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CHAPTER FOUR

ZAND

I checked my phone for the hundredth time today. No calls. No texts. No word. Nothing for three long days. Suddenly, the loft felt too small. The high ceilings and open floor plan were shrinking in around me.

My chronic pacing in the living room led me into the kitchen, where Chanel was standing at the sink. Donté was sitting at the island staring down into his cell phone.

“Anything?” Chanel’s worried voice called out to me.

I shook my head, not trusting my voice. My jaw ached from clenching it so hard. Three days of silence. Three days of imagining every possible catastrophe. Why would he do this?

Chanel was in a panic. “Something has got to be wrong. Morgan won’t answer me. I’m afraid to call her family. I don’t want to worry them. Zand, did your brother do something to her? You said he was safe.”

I couldn’t respond because I didn’t have anything to say. What I knew, Chanel knew, and that was nothing at all.

My walled windows showed the beauty of the city.

The late afternoon sun glinted off the glass, warming the loft.

The view was normally enjoyable, but today it was a nuisance.

Somewhere out there, Teresa and Marisol were plotting their next move, but all I could think about was the one-sided silence from my brother.

I should’ve sent someone else to take Morgan to my safe house. There was a list of people I trusted more than Harlen and I picked him. Chanel’s best friend was the only person she had left from her old life. I couldn’t stop questioning why I let my brother back into my life.

Everything I ever did was up for debate.

I should’ve never made Teresa Protenza into a vampire.

I should’ve never married her. I should’ve never introduced Teresa to my life and my family.

And I should’ve never trusted my brother with someone that was so important to Chanel.

The “should haves” piled up like the ash I was going to make of Teresa, Marisol and everyone that challenged and threatened my loved ones.

“Maybe the reception is bad up there in—” Chanel offered. She was trying to come up with a good reason for the radio silence.

“Cheboygan.”I said, trying to participate in the one-sided conversation.

“Yeah, you said it was near water.” Chanel stated. “That could be the reason, bad reception near water.”

“Where the hell is Cheboygan?” Donté asked.

“Northern Michigan is close to Canada.” I explained. “Harlen would’ve found a way to contact us.” I stopped pacing just long enough to run a hand through my unruly hair. “Something’s wrong.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Chanel clarified, and I was happy she was calmer than me.

I’d sent a dozen text messages. Called twenty times. There was no contact from Morgan or Harlen. I asked Natasha to track their cell phones, and she couldn’t get a location. Nothing.

The elevator pinged, and I stopped in my tracks.

“Maybe that’s Natasha with some news.” Chanel said. I wished I shared her optimism.

I left them both in the kitchen without saying a word. Natasha would call before she arrived. It could be Josh, maybe with an update. I needed to hear something. At this point, it didn’t matter if it was good or bad.

I was in the living room waiting for the elevator door to open. My fingers scratched at my chin as my impatience manifested itself in my stance.

The metal doors parted and Harlen was standing there, alone. His clothes looked wrinkled, and his hair was disheveled. There was a haunted look in his eyes that I didn’t have time to address.

I rushed toward him when he stepped out of the elevator. I was only inches from his face. “Where the fuck have you been?!” I demanded. “Where’s Morgan?”

The elevator doors closed and Harlen side stepped me and moved into the living space.

“Zand—” the traitor spoke, but I cut him off.

“Three days!” I shouted, moving closer until I was back in his face. “Three fucking days with no word! No call! Nothing! A simple text to let us know you were alive?”

Hearing the commotion, Chanel and Donté had come around the partial wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. I glanced over at Donté, who was holding his glass of blood, and Chanel, who was standing beside him.

“Harlen, where is she?” I asked again. I felt the vein in my neck pulsate as my temper rose. My fists clenched and unclenched at my sides. My nails dug crescents into my palms.

Harlen took a step back and met my eyes. “I can explain.”

“What the fuck happened?!” My voice bounced off the walls of the loft. “You only had to keep her safe! Tell me where she is!” Each word came out louder than the last. My control was dangling by a thread.

“Harlen.” Chanel’s voice broke through my anger. “What happened?” Her question was more like a plea.

My mind told me Harlen had done something to Morgan. Did he drain her? Did he get too rough with her and kill her? I didn’t want to think the worse, but he was standing here, and she wasn’t.

“You disappeared for three days, and you show up here alone. Where the fuck is Morgan?” I grabbed the front of Harlen’s shirt and pulled him closer to me. I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands because I could tell by the look in his eyes that something bad had happened.

“Morgan.” Harlen said, not trying to break free of my grip. “She’s?—”

The elevator door opened again. We all turned to see the new arrival.

Morgan.

Morgan stepped off the elevator, and immediately I knew something was wrong.

She moved differently, stiffly, more like a robot, like a child learning to walk for the first time.

Her skin was paler than usual and lacking the red undertones.

The tinge of color that made her sometimes appear biracial was no longer there.

“Morgan!” Chanel cried out, rushing toward her friend. “Oh, my God! Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

My grip on Harlen’s jacket loosened as I watched Chanel approach Morgan.

Chanel wrapped her arms around Morgan. But Morgan didn’t return the embrace. Morgan stood very still.

“Sorry, Coco.” She said with a voice that was familiar but different. “We had... a situation.”

Chanel backed a few feet away from her, suddenly uncertain. “What’s up with you? Are you okay?”

A blanket of silence covered the loft. Morgan slowly removed her sunglasses. I heard Chanel’s sharp intake of breath.

Morgan’s eyes had changed color. Her gray irises now had an unnatural brightness that would wear off in a few weeks.

“I’m different.” Morgan said softly.

I turned back to Harlen, enraged even more than when I first laid eyes on him. “What the fuck did you do?”

Donté moved closer to the women. His expression clocked in at somewhere between shock and recognition. He knew exactly what he was looking at. He’d seen it in the mirror right after I turned him.

Chanel’s hand trembled as she reached toward Morgan’s face. She stopped short of touching her. “Morgan. No!” she wailed.

“I’m still me.” Morgan said, trying to smile. “I’m still a baddie, but now I have fangs.”

Morgan’s joke was ignored. My brother had turned Morgan into a vampire without my knowledge or consent. The realization sent shockwaves of fury through my body. Harlen had stolen Morgan’s humanity. He changed the course of her existence forever. He did it all without a single word from us.

The room seemed to spin around me as I stared at the newborn vampire who used to be Chanel’s human best friend. What I spent months protecting Chanel from had happened. My supernatural world had interfered with her life and claimed one of the people she loved.

The quiet rage exploded inside me and was seeping out. My body launched across the room, colliding with Harlen’s chest. The impact sent us both crashing into the wall so hard the plaster cracked. My balled fist connected with his jaw. The sound was like stone striking stone.

“Why?” I roared, punching him in the face. “Why? Why would you fucking turn her?” My blows to his face came in rapid succession.

Harlen didn’t fight back for the first few seconds.

He took my fury like he believed he deserved it.

Then his survival instinct kicked in. He twisted out of my grip and shoved me back, sending me stumbling into the glass coffee table.

It shattered beneath me. Crystalline shards exploded across the hardwood floor.

I jumped up on my feet instantly, barely registering the glass embedded in my palms. My wounds would close as quickly as they opened.

Regular fresh human blood from the vein accelerated my vampire healing in seconds.

I wasn’t done. I charged at him again, tackling him over the back of the sofa.

We rolled across the floor, knocking over a floor lamp that crashed against the wall before landing on the floor.

“Please stop!” Morgan’s voice cut through the chaos, but I didn’t care. I owed him this fight for so many things he’d done in the past.

I punched Harlen’s face again and again. “You! Had! No! Right!” Each word was punctuated with a blow to his face.

Harlen blocked my next punch and kicked me off him with enough force to send me flying into the bookshelf. Hard-covered books rained down around me.

“I had no choice!” He shouted back, with blood streaming from his split lip.

“Bullshit!”

I launched myself at him again. We crashed into the dining table. The heavy wood splintered under our combined weight and supernatural strength. A chair went flying, striking the wall and breaking into pieces.

When I stood, Donté wrapped his arms around my chest. Harlen relocated a few feet away to stand beside Morgan.

“Father, chill!” Donté's words crippled me for a second, but I couldn’t help but charge back at Harlen again.

“Enough!” Morgan shouted. Her new voice stopped my forward movement. Her tone carried an edge I’d never heard from her before. Power. Vampire power.

I stared at her in disbelief. Three days ago, she was human. The reality of what Harlen had done and what couldn’t be undone hit me all over again.

Chanel was frozen in place and standing by the window. Her tears streamed silently down her face. She hadn’t moved or spoken since the fight began. Her eyes were fixed on this new version of her friend.

Morgan seemed to notice at the same moment I did. “Coco, it’s still me. I promise.”

“Zand, I had no choice.” Harlen said quietly.

“I sent you to protect her, not to turn her so she could protect herself!”

“Brother, listen, Teresa found us. She was in Michigan.”

I took a few seconds for his words to make a connection to my brain. “How? I want to know exactly what happened.” I demanded, directing all my vitriol at Harlen. My voice was lower and more controlled now. “Every detail. Now.”

Harlen wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His split lip had already healed.

“Teresa was in Michigan. She was waiting for us at the condo. Somehow, she knew where we were going.”

“The bitch must have followed us.” Morgan added, and the casual profanity was strange in her unfamiliar voice. “I went up to the condo, and she was already there. Harlen was parking the car.”

“As soon as I got inside, I saw Teresa holding Morgan over the edge of the balcony.” Harlen continued. “Your condo is twenty stories up.”

“She pushed me.” Morgan finished for him. Her hand moved unconsciously to her throat where Teresa must have held her. “I remember falling.” She paused, swallowing hard. “Then I woke up... different.”

Chanel let out another sob. Her fingers pressed against her lips as if holding back more tears.

“She died on impact.” Harlen says flatly.

The words hit the room like physical blows.

“I got to her as fast as I could, but it was too late. Every bone in her body was broken. Her skull was fractured. There was blood—” He stopped after noticing Chanel’s horrified expression.

“She was gone. She was dead, Zand. Teresa killed her.”

“So, you turned her.” I stated. “Without calling me. Without asking anyone what you should do. You made a decision, that decision, without a conversation.”

“I was there. I saw it happen. What was I supposed to do?” Harlen demanded.

“Let her stay dead? Call you and say, ‘Hey, brother, Teresa just murdered Morgan, sorry about that’? Sorry I failed to protect her. I had to decide right then and there. You know we only have so much time before we can’t bring them back. ”

“Three days of silence, Harlen. Three fucking days while we were going out of our minds with worry.”

“I was busy.” He snapped. “Did you forget what the first few days of a new vampire are like?”

Of course I remembered. The uncontrollable thirst in the first twenty-four hours. The disorientation, the headaches, and the newfound strength that could accidentally kill someone if not carefully managed.

“I had to get her somewhere private and safe.” Harlen continued. “I had to feed her and teach her the basics.”

“You should have brought her back immediately,” I told Harlen. “As soon as she was stable enough to travel.”

“She wasn’t stable until late yesterday.” Harlen argued. “And I couldn’t risk bringing her back into the city until I was sure she could handle it. Teresa got away.” Harlen added, and my attention snapped back to him. “I wasn’t going to leave Morgan on the pavement to go after her.”

“If she gets the chance, she’ll go after Chanel next.”

“We can’t give her anymore chances.” Harlen chanted.

And just like that, the final piece clicked into place. The worst had happened. Teresa found them. And somehow, it ended with Morgan dead—and then reborn.

“Was it that bad?” Chanel asked Morgan now that her tears had dried.

Morgan hesitated. “Yes, and no. The first day was bad. It was like having the flu, bad cramps, and a migraine. I was asking myself every damn hour ‘Ho, is you cool’? It’s like every day that passes, I feel just a little bit more comfortable in this body.”

Donté stepped forward, looking between all of us before he focused solely on Morgan. “It’s going to get better. Being a vamp takes time to get used to.”

The five of us stood there amid the wreckage of the loft—broken furniture, shattered glass, scattered books.

The physical destruction around us mirrored the emotional upheaval within all of us.

Morgan was a vampire now. Whatever future she might have had as a human was gone forever.

And Chanel had lost the human version of her best friend even while she stood right beside her.

“What happens now?” Morgan asked. Her new vampire eyes moved from me to Harlen and back again.

None of us had an answer ready. The rules of the game had changed drastically.

We were all struggling to catch up. Teresa killed Morgan to hurt us, but Harlen turned that death into something else entirely.

I just didn’t know yet if it was a victory or another kind of loss.

I’m sure Morgan and Chanel thought it was a loss.