Page 21 of Lycan Prey (Little Secrets Duet #1)
· Aubrey ·
Max’s laughter echoes up the street as he skips ahead of me, and it still rings in my ears as we reach the front porch of my house. He’s been teasing me relentlessly about my fall from the tree.
“I can’t wait to tell her,” he gushes with the unrestrained enthusiasm only a child can muster, barreling up the steps through the door ahead of me.
“Wait up, you little rascal,” I call out after him. My words are light, devoid of any real scolding. A chuckle escapes me, shaking off the last remnants of embarrassment as I close the door behind us. The comforting familiarity of home wraps around me like a warm blanket—until it doesn’t.
I turn, nearly tripping over Max who has stopped and the atmosphere shifts palpably. Max stands rooted to the spot, his laughter extinguished like a candle snuffed out by an unseen force. His tiny body is rigid, a miniature statue carved from stone, his usual vibrance drained away in an instant.
“Bree?” His voice is a mere whimper now, a thread of sound barely weaving through the air between us. It weaves a knot in my stomach, tight and unforgiving.
“Max, what’s wrong?” A thunderous drumbeat reverberates inside my chest, each pounding rhythm echoing against the walls of my ribs as I cautiously approach him. Max’s face contorted from joy to fear, his eyes wide and unblinking as he stares at something ahead.
“What is it?” As I follow his line of sight, a sudden wave of terror washes over me. My eyes land on Granny’s still body, and my heart stops at the sight of her motionless form.
My breath hitches, the very ground beneath me seems to waver, and in that instant, the air escapes my lungs.
“Granny,” I murmur, a solitary word lost in the silence. The silence in Granny’s veins is only broken by Max’s labored breaths.
“Bree, is she…” I stare at Max whose eyes are wide. My chest tightens, gasping for air in rapid succession, as I dash frantically across the space to where Granny lies motionless. Her once comforting warmth is now replaced by a chilling pallor, drained away by death’s icy grip.
“Get the house phone!” I rasp at Max, my trembling hands hovering over her lifeless form, fearful to acknowledge what my heart already mourns.
The floor beneath my feet feels cold and hard, making my already trembling legs shudder.
And as I reach out to touch Granny’s lifeless hand, it feels unnaturally cold and stiff, like a mannequin’s instead of a human’s.
“Granny, please,” I plead under my breath, pressing two fingers to the side of her neck, praying for a pulse that refuses to greet me. Nothing. The silence in her veins is deafening, drowning out the chaos that begins to swell within me.
“Granny?” His voice cracks, a mixture of confusion and dawning horror. He’s looking to me for answers, for reassurance; all I can offer is the crushing weight of my own dread as tears burn my eyes.
“She’s alright. She just had a fall, isn’t that right, Granny,” My words are brittle, shards of hope I desperately cling to even as they cut into me as I tap her face trying to wake her.
All sense, all reason leaves me as I try to wake her, though I already know she is gone.
My heart refuses to believe what my mind is screaming at me.
Max rushes for the phone, and my hands shake as I punch in the number for emergency services.
Yet when they answer, I am mute, deaf, as I try to communicate what I’m at loss for words over.
Max, however, snatches the phone. I vaguely hear the person ask the address which I fail to communicate.
Instead he runs outside reading the letters to the woman on the other end.
Moments later, the paramedics burst through the door, a flurry of navy and fluorescent yellow. They sweep past me, their movements a blur of urgency. “What happened?” one barks out as they kneel beside Granny, unpacking their life-saving equipment with practiced hands.
“She was just there,” I manage to say, my voice a hollow echo in the suddenly too-small room. Max squeezes my hand tighter, reminding me I have him in my care right now. His wide eyes never leave Granny’s still form, his innocence shadowed by the harsh reality unfolding before us.
I can’t tear my gaze away either. The paramedics are a flurry of action, their defibrillator pads and IV lines, weapons working against the silent thief that is death.
Though, even as they work, the leaden feeling in my chest tells me it’s a battle already lost and they know it too, they are just trying for Max’s sake.
“Clear!” The sharp command cuts through the tense air, followed by the harsh zap of electricity. Granny’s body jerks, a grotesque jolt of life. Her chest remains still. Again and again, they try, each attempt a glimmer of hope that dies as quickly as it sparks.
“Let’s move!” one paramedic calls out. They scoop Granny onto a gurney and rush out the door, with me right on their heels.
“Shit… Max!” The reminder hits me like a physical blow. I can’t leave him; he’s my responsibility. I whirl around, spotting his small frame rooted to the spot, terror etched into every line of his face where Granny just lay.
“She didn’t wake up,” he tells me. I blink at him and swallow the lump forming in my throat. I don’t know how to reassure him when I can barely gather my own sense right now.
“Come on, buddy, we’ve got to go to the hospital.” My voice is steady, but inside, I’m shattering. When he doesn’t move, I scoop him up in my arms, his little body clinging to mine.
We race to the ambulance, its doors gaping open like a portal to another world—a living nightmare. Max buries his face in my neck, his breath hitching in quiet sobs.
“Everything will be alright.” I don’t know if I’m lying to him or myself, but what else can I do? I can’t let him see the dread that coils in my stomach, the betrayal I feel at the universe for allowing this to happen.
The ride is a blur, the sirens a wailing lament that seems to resonate with the turmoil in my soul. When we arrive, Granny is whisked away from us, disappearing behind sterile doors that separate the living from those who teeter on the brink.
“Granny will be okay,” Max says, more to himself than to me, his words a thin veil over the gaping wound in our hearts. I nod, unable to trust my voice, my throat tight, knowing she won’t be.
I clutch Max’s small hand, the tiny bones fragile within my own. We sit in the sterile expanse of the hospital waiting room, surrounded by a stench that is both clean and repugnant—the antiseptic tang wrestling with the odor of stale coffee. It’s an unnerving aroma.
Max swings his legs back and forth, the sound of his shoes scuffing lightly against the linoleum floor. He’s oblivious to the gravity of the situation. It’s too loud in the hush of the room, reminding me that I am very much alive while Granny...
The soft tread of footsteps signals an approach. My gaze snaps up, locking onto the nurse who’s come to deliver news I already know in my marrow. Her expression is gentle, apologetic, the bearer of doom wrapped in pastel colored scrubs.
“I’m sorry, but your grandmother didn’t make it,” she murmurs, her voice barely rising above the ambient sounds of beeping monitors and distant pages.
“We were hoping the King would come to pick up his son before we delivered the news, but we must move her,” the nurse whispers.
I already knew this by the expressions on the paramedics’ faces when they got to her, by the deathly pallor of her skin, yet officially hearing it, having it confirmed, breaks something inside me.
The words slice through me.
“Thank you,” I manage to choke out, though gratitude is the furthest thing from my heart as I peer back at Max sitting waiting.
“The King is on the way, we have notified him,” she tells me. I nod slowly, turning to Max.
“Can we see her?” Max asks.
“Not right now,” my voice breaks on the answer, “she is sleeping.”
I stagger, the ground beneath me unsteady as if the earth itself mourns with me. The hospital’s sterile walls close in, a blur of white that swallows my senses. Max’s small hand finds mine, his grip firm and searching. “Brielle, are you okay?” His voice is a whisper lost in the storm inside me.
I can’t speak. I peer down into Max’s upturned face, his eyes brimming with worry for me. He is too young to understand the finality of death, yet old enough to sense its shadow.
“Max,” I finally murmur.
He squeezes my hand tighter, seeking reassurance from the one who should give it, but finds none.
“I mindlinked my dad. He is on his way,” he tells me, his innocence a stark contrast to the weight of my sorrow.
His words pierce through the haze—his father, the King, coming to collect his son, he’ll be furious that I dragged Max here, pulled him into my drama.
My vision blurs, tears threatening to spill. Not here, not in front of Max. I blink them back fiercely, refusing to show weakness.
“Let’s wait outside for him,” I tell Max.
The chill of the night air bites at my skin as I push through the hospital’s double doors. The parking lot is a desolate expanse under the harsh glow of street lamps. My gaze catches on the payphone by the curb. I settle Max on the bench and make my way over to the payphone.
I stumble toward it, my fingers fumbling with the cold coins from my jacket pocket. They clink into the slot, one by one. I punch in the numbers, digits engraved into memory yet haven’t been used since they cast me out.
“Hello?” Her voice, distant yet familiar, crackles through the line.
The receiver trembles in my grasp, a lifeline fraying with every heartbeat. Silence stretches between us, the unsaid filling the void until it’s suffocating.
Tears well in my eyes, spilling over silently. I can’t form the words. Can’t stitch together the syllables to tell her Granny, the woman who raised her, gave her life is dead. I slam the phone down before she can break the silence with questions I’m not ready to answer.