He was quiet and still for a long moment and I feared I’d told him too much, that he was in shock. Finally, he ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Jesus! I… Jesus…”

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I-I need some time to process this.”

I let out a deflated sigh. It wasn’t like I had expected him to be okay with everything right away, but I’d hoped… well I don’t know what I’d hoped for. It killed me to see how much I was hurting him. If I had been honest with him all along, he would not be looking at me right now like I was a stranger.

“I have something for you.” I pushed my phone across the table to him. “Peter thought it might help you.”

He stared at the phone without reaching for it. I stood and left the kitchen, almost running upstairs to my room. I stood at the top of the stairs and listened when he played the video Peter had made for him then I sat on my bed and waited for him to call me back down to talk about it.

When darkness fell, I climbed into bed and stared numbly at the ceiling until I could no longer keep my eyes open. I didn’t even bother to undress.

*     *     *

I didn’t get up for school the next day and Nate did not call for me to get up. It was ten o’clock when I finally dragged myself downstairs, bleary-eyed and feeling like my heart was encased in lead. In all the years I’d lived with Nate, we’d had our share of arguments but he had never let us start a new day without trying to sort things out.

His silence told me just how much I’d hurt him this time – not because of what I’d revealed to him – but because I’d been lying to him for years. Last night lying in bed it hit me just how much pain my confession had brought him. All this time, I’d carried the knowledge that there was more to my dad’s death and all I could think about was how I needed to know the truth for me, for my own closure. Not once had I ever considered Nate’s loss or grief or that he deserved to know the truth about his brother. I had to make things right. There was no way I could leave with things so messed up between us.

I walked into the kitchen but my stomach was tied in too many knots to even think about eating. Disappointment swept over me when I looked out the window and saw that Nate’s car was gone. I was hoping we could talk this morning but it looked like he needed more time to sort through things first.

To while away the hours until he returned, I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. Around eleven the school called and I let the machine pick up. I paused wiping down the refrigerator when it hit me that I was actually dropping out of school – and in my senior year. I should be thinking about college applications, prom, and graduation: normal things. But nothing in my life would ever be normal again.

My cell phone rang a little while later. It was Nikolas letting me know he and Chris were still in Portland with some of the other Mohiri, cleaning up after Saturday night and hunting down any vampires that got away. The werewolves, he told me, had offered to beef up their patrols in town today to watch over me and Nate until Nikolas got back. He said he would be back in New Hastings tonight so we could leave tomorrow morning. I listened and said “yes” and “no” where I was supposed to. I figured I should wait until he got here to explain that I could not leave town tomorrow, not until I made things right between me and Nate.

At two o’clock, restlessness drove me outside. I sat on the top of the stairs listening to the familiar sounds of the waterfront while I waited for Nate to return. But soon a cold damp fog crept in off the bay and sent me back into the warmth of the apartment. Gazing out through the living room window at the grey-shrouded waterfront, I felt more alone than I had ever felt before. All I wanted was for Nate to come home so I could ask him to please forgive me and tell me I hadn’t destroyed our relationship, that there was still a chance for us to be a family.

Half an hour later when I couldn’t take another minute of waiting, I heard a sound at the front door. I raced from the living room to greet Nate and to beg him to please talk to me. Halfway to the door I stopped short, my stocking feet skidding on the hardwood floor when I realized I hadn’t heard his car drive up or his wheelchair on the ramp.

The doorknob jiggled and my heart began to hammer against my ribs. Did I lock the door?

The answer was a soft click. The door creaked open a fraction of an inch and I stood frozen as whoever or whatever was on the other side prepared to come in.

I jumped as a low keening suddenly came from the door and it took me a few panicked seconds to realize that the sound came from the door itself and not from whoever was on the other side. The noise grew, rapidly rising in pitch and volume until I had to clap my hands over my ears to block out the piercing sound. Around the door the frame glowed red, throwing off sparks like the embers in a fireplace. In the center of the door the shape of an ashy hand appeared.

Screeching and the nauseating stench of scorched flesh filled the air as someone or something thrashed violently on the other side of the door. Seconds later the door slammed shut followed by the sound of someone stumbling down the stairs.

Freed from my paralysis, I scrambled to pull the deadbolt then ran to the kitchen window. But all I could see was the swirling fog that obscured anything more than a few feet from the building. My whole body shook and I gripped the counter with numb fingers. Something was out there, something that meant me harm and if it wasn’t for the troll warding, they would be in here now. The chill creeping along my spine told me it was still out there, hiding in the mist and waiting to try again.