I slowly unwrap the gauze and hold my forearm up for them to see. The bite marks have finally scabbed over. Pink skin puckers around the circular indentation from his fangs.
Grayson shudders and when he speaks again, anger taints his voice. “You should have told me. Why didn’t you? Did you thinkI wouldn’t be able to handle the truth? Not knowing doesn’t change anything.”
He’s mad at me for keeping this secret. I knew he would be. I don’t expect anything less than for him to let me have it and I swallow hard, bracing for impact.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s the one thing you probably don’t want to hear right now?—”
Grayson pushes himself off the floor, stalking to the other side of the room. His pacing wobbles, his skin shines with sweat, and he’s hunched over like it’s too much effort to stand upright.
Aimee reaches out to examine my arm. “You’re not healing the way you normally would.”
You’ve been cursed.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
She clucks her tongue before peeling away. “I think I’ve got a few things to make this better. Hold on.”
RJ blows out a breath and leans back to balance on her elbows, her legs still crossed. “You’re going to have to stop pacing soon, dude, you’re making me dizzy.”
Grayson growls at her and RJ ignores it.
I got everyone involved in this garbage, because RJ and Aimee wanted to help me with my moonlocked issue. They wanted me to finally be free to shift. Now here we are with the madness pressing closer and both Grayson and I infected.
Tears steam down my cheeks and RJ groans. “Hey, stop it. There’s no crying in football and there certainly shouldn’t be now.”
I sniffed, trembling. “There’s no cure. We die. You lost your research when someone torched the Hollow.”
“Hey, not necessarily true. You think we’re dumb? We weren’t only busy figuring out how to rescue you in those four days, you know. We had a bit more time to put our heads together and go over our resources.”
She points to a stack of books across the attic I hadn’t noticed before, but they certainly don’t look like they belong here. Or to either witch.
Aimee bustles in with her arms laden down with jars. “I think I’ve got everything.”
I can’t even look at Grayson. He doesn’t slow down, pushing off one wall only to slam his palms to the other, frustration driving him. And hatred.
He’s gotta hate me for this.
Aimee grabs my arm again.
“What have you found?” I ask.
“I mean, we’ve found a few things. And Colt and Lacey have been an incredible help once she got him out of that castle turned prison. Vampires are the literal worst.” Aimee glances up at me, apologetic, before slathering on a bit of goop from one of her jars.
The astringent scent couples with a milder floral undertone. It glides over the bumps on my skin.
“We found out about a shaman. He’s someone who’s dealt with moon madness before. He isn’t in the books, but sometimes rumors turn out to be true. We’ve done our research. He’s the last lead we have toward finding a cure.”
“Sounds too good to be true.” Grayson stops, catches himself against the wall, and bares his teeth to something only he hears.
How much longer before the curse takes him down entirely? He’ll become one of those flayed monsters with no memory of who he was. Everything gone. Erased.
“It’s definitely not too good to be true because this dude exists, but he’s incredibly hard to get to. Theactualgood news is this.” Aimee plucks another jar from her array and holds it up between us, twirling it until the liquid inside makes a whirlpool.
“Wolfsbane,” RJ says, picking up the thread of conversation. “And other stuff you’ll probably recognize but want to barf ifwe tell you. A real witch’s concoction. Doesn’t smell as bad as it could though.”
I glance between them. “Then you guys are either getting better than any of your college friends or you’re selling us snake oil.”
What kind of potion did they come up with?