Forbidden. Part 27

Neil stopped and looked down at her, his eyes sincere. "I don't want to go with anyone else."

"It was nice of him to ask, but there's no way." Claire was holding a three-way video chat on her laptop with Erica and Brian as she lay on her bed that night, doodling. A progression of lop-eared bunnies was making its way across her notebook, clinging to umbrellas that floated in a cloudy sky. "I'm still in love with Alec, and Neil knows it."

"Claire, you were in love with Alec for a week," Erica pointed out, "maybe two. You've been obsessing about Neil for the past two years."

"You would have been thrilled to go out with Neil if Alec hadn't swooped in," Brian added. "And what if you win that crown? People will think it's lame if you don't show up at the dance."

"I have more important things to worry about than a dance, or what people think," Claire insisted. "Have you forgotten Helena's warning? The Grigori may be off my back, but Alec's not here to protect me anymore. I could be cougar chow any day now."

"Claire, that's ridiculous. There are no mountain lions in the heart of urban Brentwood," Brian said.

"One could wander down from the hills," Claire said. "That sometimes happens."

"Yeah, but they've never crossed the freeway," he countered.

"I've been thinking more about that," Erica said slowly, "and I don't see how that vision could ever come true. You don't even own the dress you said you were wearing, Claire."

"But that's what I saw."

"That lady-whoever she is-could be wrong."

"She was right about me, and about Alec. He did protect me. He gave up everything to save me from the Grigori."

"Yes, and now he's moved on," Brian reminded her, "and he told you to move on, too."

"Easy for you to say." Claire sighed. "You don't feel like you've been stabbed in the heart."

"Claire," Erica encouraged softly, "I understand how much you're hurting right now. But you said yourself, you and Alec weren't allowed to be together anyway. He made a huge sacrifice for you, but it was his choice. He doesn't want you to stop living just because he left. He would want you to go to this dance, I'm sure of it."

"You and Neil would make a great couple," Brian added. "He could be prince to your princess."

"And he's human," Erica put in.

Claire sighed. She felt raw inside. She had no interest in going to the dance with anyone but Alec. But her friends' arguments were wearing her down. Maybe they were right. Her mom would be thrilled about Neil's invitation, too. She'd say this was perfect timing, that Claire should accept and go and be happy.

Claire stared down at the picture she'd doodled. Beneath the floating bunnies were the toothy, gaping jaws of a giant alligator, waiting to swallow them all whole. Her life, she thought grimly, as she saw it now.

"Okay," she said in resignation, "I guess I'll think about it."

The next morning, Claire put on a smile, found Neil, and accepted his invitation. Although it had to be obvious that she was less excited about going than he was, Neil still seemed elated.

When they joined Brian and Erica for lunch, talk turned to how they were going to help Claire run a Homecoming Princess campaign. Despite her protests to the contrary, the others insisted it was important. In the end, Claire agreed that if nothing else, it might be a good distraction. Neil said he'd help bake cookies, Brian offered to Photoshop Claire's picture and have posters printed, and Erica agreed to help put them up.

"Just promise me you're not thinking of something like that." Claire pointed to an expensive-looking color poster on a nearby wall featuring Gabrielle Miller in a skintight tank top and long red gloves, staring out in a s.e.xy pose.

"Well," Erica said, wrinkling her nose, "you don't have to get all s.l.u.tty about it."

Neil suggested that he and Claire run in tandem, so they made posters featuring a photo of the two of them with the slogan, "A Winning Pair: Vote Neil and Claire." They made dozens of cookies, plastic-wrapped them with their inserted slogan, and handed them out to an enthusiastic crowd. It was time-consuming and exhausting, but somehow even all that activity didn't serve to fill the emptiness inside Claire whenever she thought of Alec.

She held conversations with him in her mind, closing her eyes and s.h.i.+vering with emotion as she recalled the sound of his voice, the deep green of his eyes gazing into hers, and the feel of his arms around her. She found herself searching the crowds at school, hoping to catch a glimpse of him standing in the shadow of an archway or peering down at her from a rooftop. But he was gone, truly gone.

You said to move on, she told him silently, swallowing down the lump in her throat. And that's what I'm trying to do.

The week crawled by. Claire tried to hide her loneliness and despair as she dealt with the routines of daily life. Take out the trash. Help make dinner. Do her homework. She and Erica staged another seance to try to communicate with Helena, but weren't able to make contact. Since there were no news reports of mountain lions roaming the streets of Los Angeles, they decided the danger must not be imminent after all. One bright note was that Claire and her mom were getting along better than ever, now that they could finally be honest with each other.

Then, on Thursday evening, her mom came home with a surprise.

"Honey, look what I found!" Claire's mom burst into her room carrying something on a hanger, obscured by department-store plastic.

"I know we planned to go shopping for your dress tonight after dinner, but I found this on my lunch hour." Her mom draped the mysterious garment on the bed and stepped back. "Tell me what you think."

Claire removed the plastic bag and couldn't hold back a gasp. It was a s.h.i.+mmery blue dress. The s.h.i.+mmery, four-hundred-dollar blue dress that she had admired with her mother a week ago.

"I know how much you loved it." Her mom beamed. "And it was on sale-fifty percent off. I couldn't resist."

Claire's heart thudded in her chest. Her mom was so ecstatic, an expectant look on her face. There was no way Claire could admit what was really on her mind. So she hugged her mom tightly, keeping her face averted. "Thanks, Mom. You're amazing."

When her mom left the room, Claire stared at the dress, frozen in disbelief and fear. She'd never been one to care all that much about clothing, but she loved this dress. There was just one problem.

She might be destined to die in it.

The school schedule was rearranged on Friday so that the Homecoming a.s.sembly was the last event of the day. Claire had just squeezed in next to Brian in the bleachers when Erica stepped up to the microphone on the gym floor.

"Thank you for casting your votes. We look forward to seeing you all after the game at tomorrow night's dance, where we'll announce our Homecoming Queen, King, Prince, and Princess. Best of luck to all the nominees."

Claire's mind was so consumed with worry about the Cougar Vision and the Dress that she didn't hear any of the prefects' announcements that followed, and was incapable of partic.i.p.ating in the cheers for the next day's football game. Things went from bad to worse when the entertainment started. She and Alec would have been up there, if only her world wasn't such a complicated mess. Instead, the grunge band performed in their place, followed by a barbershop quartet.

Brian sent her sympathetic glances throughout the a.s.sembly, while covertly surfing the internet on his phone. His shoulder was feeling so much better now that he'd given up the sling and was able to work two-handed.

"Do you actually prefer EMD to this stupid a.s.sembly?" Claire whispered. "Put your phone away!"

"I prefer that you live," Brian whispered back. She'd told him and Erica about the new dress the night before, and for the first time, even Brian had seemed worried. Ever since, he'd been searching for clues to Helena's whereabouts. "For all we know, if you wear that dress, you could end up in a litter box."

"Bri, I've spent weeks combing the internet, looking for Helena. It's a lost cause. Give it a rest."

"No. The only way we can know what's up is to find her. I still say if Helena asked you to come see her, she must be somewhere in Southern California, close enough that you could actually get yourself there." As he stared at his phone, his eyes suddenly lit up. "Holy c.r.a.pzores."

"What?"

He whispered, "Claire, I am a G.o.d. Not the G.o.d, but a G.o.d."

"What are you talking about?"

"This video was posted on the internet over two weeks ago. Look."

He handed Claire his phone, turning it sideways so that the video filled the screen. He'd muted the sound, but it was obviously a clip from a local news channel. Behind the reporter was a huge white building, with a sign that read TWIN PALMS HOSPITAL.

"A hospital?" Claire said, confused.

"Just keep watching."

A new image was superimposed on the screen: a close-up of a pale woman asleep in a hospital bed. Although the image was tiny, and the woman's white-blond hair hung limply around her face, she still resembled the lady in Claire's visions. She even had the same beauty mark on her right cheek just above her mouth. Claire's heart skipped a beat.

"You said she had pale blond hair and a beauty mark. Is that her?" Brian asked.

"It might be her. Who is she? I need to hear what the reporter is saying."

The minute the a.s.sembly let out, Claire and Brian grabbed Erica. The three of them raced to Brian's car, where they sat and watched the video several times.

"Police are still trying to identify a pedestrian who was injured in a traffic collision last Friday. She's a Caucasian, presumed to be in her early sixties, with chin-length, light blond hair. She was found wearing a navy-blue dress, but carried no other identifying information. She is stable but unable to speak, and has been transferred to Twin Palms Hospital in West Hollywood. If anyone has any information about the ident.i.ty of this woman, please contact the police, or call the facility directly at the following number."

A phone number flashed across the screen, and the video ended.

"How'd you find this?" Erica leaned forward from the back seat, awestruck.

"I kept adding every search word I could think of into the Google mix," Brian answered. "When I combined Twin Palms and woman with missing person and hospital, this came up."

Erica looked impressed. "You are a G.o.d, Brian."

"That's what I've been saying." He beamed.

Claire's pulse raced. Was it possible that this was the woman she was looking for? "All this time that I've been getting messages, I never imagined that she might be injured or lying in a hospital bed somewhere."

"Well, if it is her, this explains why she's been trying to contact you telepathically, instead of coming in person," Brian pointed out. "West Hollywood is only about half an hour away with traffic. Let's go see her!"

"How am I supposed to talk to her, if she can't speak?" asked Claire.

"You were able to commune with your long-lost father's spirit just by touching his jacket, and now you're worried about communicating with a live person who happens to also be psychic?" Erica answered.

"Oh. Good point. Let's go right now," Claire said. Erica's face fell. "Right now? I can't. I have to go count votes with the committee."

"Oh, too bad," Brian replied with mock sympathy. "I guess that means I get to do something fun for a change." He turned to Claire. "May I be your chauffeur?"

Twin Palms Hospital was an immense, modern facility bustling with activity. When Brian and Claire asked about the mystery patient, they were told to sign in, given visitor's badges, and directed up to the trauma unit on the sixth floor. Exiting the elevator, they approached the nursing station, where a woman in pink scrubs was busy doing paperwork.

"Hi," Claire began with a smile. "We saw something on the news about an unidentified woman who was injured in a traffic accident."

"Oh!" The nurse looked up with sudden interest. "Do you know her, honey?"

"It might be my aunt," Claire replied, reciting the excuse she and Brian had concocted.

The nurse checked a chart. "She's in room 643. I'll walk you over there."

As the nurse hurried down the corridor, Claire said, "They mentioned on the news that she can't speak. What happened? Did she have a stroke or something?"

"No, she suffered a severe head trauma. She's in a coma."

A coma? Claire thought. Holy c.r.a.p.

"If she doesn't wake up, they're moving her to another facility next week." The nurse led them into a room where a pale-haired woman was lying asleep in bed, a thin blue blanket drawn up to her chest, her arms resting outside the blanket at her sides. Claire's pulse quickened.

It was her. Although she looked a bit more haggard than the woman in Claire's visions, it was definitely the same softly wrinkled, beautiful face. Helena.

Claire nodded covertly at Brian. His eyes widened.

"Is she your aunt?" the nurse asked.

"I'm not sure," Claire said. "I haven't seen her since I was five years old. I think I need a minute."

The nurse's pager beeped. "Okay, honey. Just let me know-or if you can't find me, you can tell any nurse on the floor."

"Thank you."

The nurse exited. Claire drew two chairs up next to the bed and sat down nervously. "I can't believe I'm finally in the same room with her."

Brian took the seat next to her, his brow furrowed. "What should I do? I've never seen this before."

"Just sit there and wait." Claire slipped the glove off her right hand, flexing her fingers. "If I start talking with someone else's voice, don't freak out."

Brian gaped. "What?"

Claire didn't feel like explaining it. She took a deep breath, then carefully picked up the woman's hand in her own. To her surprise, almost immediately, a jolt of electricity seemed to pa.s.s from the woman's body into hers. Suddenly, all the sounds around her ceased, as if she was inside an isolation chamber. The world around her vanished entirely.

She was no longer sitting in the hospital. In fact, she was no longer sitting. She was standing in a black void, similar to the one in which she'd met the woman before. Claire stared down at her arms and gasped. The green flames of her aura radiated from every pore of her body, flickering into the blackness.

Claire heard the patter of distant footsteps. A speck of golden light appeared on the horizon and slowly approached. Her heart pounded in antic.i.p.ation. As the light drew nearer, it grew brighter and brighter, changing the blackness around her to a void of brilliant white. Claire squinted, as if she'd stepped out of a dark movie theater into blinding suns.h.i.+ne.

A figure came into focus, surrounded by a golden aura. It was the same woman, but she looked prettier and infinitely healthier than she did in the hospital bed. She wore the same blue dress and sparkly diamond necklace as in their previous encounters, her white-blond hair was once more stylishly coiffed, and her complexion was pink and vibrant-yet she was not smiling.

She stopped a few feet away and regarded Claire with a stern glare as their auras faded away. "You certainly took your sweet time getting here."

thirty-two.

Claire bristled, so taken aback by the woman's p.r.i.c.kly expression and tone that she forgot what she'd planned to say. "I'm sorry," she replied defensively. "But you didn't exactly send me GPS coordinates. It took me a while to find you."

"I thought my messages were clear," the woman replied, the raspy edge absent from her now familiar, cultured British voice. "Perhaps you did not receive them in their entirety."

"I guess not."

"That may be a reflection of my injury, or your inexperience. Most likely, it's both," the woman said crossly. "But it's of no matter now. At least you are here."

Claire stared at her. She had imagined meeting a sweet older lady, not a b.i.t.c.hy one.