All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [75]
“Sarah Vida!” their mother shouted, trying to get Sarah’s attention, but Sarah wasn’t listening. She seemed hypnotized by the window.
“No rainbows,” she said, tears streaking her face. “It’s all …”
Zachary was old enough and big enough that he finally managed to pull Sarah back before she could hurt herself more.
Weeping, Sarah whispered, “It’s all just glass.”
Adia woke with someone’s lips on hers. The instinct to protest was replaced by the need to start coughing, and only when she did, and the individual above her drew back, did she realize that he had been doing CPR. She had stopped breathing.
Jerome was kneeling over her. It was remarkable that someone who didn’t need to breathe could give another individual breath, but she wasn’t quibbling right then. She was alive, and she was breathing, which was not the normal expected result of being throttled by an angry vampire.
That meant something had gone right.
“She’s okay?” Zachary stood behind Jerome, who looked back and nodded. Adia started to ask him something, but the bruises on her throat choked off her first attempt. Zachary guessed the question and said, “I keep meaning to take a CPR lesson, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Yeah, somewhere in your dallying about as a bleeder you got some funny survival priorities,” Adia said, or at least tried to say. It came out as a squeak. That was for the best. She was happy to be alive, but the near-death experience was making her grumpy.
More composed, she managed to whisper, “Where are the others?”
“Kendra and Jay both showed up,” Jerome answered. “They tried to convince Nikolas and Kristopher that Sarah wouldn’t want your neck broken. I’m not sure they were convinced, but Kendra grabbed them each by the scruff and disappeared with them. Jay took Sarah out.”
“Jerome called me when he realized you had gone to talk to Sarah,” Zachary said. “He said you might need my help, but I couldn’t get inside in time.” If Jay had gotten there first, he must have disregarded Adia’s orders. He must have known what she had planned. “I think Michael is still at his post,” Zachary added. “The second act hasn’t even begun yet.”
Funny how being strangled into unconsciousness affected one’s sense of time. Logically, she knew she couldn’t have stopped breathing for more than a couple of minutes, but the thoughtless darkness seemed so long.
Zachary never asked why Jerome was there. Maybe he was just used to vampires showing up to extract him from tricky situations, and assumed Jerome was once again here because of him.
Jerome, however, had known the plan; Adia had called him from the car. Now he said, “We have another rendezvous to make. Adia, are you up to it?”
“I’m a Vida,” she answered. There wasn’t any choice. This needed to be done now. She had fulfilled her vow.
A wave of dizziness hit her, and Jerome and Zachary simultaneously reached for her, each catching one arm.
“Would you like some ice?” Jerome offered.
“Later.”
“Where are we going?” Zachary asked.
“Dominique should be at the restaurant, waiting for us,” she said. “I told her to meet me.”
Zachary hesitated, nearly tripping them all up. She heard him swallow before he said, “I see.”
He kept walking with them, but he did so with a heavy step.
The three of them crossed the lobby. Jerome flashed a smile at the guys working there, who nodded back in a familiar way. They looked puzzled but accepted Jerome’s assurances that everything was all right. Adia was unsurprised that they knew him well enough to trust his word, given she had already been told that Kendra herself owned this theater.
Zachary balked just before the doorway to the restaurant’s private room, saying under his breath, “Adia …”
“Come on, Zimmy,” Jerome said, reaching over Adia to pat Zachary on the shoulder. “Be brave.”
“Did you really kill Fredrick Kallison?” Zachary blurted out.
The question sounded as if it had been simmering for a long time, possibly years.
Jerome hesitated but then