before the fight.” She started to shrug, grimaced at the discomfort in her arm.
“You need to see a doctor. We’re done here. Unless you’re waiting for someone.” He paused and waited for an answer.
“No, no one. Let’s go.” Now the work was done, she was anxious to get away. Afraid Andreas might appear. She couldn’t see him right now.
“Hey, Ari.” It was Mike. He walked toward them, pulling something out of his belt. He held out her silver dagger. “You dropped this.”
Ari shook her head. “You keep it. I don’t want it anymore.” As she turned away, Mike and Ryan exchanged a look, but she kept moving toward the door. “Are you coming?” she said over her shoulder.
“Right behind you.” Ryan caught up with her outside. “You’re not going to talk about it, are you?”
Ari didn’t break stride. “No, there’s nothing to talk about. The bad guys are mostly dead. The rest are in custody. Case closed. What more do you want?”
“Me? I’m satisfied, but I get the feeling you’re not.”
How could she be? Her personal life was a wreck. People she counted on had died or betrayed her. She had developed magical powers she didn’t understand. But she’d cope. She always did.
She turned to Ryan and mustered a smile. “Quit worrying about me, partner. I’ll be fine. A visit to the ER, a good night’s sleep, I’ll be a new woman.”
“I kind of liked the old one,” he said.
“Tough. You’ll get used to the new me. Now come on before your pager or mine goes off. I couldn’t face another crime scene tonight.”
As she climbed into his car, she congratulated herself for not asking why Andreas hadn’t returned to the compound. It was a start.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Ari returned to Riverdale on a gray, gloomy afternoon. The feel of early snow was in the air, no more than a few weeks away. She was glad to be coming home. Her arm had healed, she’d undergone rigorous retraining with her childhood Sensei, and she was ready, even anxious, to get back to work. Martin was exhausted from covering both territories, but at least there’d been no vampire wars or drug outbreaks during her absence.
She hadn’t heard from Andreas, but that was a good thing. At least she thought so most of the time. The manner of Sheila’s death had stunned her, but she’d had many hours to go over the details of that night. In the honest light of day, she realized she’d reacted mostly from anger at herself, the irrevocable choice she almost made. And she’d been afraid, still was, not for what happened in the caverns, but at the compound. The magical link. The idea of such a powerful connection with a vampire, one that could break all magical barriers and wake him from his sleep…well, that was something she still couldn’t wrap her head around. What if their magics consumed each other? Or the stronger one took control? And, Goddess forbid, what if it was all her fault? Or at least the fault of her family legend?
In her brooding, Ari almost missed the turn. She drove down the lane to the woods where Yana was buried and parked the Mini Cooper. She’d come to chat. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t brought her problems to Yana. This time, she also needed to tell Yana why she’d died.
And how the story ended.
Ari got out of the car and entered the woods. The ground was hard, the brown grass brittle and crackly. It crunched under her feet. Finally, standing in the middle of a small clearing, Ari explained it all. The drugs, the deaths, Sebastian’s ambitions, the compound attack, the caverns, and how Sheila died.
“I wanted to kill her,” Ari admitted. “And I don’t know why Andreas did it instead. His own reasons? Or maybe to protect me from stepping over the line. I’m still not sure I wanted to be saved.”
With most of the story behind her, Ari began to walk. She turned onto a trail made by summer hikers and plucked a tall slender blade of grass from the edge of the path. She chewed on the end. It was dry, flavorless.
“I wish I could turn back the clock,” she finally said. “Have you back. Do things better. But that isn’t how things work. So I guess I just have to do the best I can.” She paused to watch two squirrels chasing through the trees. “But I wish you could tell me what to