“Sure,” he said easily. “Is it about Jill?”
“Nothing at all to do with her, actually.” I gestured to the bed. “Maybe you should sit down.”
Neil frowned, alerted by my tone. “I’ll stand, thanks. Just tell me what’s happening.”
I crossed my arms, as though I could protect myself from all the anguish I was about to dredge up. Until then, I didn’t realize how I’d been fighting to keep it from crushing me.
“Neil, there’s no easy way to say this . . . and I’m so sorry to be the one telling you . . . but Olive died two nights ago.”
Neil made no sound at all, but his face went white, so white I thought he might pass out. “No,” he said at last, after several long moments of agonized silence. “No, that’s impossible.” He shook his head adamantly. “No.”
“A Strigoi killed her,” I said. Whereas I’d initially struggled to find words, I now suddenly found myself rushing forward, unable to stop. “She was staying in a dhampir commune. In Michigan. A small group of Strigoi attacked it, breaking through the wards somehow. We think they got a human to pull one of the warding stakes up. Regardless, they got in, and Olive was caught when she was running away and—”
“Wait,” interrupted Neil. In the blink of an eye, his stricken face had turned hard and skeptical. “Olive wouldn’t run away from a fight. Certainly not from a group of Strigoi. She of all people would stand her ground.”
That terrible agony ripped through me. “She was running away to protect her baby. Declan—the baby my mom is taking care of.”
Another heavy silence filled the room as the weight of those words sunk in. I wished then that I’d waited for Sydney. She would have done a more eloquent job explaining this.
“And it wasn’t even the Strigoi she was running from,” I said, when Neil only continued to stare at me in shock. “Neil, the baby, Declan . . . he’s yours. Your son. You’re the father.”
Disbelief returned to Neil’s features, but this time it was more stunned than angry. “We both know that’s not true,” he said. “Was that . . . was that why she ran? Did she think I’d judge her? We had no real commitments, not truly. I was crazy about her, it’s true, but there was just—”
“The one time, I know,” I finished. “But that’s all it took. Somehow, something happened to her when she was restored from being a Strigoi that let her conceive a baby with you. I didn’t believe it either until I looked at him more closely with my magic. There’s definitely a spiritual, I don’t know, residue on him. It’s crazy, I know. But he is yours.”
Neil sat on the bed, so still he could have been a statue. I understood his grief and sat beside him. “Neil, I’m so sorry.”
“Olive’s dead,” he said numbly. He looked up at me and blinked back tears. “If what you’re saying is true—if somehow, through some sort of magic, that baby is mine, then why didn’t Olive tell me herself? Why’d she run away?”
“Because she was afraid of that magic,” I said. “And she was afraid of what people would say or do—both the Moroi and the Alchemists. She hid him to protect him from being treated like a freak of nature, and I promised to help protect him.”
Neil stared blankly for several moments, and then I think hearing about protection woke up his better instincts. “Who knows? Who knows about D-Declan?”
“About his true nature?” I gestured to myself. “Only me and Sydney. Rose and Dimitri know he’s Olive’s, as do a couple of people back at the commune. That’s it. We thought it was safest that as few people know about him as possible. If they knew that somehow, probably through Olive being restored, dhampirs could have kids . . . well, it’d shock a lot of people. Some would be happy, some curious. They’d all want to learn more about him, and that’s not what Olive wanted.”
Neil remained silent and nearly as motionless as Alicia had been.
“Neil?” I said, a little unnerved by his shell-shocked state. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll help you. We’ll make sure Olive’s wishes are honored—that Declan lives a happy, normal life. Once this business with Jill is over, we’ll get you and Declan together and—”
“No,” said Neil, suddenly coming to life. He looked up at me sharply, and though his expression was hard, there was a terrible sadness in his voice. “I can’t ever see him again.”