An Hour of Need Read Free Page B

Your sister was right. I might be half fae, but I am also half human.”
    He fell into chilled silence before asking, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “It’s not exactly something I want to talk about, if you know what I mean,” I said tightly.
    He nodded. “Right.” He continued staring at me, his eyes roaming from my face down the length of my body to my toes, and then back up again. “Well, I… I’m so sorry. I suppose that we really are in this together now.”
    “Yeah,” I replied weakly.
    The thought had already struck me that maybe, just maybe, this elusive antidote could possibly work on Orlando, too. We still had no idea exactly what drug the IBSI had given him to mess up his system the way it had… but I figured there was a strong possibility that his symptoms had something to do with Bloodless DNA. The idea didn’t seem to be too much of a stretch of the imagination, given the scene in the laboratory my father had witnessed back in Chicago. The IBSI were obviously experimenting with them somehow.
    I voiced this idea to Orlando. He responded with skepticism, though not hopelessness.
    “Who knows,” he muttered.
    “All right, everyone,” my father called from the corridor. “We’re all here.”
    Orlando and I lifted ourselves off the mattress and hurried out into the hallway.
    We all gathered in a circle: my mother, father, aunts Rose and Dafne, uncles Caleb and Jamil, grandpa Derek, grandma Sofia, great-grandpa Aiden, great-uncles Lucas and Xavier, along with my great-aunt Vivienne, Orlando and me. None of them wanted to be left behind on this mission. And in the center stood Horatio and Ibrahim. My father had apparently already given our first destination to the magic-wielders, and almost before I could blink, the hospital around us disappeared.

    * * *
    S weden was definitely not the best place for a turning Bloodless to visit—especially not at this time of year. I gritted my teeth, gathering my coat closer around me. I caught Orlando shivering, too.
    My mother, thoughtful as always, pulled out a lighter from her back pocket and handed it to me.
    “Thanks,” I said, quickly taking the lighter and sparking up a flame. I billowed it until it was a ball in my hands and moved closer to Orlando, allowing him to share its halo of warmth.
    We were standing in the center of an icy road, surrounded by a world of rolling snow-blanketed fields. We appeared to be in the middle of the countryside. Ibrahim had already put up his spell of shadow to protect the vampires from the sunlight. We crossed to the other side of the road and passed through a wall of trees, behind which we were met with a picket fence and a gate. Passing through it, we found ourselves approaching an old, rickety farmhouse. Just a brief glance at its derelict state—its broken windows and damaged roof—told me that nobody had lived here for a long, long time.
    “This is supposed to be Deirdre’s address, right?” I said, hit by yet another swell of disappointment.
    My father nodded, sharing my sentiment. Though it wasn’t like we had any excuse to be surprised. After what had happened to Georgina, we would have been surprised if we found any of the people listed on Atticus’ note still alive and residing at those addresses. I supposed what we hoped to find was some kind of clue left behind. We were grasping at straws here, and any kind of clue that could lead us on the right trail would be helpful, no matter how small.
    The farmhouse’s rotting doorway opened easily—beneath just a light kick from my grandfather Derek. We entered a rundown living room, which probably had once been cozy, with its generous hearth and thick carpets— now covered with dirt and dust.
    It was only a small farmhouse—two-bedrooms—and it didn’t take long for us to search it. We looked beneath carpets, inside closets, between pillowcases. Heck, we even tore open the mattresses to see if there was anything we could find. But we found nothing here