A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)(62)

Vita





[Grace and Lawrence’s daughter]





Hours must have passed since I’d seen Phoenix disappear into the ground beneath the magnolia tree, since I’d screamed after him from the bottom of my lungs, since Field and Aida had run outside. I couldn’t tell how long I had been there.

I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move.

Aida tried to get me away from there to no avail.

My hands dug deep into the grass. Dirt pressed under my fingernails. My eyes stung from the tears that streamed down my face. My throat was parched. My voice was so hoarse I could barely speak.

Field had been trying to dig for hours. He used one of three shovels he’d grabbed from the greenhouse, scooping the black soil, desperately trying to get to where I’d shown him Phoenix had vanished. Every time he went as deep as one yard, the ground rumbled and pushed him out, swelling up with more dirt and filling the hole back up, like nothing had happened.

“It won’t let me dig,” Field gasped. Beads of sweat rolled down his ashen face.

He kept trying regardless. He dug and cursed every time the earth rejected him. Aida and I used the other shovels to help. Every time we dug in, the tree’s roots ejected us. Eventually my legs gave out, and I fell to my knees.

I was exhausted, yet stunned enough to maintain consciousness. Aida collapsed next to me, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand.

The sun rose over the mansion, drawing pink and blue watercolors across the sky. Bird song traveled on the wind from the surrounding jungle. I couldn’t process anything. The image of Phoenix getting tangled into the magnolia tree’s roots and vanishing into the ground replayed in my mind, in a torturous loop.

“I don’t know what to do,” Field said. His dirty palms splayed on his knees as he tried to get his breathing under control.

“What if he’s…” Aida’s voice trailed off.

Field looked at her with a pained expression.

“He can’t be,” I heard myself croak. “He—he can’t be…”

“What do we do?” She asked without expecting an answer.

None of us had an answer or a reasonable explanation for what had just happened.

The sound of movement in the grass caused us to turn our heads toward the house. Serena came from behind it, holding Draven’s hand. Jovi, Bijarki, and Anjani followed. They were back, all in one piece.

“Serena,” I gasped.

What was I going to tell her?

How was I going to explain what happened?

No words seemed right to describe what Phoenix had done and how hard we’d tried to reverse it.

She smiled, closing the distance between us.

My heart twisted into knots, and my cheeks burned. Another wave of hot tears poured from my eyes. I watched their expressions change as they approached us.

Serena stopped in front of Field, who stood up and rubbed his sweaty palms against his pants.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, anxious.

When no answer came out, she looked around.

None of us spoke.

“Where’s Phoenix?” came her second question, the one I dreaded the most.

I felt Aida’s arm wrap around my shoulders. I watched Serena’s expression change from anxiety to a heart-wrenching frown.

Bijarki took a few steps forward until he reached me. His eyes found mine, but I was sobbing too hard to speak.

“Can somebody please tell me what’s going on? Where’s my brother?” Serena’s voice trembled.

“We fell asleep last night,” Field started to explain, his tone low and wavering. “We didn’t see him get up and leave…”

Serena’s expression lit up.

“He’s awake? Where is he?”

“I tried to stop him,” I managed to say between sobs, and she looked at me with even more confusion in her blue-green eyes. “I tried…”

“What do you mean?”

“He stopped in front of the tree,” Field continued. “He stabbed himself, Serena…”

She gasped, and all color left her face. Her eyes bugged, and her mouth gaped. She lost control over her legs and fell to her knees.

“Serena,” Draven said.

She dropped to the ground out of his reach. “Where is he?”

“We… We don’t know,” Field replied, swallowing back his own tears.

Serena put her hands on the ground, breathing hard from shock. It tore me apart to see her like that. I shuddered in Aida’s arms.

“The ground swallowed him,” I cried out. “It just opened up, and the magnolia roots shot out and pulled him down. He’s down there somewhere!”

“We’ve been digging for hours,” Field said, looking at no one in particular. His hands trembled. “I’ve been trying to get to him, but the earth won’t let me in! It keeps pushing me out! Filling back up! I’ve been trying for hours!”

Jovi faced Field and clasped his shoulders firmly, trying to calm him down.

Aida held me tightly, as wave after wave of pure devastation crashed into me.

I looked up.

Serena stood up, grabbed one of the shovels, and started digging frantically. But the dirt belched from under her shovel, pushed her back, and filled the hole up again.