Adam pushed back his chair. “This is none of our business—”
“Are you kidding?”
“Give it up!”
“It’s our business!”
The three of them snapped at Adam, frustrated with endless propriety.
“We’re talking about Mom and Dad,” Cain reminded. “It isn’t gossip if we’re trying to help.”
Adam’s disapproving scowl clearly showed his disagreement, but his brother was outnumbered. Anna and Gracie leaned into the conversation, tossing out probable causes for the recent tension.
“Perhaps it has to do with Mother’s fear of losing another pregnancy?”
“Or Father’s unwillingness to put her through another possible miscarriage.”
Both possibilities made sense, but neither was enough cause for their parents to fight. In all of his thirty-seven years, Cain had never known his mother and father to argue. They might disagree, but they never went to bed angry or let a quarrel outlast the day.
The room fell silent. There was only one unsolvable problem he could think of, but his mind rejected it. For that to be the case…
It would be horrible. He couldn’t imagine how things would change and how much damage such a predicament would do.
“One of us has to say it out loud,” Gracie whispered. “We all suspect it. We’re all thinking it.”
“It can’t be,” Cain argued, shaking his head.
Adam shifted in obvious discomfort. “We always knew it was a possibility.”
Gracie’s face pinched and her arms closed protectively around her body as if she suffered a chill. “Poor Mother.”
“How do you know it’s Father?” Adam asked. “What if it’s Mother—”
“It’s Father. He’s showing too many symptoms,” Cain said. “We can’t go on denying the reality of the situation.”
“But he’s been sleeping,” Gracie argued.
“He has to.” A knot formed in Cain’s gut. “It’s the only way he can dream.”
They all wore the same haunted expression. “How much time do you think they have?” Anna asked.
Cain looked at his brother and shrugged. “It depends when the symptoms started.”
Once they voiced the fear, there was no taking it back. Silence consumed them. No words could fix this. No action could outmaneuver God’s call. If anyone knew that, Cain did.
Every single day he lived with the pain of his sacrifice, secretly suspecting his loss would eventually kill him. The delicate bond he shared with Anna might be the only thing sustaining him, but no one knew how temporary such a hold could last.
The Elders were useless when it came to their unique situation. There had never been a twin calling like his and Adam’s before. He hoped no immortal ever suffered such a fate again.
Perhaps that was why he needed to find whatever was in the woods. What if he and the creature shared a similar fate? He needed to know if the stories were true. He needed to hunt it and see for himself if an unanswered immortal had no other fate than to become vampire.
Anna glanced in his direction and gave a sympathetic smile as if guessing the path of his thoughts. Adam wouldn’t look his way; he possibly still questioned if he had acted fairly in their situation. But, in the end, it had been Cain’s decision, one he was still processing and might never fully come to terms with.
His body itched to escape, and his muscles bounced with the urge to run. This place used to be a sanctuary, but lately it was as dangerous as the outside world. The longer he stayed, the more the walls closed in on him.
Adam’s hand closed over Anna’s. Envy and bitterness spiked inside of Cain, alerting him that it was time to go.
Cain stood and set his napkin on his plate. “Thank you for dinner, Anna.” He knew better than to touch his brother’s wife. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Wait,” Gracie wore a look of concern. “Where are you going?”
He looked back at his siblings, so content to simply stay on the farm. Even Annalise had adapted to their primitive life. But the longer he lived, the more restless he grew, desperate to find a greater purpose and certain he would never find it here.
“I’m going back to the woods. I’m going to hunt down whatever’s out there and deal with it before it hurts anyone else.” He planned to then disappear for a long time.
Chapter 12
Jonas’s heart froze the moment he heard her footsteps, and the bedroom door opened. The relief he felt at seeing his beautiful wife standing in their home after days of avoidance could have dropped him to his knees.
“Abilene.” Her name was a plea, a cry for mercy.
“I wanted to come home.” She stepped into the room and shut the door with a quiet snick.
This was the closest they had been in months. The closed-off room became a sanctuary the moment she stepped inside: shut away from the rest of the world, safe from the dreams, guarded against the pain, deaf to consequence.
“Abilene, I never—”
She held up her hand, silencing him. “Don’t speak, Jonas. There’s nothing either of us can say to change this.”