Covet (Clann)

second-floor landing.
    “Hey, sis. Sorry you’re so sick. Need any help or…?”
    “No, thanks,” she grumbled as she shuffled into her bedroom and flopped onto her bed.
    “She’ll be fine,” Mom said, bringing up the rear with a glass full of murky greenish-brown fluid that could only be some terrible mix of herbs and spells. “We just need to get this down her, and keep it down long enough for it to kick in.”
    Emily croaked, “Honestly, Mom, I’m not that sick.”
    Yeah, right. She just didn’t want to drink that nasty crap Mom always shoved down our throats every time we got a sniffle.
    “Oh please, you’ve been barfing for hours,” Mom argued. “Now hush up and let your mother take care of you for a while.”
    I shut my door, grateful not to be Emily right now. I didn’t know what would be worse…alone in a dorm room with the flu, or suffering from Mom’s herbal drinks. But at least one good thing should come out of it. Mom would probably be too busy taking care of Emily for a few days to stir up any more anti-vamp attitudes within the various branches of the Clann. That ought to give Dad a chance to calm everyone down.
    I tried to picture Mom on the phone with all of the descendants and cringed. Now that would be bad. Mom could stir up World War III in a matter of hours. As smart as Emily was, I wouldn’t put it past her to be faking the flu just to keep Mom too busy to nag Dad endlessly for a crackdown on vamps’ rights.
    Later that night, I went to Emily’s door to check on her.
    It sounded like she was barfing up everything and the kitchen sink in her adjoining bathroom.
    I cracked her door open and called out, “Sis, do you—”
    “Go away,” she moaned.
    I eased the door shut and carefully stepped away from her room. I should have remembered how cranky she got when she was sick.
    There was a girl who would never go down without a fight.

CHAPTER 30
    The rest of the week was relatively peaceful, at least at school. Either Dad or Savannah must have put the fear into Dylan and the twins, because they left her alone.
    On the home front, though, things were decidedly less than calm. Not only were Mom’s herbal drinks not working, but Emily and Mom were now arguing on a daily basis about sending Emily to the hospital or at least to Dr. Faulkner for a checkup. Apparently she wasn’t able to keep much down. Knowing how much Emily hated needles, I wasn’t surprised that she was refusing to go for a checkup. She would probably cave eventually; nobody stood up to Mom for long except maybe Dad. Then again, knowing Emily’s pride, she was more than likely already wanting to see a doctor and just refusing to go in order to show Mom she was in charge of her own life now.
    This wasn’t the first time Emily and Mom had butted heads, and it wouldn’t be the last. The safest course of action for Dad and me and any other innocent bystanders was to stay out of the war zone as much as possible until either a winner or a truce was declared.
    But on Friday afternoon when I came home and heard her sobbing in her room, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
    I knocked on her door. She sniffled and said, “What, Tristan?”
    I opened the door an inch. “How did you know it was me?”
    “Because Mom just barges in, and Dad’s too scared to cross the battle line.”
    I opened the door a little wider. “How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? The latest Cosmo issue, one of those eye mask thingies, some nasal spray?” She looked beyond bad, her face swollen so much I could barely see her eyes. Her nose was painfully red, as if she’d blown it so many times she’d rubbed off the top layer of skin.
    She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I know, I look like crap.”
    “Not to side with Mom here, but maybe you should go see a doctor.” Mom’s herbal drinks, nasty as they were, had never once failed to cure us of any illness within a day or two.
    “I know. I should have gone yesterday.” She stared out the window on the wall opposite her bed. “I just…really don’t want to see that smug look of Mom’s if I give in.”
    I tried not to smile. “So in the meantime you’re miserable. Very mature of you.”
    She tossed a pillow at me. It went wide, harmlessly bouncing off the wall.
    Her cell phone beeped on the nightstand. She grabbed it and froze while reading the screen.
    “Your college buddies worrying about you?” I asked, nodding at her phone when she looked up with her eyebrows drawn in