About how to fix me.
Everyone giving their opinion on what, to me, is the most personal problem of my life. The most personal problem anyone could ever have—someone else living inside your skin, taking you over whenever they want, making you do horrible things you would never willingly do.
“What about me?” I ask when I can’t stand the discussing/bickering for one second longer.
“I promise we’ll fix this,” Uncle Finn says. “We will get him out of you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I tell him. “I meant, what do I do? While you four are all trying to figure out how to save me, what can I do to save myself?”
That gets their attention, has them eyeing one another as they try to figure out what I mean. Which is just proof that there’s a problem, right?
“Grace, honey, there’s nothing for you to do right now.” My uncle addresses me in the deliberately calm tone of someone who expects the person he’s using it on to go hysterical at any moment.
But the hysteria is gone. Not forever, as I’m sure it will be back before this nightmare is over, but for now. And in its place is a determination not to be placated, a determination to never be placed in a situation like this one ever again.
“Well, then I guess we’d better find something for me to do,” I tell him. “Because if we’re right, if Hudson is actually living inside me like some kind of parasite, there is no way I’m just going to sit back and wait to see what you guys come up with. Doing that is what’s gotten me into every terrible situation I’ve been in since I got to Alaska.”
The words are harsh and, in another situation, another reality, I would never have said them. But in this situation, in this reality, they needed to be said.
And the people I’m talking to need to listen to them…and to me. Because there is no way I’m taking a back seat for one more second. No way I’m just going to sit around and let them prevaricate and tell me half-truths and hide things from me in the name of protection. Not now. Not anymore.
“Yes, I want to know what I can do to get Hudson out of me,” I tell them. “But since that seems like it’s going to be a process, I need some stopgap measures to help me out. Like what I can do, right now, to ensure he can’t make me hurt anyone else. Not what you can do but what I can do.
“Because I am not going to just sit here and let him take control of me whenever he wants until all the experts can figure things out. He is never going to use me as a weapon again—not against Cole, not against Amka, and definitely, definitely not against Jaxon.”
“Hudson can’t use you against me—” Jaxon starts to interrupt, but I cut him off with a hand.
“He already has,” I tell him as my brain races through different scenarios and things start to fall into place. “Why do you think I’m so uncomfortable with you right now? Why do you think I back away every time you try to kiss me? Maybe you haven’t gotten around to putting that together yet, but it’s becoming crystal clear to me.”
I can see from the look in Jaxon’s eyes that I’m getting through to him, that he’s going back over every interaction we’ve had the last two days and trying to see what was me and what was Hudson. Not that I blame him—I’ve just done the very same thing…and I really, really don’t like what I’ve found.
“I’m done, Jaxon. I’m done, Uncle Finn. I’m not waking up covered in someone else’s blood ever again. Or in the middle of a casting circle, missing with ripped clothes. And I am not giving a murderer free range over my body or my head for one more second than I have to.”
My chest is tight and my hands are shaking, but my mind is clear, and I know—I know—that I’m doing the right thing.
“Either you talk to me and help me figure out what I can do, or I swear, I’m going to walk back to that stack of books over there. I’m going to read every single one of them until I figure out how to turn myself back into a gargoyle. And this time, I’m going to stay that way until Hudson can no longer hurt anyone.”
Jaxon opens his mouth to speak, but I shake my head. I’m not done yet.
“And if that means staying a gargoyle forever, then that is what I’ll do. It’s not what I want to do,” I tell them as they all start to protest. “But it’s what I will do, because no one—no one—is going to use me as a pawn ever again.”
It’s why I nearly died when I got here and why Jaxon and Flint nearly died, too. If they had just told me the truth when I first arrived, I wouldn’t have had to spend my first four days at Katmere bumbling around trying to figure things out as people tried to kill me. I wouldn’t have trusted the wrong people.
And maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in those tunnels with Lia, and Jaxon wouldn’t have nearly died, and we wouldn’t be right here, right now, with Hudson taking some kind of psychotic vacation in my goddamn body.
Just the thought makes me sick, makes me want to cry. Makes me want to scream.
I want him gone, want him out of me right the hell now.
But if that’s not a possibility, I need to know how to keep myself and the people around me safe from him, no matter what.
I look from Jaxon to Macy to my uncle to Amka, only to find them all staring back at me with a grudging respect in their eyes. Which means it’s time to ask the question burning a hole in my chest. “Do I need to turn into a gargoyle again, or is there a way to block him out?”
Suddenly, I feel something flutter inside that feels an awful lot like a scream—of rage or agony or terror, I don’t know which. But it’s definitely a scream… And it’s definitely not coming from me.
28
Sometimes Girls
Just Wanna
Take Charge
I barely have time to figure out what that means, if it means anything, when Jaxon says, “I’m taking you to the Bloodletter.”
“The Bloodletter?” I repeat, because it’s not a name I’ve ever heard before. And also because it’s not one that sounds particularly…inviting. I mean, in a world full of paranormals who don’t bat an eye at blood loss or near-death encounters, what kind of monster do you have to be to be called the Bloodletter?
It’s freaky as hell.
“The Bloodletter?” Uncle Finn repeats with the same skepticism I’m feeling. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No,” Jaxon answers. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a terrible fucking idea. But so is Grace turning back into a gargoyle for who knows how long.” He looks at me, and his face is full of worry and love and a touch of fear that he’s trying really hard not to let me see. “I don’t know if the Bloodletter can help figure out a way to quarantine Hudson in your head. But I do know that if anyone can, it’s her.”