he likely already knows what’s going on inside my head. I can practically hear his gears churning, preparing his brain for what kind of answers he’s going to have to give me.

“Harry!” Daisy shouts from somewhere down the hall.

“In Isaac’s room!”

He looks back at me, tucking one side of his blue plaid button-up shirt inside his jeans. “The doctor—okay?” he says.

I nod a few times, thinking about it. “Yeah, okay I’ll go get checked out,” I lie to get him off my back. No way I’m going to see any doctor willingly.

Daisy stands in the doorway, long blond curly hair draped over both shoulders. She smiles at me. “Better already I see.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” I say, but I’m completely bewildered by it still.

“I must apologize for my mum,” she says. “She’s that way with everyone, so don’t take it personally.” Harry takes her hand, a set of jingling car keys dangle from her other hand.

“Nataša’s your mother?” I never expected that, Daisy being English and all. Not to mention, Daisy and Xavier have golden-blond hair, Nataša has dark red hair and Trajan’s hair is almost black. Mentally, I’m scratching my head.

“Shannon’s mum, too,” she adds. “Obviously Xavier’s.”

Obviously, because Daisy and Xavier are twins.

“Harry, are you ready?” she says. “Have less than an hour to get there.”

Harry points at me sternly as they go to leave together, Daisy pulling him along by his fingertips. “You better go!” he demands, squinting one eye.

“I will, I will,” I say and he disappears around the corner.

Isaac shuts the door.

“How long was I out?” I say as I get up from the bed.

“Not long,” Isaac says, cupping my elbows in his hands as he stands in front of me now. He leans over and touches his forehead to mine. “About ten minutes, I guess.”

He leans away from me now.

I’m too bewildered by the whole thing to do anything but stare out at whatever, thinking. The dresser beside me is nothing but a blurry object smudged into the wall. I blink back into reality and it solidifies back into view.

“But I feel practically…perfect, now.”

I look to Isaac for answers and his hands fall away from my arms. “Well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” He walks to the closet and nudges a pair of boots away from the door with his foot and opens it.

“Yeah, of course it is,” I say, “but it’s just…well it’s strange. I feel like…,” I’m having a hard time figuring out the best way to describe this, “…like my body just decided it wasn’t going to be sick. I mean, I felt like that a little earlier downstairs, but then all of a sudden it came back out of nowhere when Nataša….”

“Yeah, I should’ve warned you about her,” Isaac says, closing the closet door. He takes his shirt off and tosses it in the laundry basket behind the nearby chair. “I didn’t expect her to zone in on you, but then…well, never mind.” He raises his arms halfway to slip the new shirt on he had pulled from the closet. The navy fabric rolls down over his six-pack, the sleeves fit tight around his toned biceps.

“No never mind,” I say. “But then what?”

He moves around the room, avoiding eye contact, but it doesn’t seem to be intentional. He’s looking for something. “It’s no big deal,” he says, exploring underneath the chair cushion by the laundry basket. “You definitely scored brownie points with everyone, that’s for sure.”