Year Two: Rebels - Cara Wylde Page 0,10

The nurse took the cup from me, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash can.

“Good girl.”

I could feel my thoughts slipping away from me, becoming less and less coherent. I placed my elbows on the table, hands squeezed tightly into fists, and just stared ahead, at no particular point in space, trying to hold on to the shimmering threads of my own mind. It was as if they were going off one by one, until everything that happened in my head became completely shrouded in darkness. I silently prayed that Adrian would come see me soon. I wanted to have a normal conversation with him, and most importantly, I wanted to remember it later.

A warm, firm hand on my shoulder. I didn’t dare to look up, but I instinctively relaxed. He leaned over me slightly, and I smelled his cologne. I recognized him. I recognized the man who had held me in his arms, who’d made love to me when I was stuck between worlds, unable to move or speak. Adrian Wyvern.

Adrian Akkad, in fact. I smiled. It was such a relief that I remembered this tiny detail.

He sat down across from me, and our eyes met. Sky-blue got lost into warm brown.

“How are you?” he asked in a low voice.

I nodded. “I’m okay. I… I went for a walk earlier, saw you…”

He sighed. “I’m sorry.” He looked genuinely defeated. “I should have said something, but I… I didn’t know what.”

I looked at his big, rough hands resting on the edge of the table. I bit my lower lip. It was already hard for me to focus on one thing, and I thought… I thought maybe if he touched me… if I touched him… maybe his presence would tether me. He was still my professor, though.

But on the other hand… was he? I wasn’t at Grim Reaper Academy, and since when was it a professor’s business to visit a patient at the Karmic Asylum when said patient wasn’t family?

I reached over and covered his hand with mine. He tensed up at first, then slowly returned to normal. My skin was icy cold, and his was warm and comforting. I let out a breath of relief. This felt nice. This felt right. I looked up into his eyes and spoke as fast as I could, wanting him to understand that I needed his help before the potion fully altered my mind and rendered me a mere vegetable.

“Adrian, where are my things? You know I have a pixie, and I can’t find her bell. I need her bell. I need to call her.”

“Your things are safe, back at the Academy, in your dorm-room. I took care of it.”

“I always have my pixie’s bell with me. Always. What happened in the caves? Davien came to see me…” I hesitated, then shook my head. “I don’t know when. Weeks ago, maybe. He told me that I tried to… jump?”

“You did.”

My head was starting to hurt. I pressed my free hand to my forehead, while the other was still locked onto Adrian’s.

“I would never do that. Adrian, that wasn’t me. The girl who tried to jump…”

“I know.” And there it was, in his eyes. One look, and I knew he was the only one who truly understood me. “But I didn’t have a choice. You were hysterical. Thank God Seth and Davien were there to help me, otherwise I don’t think I’d have been able to drag you out of there alone. You were… unnaturally strong, Yolanda.”

“I don’t remember anything…”

“Traveling to the Great Old Ones’ universe was a bad idea. I am so, so sorry I asked you to do it.”

I furrowed my brows. For a second, I lost track of the conversation. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“You asked me to…”

“For Inna,” he said, and it all came back to me. His daughter, who was a hybrid and aging faster than any fay or human, needed the flower of youth and eternity.

“No,” I whispered. I dug my nails in the soft skin of my forehead. It was as if I was trying to catch my thoughts in my fist, so they wouldn’t slip away from me. Not yet. I needed one more minute. “You did nothing wrong. Getting the flower is not the only reason I’m trying to reach their universe. Adrian, what I’m actually trying to do is… banish them. I want to rid the world – our world – of them, of their demonic influence.” Although, demonic was