Raven had been told three times not to ask about her daughter. There were people out looking for her. Gunner left them and headed around the tables when she looked to her mother. There was blood all over her face and hands, and Raven wondered if it was her mother’s or Molly’s. She hoped for her mother’s sake that it was hers and not her daughter’s.
Raven, honey, Gunner is going to get Molly. He said that he knows just where she is. Has she said anything about the blood? The cop that shot at her said that he thought he only broke a window. Perhaps he did more than that. Ask her about it.
Raven looked at her mother and asked her if she’d been hurt.
“No. You’re the second person that’s asked me that. I’m perfectly fine, Rachel.” Rachel? Raven asked her who that was, remembering that she’d had a sister of that name. But she had died long ago. “You, you dummy. You’re my sister Rachel. Don’t be stupid, and tell me what you’re doing here. How did you escape the fire?”
Raven knew about the fire too. There had been one when her mother was just a little girl, and it had taken the life of her entire family. What no one still knew was what had caused it and how Janet had gotten out. To find out that her mother was this entirely different person had blown her away.
Raven looked to where the others were sitting. “I’ve no idea how I got out of the fire, Janet. I must have been with you.” Her mother shook her head, and said that she’d been hiding out in the barn. The fire hadn’t caught there yet. “I don’t know then. Do you know how the fire was set? Some are thinking that you did it. Did you? That would be so cool if you did.” Sawyer asked her what she was doing. I don’t know. But let me just figure this out, all right?
“Wasn’t me. I did think about it a lot. I mean, there were so many candles in the place, all it would take was for one of them to be knocked over.” Mother leaned closer to her, still talking to her liked she was her sister, Rachel. “I mean, there wasn’t any way that I put a nice fat candle on the cast iron heater and let it melt all over the place before I left. No siree, wasn’t me.”
The laughter sounded manic. Insane. This wasn’t her mother, she had to keep telling herself. This was a person who had just admitted that she’d killed her family. All of them. But for what reason?
“What have you been doing with yourself? I mean, I wouldn’t have known you without your...your hair color.” Janet laughed again at Raven’s question, and Raven felt a little more of her heart break for who she had thought was just mean. No, this woman was a murderer. “You live around here?”
“I used to.” The frown made Raven think that she hurt to remember her or her father. Changing the subject, she thought about the things she’d read in the hastily written report that Gunner had found. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Here and there. I have a daughter now.” That made her head hurt, Raven saw. With her fingers to her temple, Janet was spreading blood around her face more. “Did you have a home to go to when you left the burning house?”
“Oh yes. I had a lot of them. Of course, none of them could handle me. I was such a wild child back then. I mean, they had all these rules. Just like Mom and Dad did. Don’t do this, don’t take the grocery money. I wasn’t allowed to steal magazines off the racks. That one really bothered me. How was I supposed to make myself look like I was above all of them when I didn’t know what good looking people looked like? You look just like you did as a kid, Rachel. Pretty hair. Nice full lips. I hated that you were pretty and didn’t have to do anything to make boys like you.”
“Is that why you set the fire? To kill me off because I was pretty?” Janet nodded, and said that Maggie was getting to be too pretty for her too. “Maggie, our little sister. You didn’t like that she was pretty too?”
“Hell no. I decided right then and there I was never going to have any kids that would be prettier than me.” She looked at her, and Raven had a feeling that she was trying very hard to figure out who she really was. “Rachel?”
“Yes.” Raven waited. She wanted to find out more, find more out about her mother that she’d never know. “What about Samuel? I mean, he was your...our brother. He couldn’t be prettier than you were, could he?”
“No, I guess not. But I had to get away from all of them. They were like leeches. Wanting to know what I was doing all day. Trying to get me to do housework and shit. I hated that kind of stuff. When I grew up, I knew that I was going to be someone that took pride in everything I had. Show it to the world that I had it all.” Janet frowned again. “Did I get that? Money and stuff?”
“Yes. You had lots of it.” Janet laid her head on the table. “Are you all right? Is there something that I can do for you?”
“No, I don’t want anything from anyone, Rachel. If you continue to be alive, I’m going to have to kill you—you know that, don’t you? I mean, you’re very beautiful, but I need to be the one that people admire.” She picked up the knife and Raven took it from her. “If I don’t kill you now, I know that I won’t get the chance again. Right?”
“You don’t want to kill me, Janet. You can’t.” She asked her why not. “Because I’m not your long dead sister that you killed. I’m your daughter. Raven.”
With her head still on the table, Janet/Mother looked at her. She didn’t say anything, but Raven could see that blood was pooling under her head. She knew that she might be dying, and hated that she really didn’t care right now.
Raven looked at Sawyer when he sat down at the table with them.
“Molly is in the hospital. She has head trauma, but Gunner has made sure that she’ll be just fine.” She asked him if he’d converted her. “No. He didn’t say that it would be necessary, but he won’t do it. You and I will have to if it comes to that. I’ve called an ambulance.”
“She killed her family because they were prettier than her.” He nodded, and Raven looked at her mother, who now had her eyes closed. “I feel so ashamed right now. I don’t care if she lives or dies. She’s hurt so many people in her life.”
“Yes, but will you be able to live with yourself if you think on it later and realize that you were the one that let her die?” She shook her head. “Take the knife there and cut a small wound into your thumb. Put your blood onto her tongue, and it should be enough to slow the bleeding down. You can hear her heart beating too, so you know that it’s getting weaker.”
“I can hear it.” Doing what Sawyer suggested, she put her blood on her mother’s tongue. Startled by the look that her mother gave her, Raven gave her just a little more. “I just realized that I don’t want her to die. I want her to pay for all the things that she’s done. Not just to me, but to everyone that she’s killed. They deserve some peace, not her.”
“When you’re ready, we’ll go to the hospital. She’ll be fine here. Your dad is coming to be with her until she gets to the hospital.” Getting up, Raven looked at her mother once more, unsure why all of a sudden she felt sorry for her. “Raven, she doesn’t deserve you. She’s nothing to you now.”
“I’m not sure that she ever was. A murderer? Yes. Thief? Yes. But my mother? Grandmother to my children? Never.”
She moved out of the club just as the ambulance was pulling up. Raven knew that she must look frightful. There was blood all over her hands and dress that she had on. When they got to the car, Sawyer handed her a bag and she changed into some pants and a T-shirt. Cleaning up with the wipes that were in the car too, she thought about her new life.
“I love you, Sawyer. I’m so glad that you saved my life twice.” He asked her what she meant. “When you saved my life at the beating, and today when you made me realize that I don’t have to love or respect someone just because I’m supposed to. Mother never did anything for me other than to just make me hate her.”
“She made you into what you are, regardless of what she did to make you that way. And for that, I will thank her. But nothing else.” He took her hand
into his. “I love you very much too, Raven. And will for the rest of our days together.”
Chapter 12
They drove to the hospital and Raven ran in ahead of him to see Molly. Parking the car, he made his way into the curtained off area that he’d been told Molly was in. His brother hugged him, and quietly told him what he’d found when he got to the vacant building.
“She had been tied to a chair. I’m going to teach her how to get out of one when she’s better. At some point, I can only assume she hit Molly and the chair fell over. It looks as if Merriam had also kicked Molly several times with her high heels.” Sawyer asked about the head wound. “They’ve stitched her up after doing x-rays. Fourteen stitches. But they’re worried because she lost a great deal of blood. I’ve not given her any. I was waiting to see what you would like to do.”
“I’ll give her what I can.” Sawyer looked at his brother when Raven spoke. She turned to look at them. “What are you trying very hard not to tell me?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” She stood up, ready to do battle with him. “Let me explain. When you gave your mother that little bit of extra, it was more than I thought you should have.” Then through their link, so Gunner couldn’t hear, he told her, You have to think of the baby now. “I’m not saying that you can’t give her any of yours, but you will need to make sure that it’s only a few drops. Just until we are sure that there won’t be any trouble after she wakes up.” Sawyer finished up so that Gunner could hear why he didn’t want Raven to give her much.
“I guess I can understand that.” Raven looked back at Molly. “Will it do anything to her? I mean, can she talk to me like you two can?”
“Yes. It might even give her a little magic. But we won’t know what that might be until she discovers it herself.” Raven asked if that would be a bad thing. “Not necessarily. But if she discovers it around others, humans, it might not settle well with them. You’ll have to have a talk with her when she wakes up.”
“So long as she wakes up, I don’t care if she can make bubbles out her ass.” Both he and Gunner laughed. Raven smiled. “I guess that was a stupid comment. But when can we do this? Now is fine by me.”
“Yes, so long as we’re careful with it. I know that it seems silly to worry about a few drops of blood from you, but you gave your mother a lot, and I need to keep you healthy for us, so you’ll—”
“Sawyer, honey, I don’t suppose you can do this later—after we save our daughter? I want her to wake up and speak to me. All right?” He smiled at her and bit down on his thumb. “I suppose you had me use a knife before because you didn’t want me to freak out. I am, just so you know.”
“I love you, Raven Bishop. Now hush and let me save our little girl.” His blood was stronger than Raven’s. He was full blooded, and she was only just turned. Sawyer didn’t really need her to give any of her blood, but he wanted her to feel like she helped. He thought that she might need that as much as anything right now. “Okay, just a few drops, Raven, all right?”
She counted them as she dropped them onto Molly’s tongue. He watched her as she held her thumb over her daughter’s mouth, and when she pulled away without risking her life and that of their child, he let go of the breath he’d been holding.
Gunner left when Molly was being transported to a room. Holly showed up a few minutes later, sobbing and crying about her little baby. Over and over, she kept telling Molly how sorry she was. No matter how many times Raven told her that it wasn’t her fault, she just didn’t believe them.
It was well after midnight when Roger joined them. Sawyer said that he was going to stretch his legs, and Roger, after kissing all three of the women, asked if he could go too. There was a sadness about him that broke Sawyer’s heart.
“Merriam is going to live. The doctors are baffled as to how she could have lived as long as she had and made it to the hospital. I’m assuming that you had something to do with that.” He told her that Raven had done it. “Why? As much as I love my daughter, I hate Merriam all that much and more. Why would she want her to be saved?”
“She killed her family. Burnt the house down around them while she was hiding in the barn. She also killed a hairdresser and a nail person. Robbed the place of not just money from the drawer, but also their purses. Merriam took a few things from the store, too, but it’s petty after she killed them both.”
“That doesn’t answer the question as to why Raven would save her mother.” Sawyer told Roger what Raven had said. “Oh. I guess I never thought about closure for anyone else but myself. I can’t believe the things that I’m finding out about her. None of it came out when I did a background check on her, simply because I didn’t have her real name. You know, I only married her because I wanted children, and she seemed to want them as well. Of all the things I’ve done in my lifetime, that’s the one thing that I’ll regret most.”
“You shouldn’t, Roger.” He asked him why the fuck not. “Without Merriam, you never would have had Raven or Molly. And even though Raven wants to tell you later, we’re going to have another child sometime in the early summer of next year.”
“No.” Sawyer nodded. “Really? Another grandchild? I will do better with this one. On that I’ve already made a promise to myself—assuming, I guess, that the two of you would want a child of your own.”
“Molly is just as much my child as Raven is yours. I love her with all my heart.” Roger hugged him, sobbing about the mistakes that he’d made while he leaned heavily on him. “You’re going to be just fine. And before I forget, I know that you’re having your home redone—great idea, I think. Anyway, Raven and I would like it very much if you came to live with us while it’s going on. Perhaps after it’s done you’ll feel so good about being around that you’ll just stay there.”
“I don’t think that— Hell, I’m not going to lie to you, I’d love to be out of that house. Maybe I can convince someone in your family to take it off my hands.” Sawyer laughed, sure that he was just joking. “Yes, I’d love to live with you and your family. I think it would do me a great deal of good with my whole starting my life over project.”
“Great. So, when Raven tells you, you’ll act surprised, won’t you? I mean, she might not want to hang around with me either if she finds out.” Roger said he could do that as well. They went to the cafeteria to get some drinks before going up to the room.
Sawyer’s parents had shown up while he and Roger were outside. His mother hugged him several times before she let his dad hug him. They both sat by the bed with Raven and touched Molly, telling her all the things they were going to do with her when summer rolled around again.
“Holly—I can call you that, can’t I?” Holly told Sippy that she’d like that very much. “I want to tell you something. You can relate to it, I think. When Sawyer was just a young boy, about Molly’s age or so, I dropped him off at school. I was in a hurry to run some errands and didn’t bother to see if he made it into the building or not. On my way home I was surprised to see how many other children were out playing in their yards. That was when I spied my son. He was in the yard of one of the other children, helping Mr. Abbot rake up his leaves. As you can imagine, I was so mad at him. Skipping school was not something that I would allow the children to do.”
“It was a weekend, wasn’t it? I’ve done that before with Roger.” Mom shook her head. “Okay, what happened?”
“There was a bomb threat. Not a threat, I suppose, but a real bomb. One of the children had brought it in for a science project. He didn’t know that it was real, but put it in his locker to take to class later. The heat of the day made it go off.” Holly asked if anyone had been hurt. Mom looked at him to continue the story.
“I could hear it. Also, I could smell the gun powder. So when I guessed what it was, I pulled the fire alarm. Just as everyone was able to get out of the school, the bomb, a nice sized one, went off and blew out two walls in the building. O
ne of them being the assembly room that we were all in for a pep rally.” Holly asked him if he’d been in trouble. “No. Mom and Dad were the only ones that knew what I’d done. There weren’t any cameras in the building back then, so there was no footage of me pulling the fire alarm. The school just figured that the heat of the day had done it, or some higher power. Whatever they believed, I let them. It was better than having to explain how I had heard the ticking of the bomb or was able to smell gun powder.”
“Oh my. I don’t know what to say. You saved all those lives.” Mom said that Holly was missing the point. “No, I don’t think so. Although I don’t know what this has to do with me leaving Molly alone so that she could be taken by Merriam.”
“It has everything to do with it. You see, I would never have become a cop if I’d not done what I did that day. Not just saving the others, but being able to figure things out. I put it together, like I do cases that I’m working on. I’ve been able to close a great many cases because of that one day. Also saved a lot of lives. The same with what happened today.” Holly looked at him, confused. “I know you feel guilty about dropping off Molly. But with her being taken, you were able to find out just what sort of person Merriam is. If not, the police would never have been able to figure out how an entire family had been killed with only one survivor. Yes, people were killed, but in the long run, you can only guess how many more would have died at her hand. But the most important thing is, Molly is going to live. She has powerful blood in her system that will keep her alive for a long time, not to mention let her heal much faster. And she will more than likely never get ill again. Plus, there is no telling what she’ll do with the events of the day. It’s all up to her. She’s alive. That’s all you should be focusing on.”
Sawyer hoped that he got through to Holly. He didn’t want her dwelling on things that could never be changed. They were all alive, safe, and together. That’s what his mom had told him the day after the explosion. That she was just grateful that they were still a family. He had never forgotten that since she’d told him.
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