Chapter 27 - Veronica

It happened so quickly.

An arm around my waist, a hand over my mouth, and everything went dark.

When I first came to, I was wondering about what they had used to knock me out, wondering if Rafael might know what kind of drug could knock out the "perfect vampire."

Whatever it was made me loopy, giggling, sick with dopamine. It was like my brain was comprised of the little bubbles from a soda can, shook too hard and opened too soon, foaming out my ears and eyes and onto the soft fabric of the car seat.

It took a while for me to come down from that high, reality slowly coming back into focus until that high was just a little fuzz, a grease swipe across what was happening instead of completely altering it.

Now, I'm in the backseat of a car, bouncing painfully with every bump and sharp turn. Through the windows, I can see the moonlight shining down, and I hope it's still the same night, that several days haven't passed since I was last conscious. Trees pass by. I can tell that we're on a gravel road, but I don't know enough about the area to make a guess about how far we've gone or where we are.

The duct tape around my wrists and ankles is burning my skin, tugging on it, and I pull against it, testing my strength, wondering how hard I might have to pull to break it. I can feel the little life inside of me, feel my responsibility to it, and rage grows and grows inside me, spiraling out every time we go over a bump, and I feel it in my stomach.

For the past few weeks, I haven't been fully present. When faced with the choice—leave, and take the baby with me or actually talk to Percy and make things work, it's like I retreated so far inside myself that I could pretend, for a moment, that reality wasn't real.

But now, my elbow is starting to twinge again from the tight binding around me. I'm starting to come back into my brain, starting to let that numbness fade away.

I'm scared. I am so, so scared to have a baby, because I'm terrified that I'm going to be a terrible mother. I think about Percy, who will make the most incredible dad to someone, someday.

Back in New York, I was so jealous of him; he was raised by two loving parents and grandparents who were around for everything, constantly praising him and encouraging him to take big risks because they would be there to catch him.

My father didn't come to my high school graduation, and he died before I graduated from college. Percy's family made matching t-shirts that denoted who they were to him. They took pictures and had him don his robes again and again to make sure everyone got one from the right angle.

I had to ask one of my teachers to take the photo for me.

Back then, when I thought about us having kids, I was petrified, because I thought of myself as being broken, flighty, unreliable, and thought of Percy as being perfectly whole. I was convinced that he never let me in all the way, that he was waiting for something better to come along, someone else who would make a better mother to his children and fit into his perfect family better, more seamlessly.

And now, I see things for how they really are—Percy is a little broken, and I'm a little broken, and every single shifter in the Rosecreek pack is a little broken. And yet, they come together and love each other as best they can every day.

Despite the horrors they've been through together, and also because of them.

If I make it out of this car, I decide I will tell Percy the truth. I'm going to tell him that I'm pregnant and, that I want to stay in Rosecreek, and that I want us to try. I want to see what happens if I give it my all, and leave behind the notion that I couldn't possibly be a good mother.

As I think it, my gaze drifts away from a spot on the carpet, and up to the right ear of the person driving the car, I see red.

I am so tired of people thinking they have the right to take me, to remove me from where I am, and take me wherever they want. I'm tired of not having control over my own body, of not being able to stop things when they happen to me. I sit up in the backseat and make eye contact with the person driving the car through the rearview mirror.

The person in the passenger seat turns, and I don't give them time to see what they will do. I've been going to the three-times-a-week training sessions with other women, and it's taught me enough.

It's taught me where the hard spots are on my body. Taught me how to use a bigger person's body weight against him and get the upper hand even when my opponent is larger than me.

I remember the triumph I'd felt the first time I was able to flip Bigby onto his back on the mat. I'd danced around punching the air, while Rosa and Linnea hugged me, squealing and jumping along with me. Only Olivia went to check on Bigby and make sure he was okay.

When the person in the passenger seat turns, I rocket my head forward, catching them in the face and hearing the satisfying crunch of their nose breaking into a million pieces. They scream, clutching at their face, and I slip my bound hands around the driver's throat, pulling and pulling until they yank the wheel and veer off the road.

After descending for a minute, the car smashes into a tree, and it feels like my brain is the ball on a paddle, flying away from my head for a mile before snapping inside. Despite a slight, ringing headache, I feel mostly okay, and I climb out of the car, distantly registering that the car has a chance of blowing up.

I crawl away from it, feeling the pine needles of the forest under my palms the cool air on my skin. The driver and passenger had looked dead, but I didn't stay to make sure. I couldn't stomach it.

If being in the paranormal world means being used to blood and gore, I'm not sure I'm cut out for it. I feel like I'm crawling for days, but when I look back, I can still see the car, smoke billowing out of the hood, the car crumpled like a soda can someone smashed against their head at a barbecue.

I get shakily to my feet, and that's when I see it, in the distance.

Several shady, black figures. Heading in my direction.

A little noise slips out of my throat, and I turn to try to weigh my options. Likely, those are the vampires Rafael warned me about, the ones who would try to get me if they found out I was pregnant. I think of the way Paul Smith's eyes had lingered on me, making bile rise in my throat, during that meeting.

Did he know? Could he tell that I was pregnant, just from looking at me?

The black figures get closer, but several other figures come from the road, standing protectively in front of me.

Aris, Ado, Byron…Percy, who runs to me, his hands on my face, my arms, my neck.

"My love," he's saying, "are you okay?"

"Yes," I nod, "but they're coming."

A moment later, Percy is turning, joining the fight, and from my left, I see Bigby appear from between the trees, morphing into a massive wolf shift mid-jump, leaving the ground with two feet and coming back down on four paws.

They're ripping and growling and chomping and fighting, and it comes to me in this moment that Rafael, given he and Percy are compatible, could give him blood instead of me, and that wouldn't jeopardize the baby.

"Veronica!" someone screams, and I look up to see Olivia standing over me, her eyes frantic. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"You need to shift," Rosa says at my other side, "then we can all run together, out of here."

I stare at her with empty eyes, not understanding what she's saying as we inch away from the fight happening behind us. Something inside me urges me to turn around, to fight with Percy.

I'm the one who's immune to their bites. I should be the one fighting them.

"Veronica!" Rosa screams, and it feels like it's loud enough for everyone to hear, for the entire fucking world to hear. "You need to shift right now to protect the baby."

If this was a comedy movie, the shifters and vampires fighting behind us would all stop, focusing in on us, my pregnancy the comic relief. Instead, I grab Rosa by the shoulders, shaking my head at her.

"I can't shift, Rosa," I murmur, "I'm a human."

"Veronica, come on," Olivia pleads, tugging on my hand. "Come on, this is not funny right now."

"Ask Maisie," I laugh, "I'm a human and can't shift. But I am a vampire."

"She's actually having a stroke," Rosa says, eyes narrowing on me. "Oh Gods, what are we going to do?"

It comes to me all at once, and I turn on my heel, moving away from them as I go. I've been training to fight. I'm strong. I survived that car crash.

"Veronica!" Percy screams when he sees me running to him, pushing my back against his. "Get out of here! Go!"

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," I say, using my elbow to knock a vampire across the face. He tumbles to the side, looking shocked that I'm as strong as I am. I use my elbows and knees and catch as many vampires as I can, and eventually, Percy wordlessly hands me a knife, and we fight together like that, back-to-back, taking out the waves and waves of vampires.

A moment later, two smaller wolves come bounding into the field, descending upon the vampires who aren't expecting them. They work together, one crouching under a vampire's feet, the other launching into his chest so he topples over, face-first, into the ground.

Olivia and Rosa bound around, getting the vampires on the ground so the men can finish them off and generally causing enough of a distraction and chaotic element to hopefully give the rest of us the upper hand.

The entire time I'm fighting, I keep thinking that if Percy dies, I will die.

And if I die, this baby will die before I ever get the chance to tell Percy about them.

I'm not going to let that happen.