She wasn’t saying anything at all. She was just staring at the sky, lying in the middle of a big red puddle spreading around her, red stains on her blouse. Her skirt.
Everywhere.
Her chest had a big ugly hole in it. Dad dropped me to the stage. Someone else picked me up and covered my eyes.
But it was too late. I already saw.
My mommy was dead.
EIGHT
AT FIRST, I THOUGHT the sound of my alarm going off was the sound of wailing sirens in my dream. When my brain untangled reality from nightmare, I jerked awake, lunging upright in bed. I was breathing hard, my heart racing so fast that my chest hurt.
I stared at the gray light of dawn barely illuminating my childhood bedroom, some distant part of my mind recognizing the panic attack for what it was. It had been a while, but I knew this feeling far too well. I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself out of it by willpower alone. I just had to weather it and hope that this wouldn’t be the time that I truly had a heart attack or a stroke.
The only way out was through.
I sat in bed shaking, hugging my knees, feeling like I couldn’t get enough air as images of the hole in my mother’s chest superimposed with images of the hole in Rans’ chest. Rans was alive, I tried to tell myself. Well, maybe not alive, exactly, but he was okay. I’d seen him afterward. Talked to him. Felt the brush of his fingers against my cheek.
None of that makes your mom any less dead, said the horrible little voice that lived inside me.
“It was a long time ago,” I whispered to the empty room, finally getting my breath back as reality asserted itself. “Twenty years.”
God, I was backsliding. I’d been hanging on pretty well these past few years. Making it. Managing my various physical and mental challenges well enough to cope, day by day. I didn’t want to return to this place of being broken and useless. Damaged goods.
And it had all started two days ago, when a vampire chose my shed to break into. Was all of this happening now because Rans had drunk my blood?
I wanted nothing more than to chug every bottle of hard cider in my fridge and pull the blankets over my head until everything went away, but that would be the worst possible thing for me to do on so many levels. I told myself that it would be like giving up, and I wasn’t a goddamned quitter.
The red display on the bedside alarm clock read six-thirty, and I had to meet the auditor at MMHA at nine. In fact, I should get there early so I could get all the files ready to go. I couldn’t huddle here on my bed like the terrified six-year-old that still lived inside me, buried deep.
Food. Ibuprofen. Stretching exercises. Shower. Get dressed. Leave.
It was no different than any of the other rough mornings I’d had in the past few years. Power through, don’t give up, and eventually things would get better. I eased out of bed, feeling joints creak and pop, feeling my gut churn. Outside, rain spattered against the window, the atmosphere heavy and gray.
* * *
At fifteen minutes until nine, I hurried toward the glass doors leading into MMHA, wincing as my body protested. The skies opened just as I ducked under the awning, and I sighed in relief. I might be a walking disaster in most respects, but in this, at least, my timing had been impeccable.
The moment I stepped across the threshold, my heart sped up as I realized that, impeccable timing or not, I’d just stepped into a nightmare to rival the one I’d woken from a couple of hours ago.
I’d thought yesterday was bad? Surprise, Zorah! Today had just been fucked twice as badly. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I saw Creepy Ponytail Guy standing in the office, talking to Daisy and a few other members of the board. There were people here that I hadn’t seen since they accepted my volunteer application. There were others I’d never met at all, wearing suits and serious expressions. These were people involved in executive decision making, not day-to-day operations.
Why were they here now? This was supposed to be a low-key, informal meeting to straighten out whatever mix-up or misunderstanding had the Department of Revenue’s panties in a twist. Not a full-blown gathering of the board of directors.
As soon as Daisy saw me, her eyes narrowed. Anger clouded her expression.
There was something off-kilter about the atmosphere in the office. Daisy didn’t seem like herself. She didn’t normally do cold anger. She did short, explosive bouts of temper that blew over quickly and were inevitably followed by an apology.
This morning, she walked over to me, her face unsmiling. She looked like a completely different person than the one I’d left yesterday. It was like we were strangers. Like I didn’t know her at all.
“Conference room,” she said coldly. “Now. Mr. Werther from the state auditor’s office wants to speak with you.”
“What’s the board doing here?” I asked. My voice was shaking.
“You’ve messed up royally, Zorah.” Her expression never thawed. “There are going to be repercussions. Serious ones.”
My breathing was speeding up, another panic attack threatening. “No, but I showed you...”
Daisy cut me off. “I don’t want to hear it. Tell it to the board.”
I stood there, my mouth open, staring at Daisy. At the board members filing into the conference room. At the creeper from the restaurant. His eyes met mine, a slow smile spreading over his too-perfect face.
My skin started crawling again, even worse than it had yesterday. On top of feeling like total shit, I now felt like I was going to throw up. If I did,
