by Tara Brown
“Where—how did you get that? I thought I’d lost it,” he called after me.
“You did.”
“Where are you going?”
I turned around to see the fear in his face. “You abandoned me as a baby, afraid of my world. It hasn’t gotten any better.”
I walked back the way the maid had brought me and left the huge house, wishing things could be the way they were.
But at least I knew the truth. No matter how bad things got, I was grateful for the truth. The truth hadn’t killed me—it had made me stronger.
My finger felt bare without my uncle’s ring, but the Roses Academy ring meant more now that my other lives were gone forever.
I got back on the bus, feeling a fire inside.
A fire made of a terrible truth.
Dorian was my father.
For the first time in my life, I had a father, but he didn’t know—he couldn’t know.
He was always so kind to me; there was no way he could’ve left me alone in the world, knowing I was his. And how could he have known if my mother disappeared? I wondered if he’d looked for her. I cringed, thinking about him as my dad. He wasn’t exactly dad material.
When the bus pulled up to the seedy part of town, I got off and walked to my old hood.
As much as I was scared, I knew I was stronger than anyone else in the building. No mere human was strong enough to hurt me. I walked to the floor of Mila and Selena’s apartment, the one I’d shared with them a long time ago.
The dark halls smelled of varying types of food and a stink that could only come from a building where decomposition was a regular occurrence. People, food, rodents; everything had rotted within the walls at one point or another.
Their apartment number was 707. The door didn’t have the scratches it should, the scratches I recalled making. My memories were false. None of it had happened. Selena and Mila wouldn’t remember me. They would hate me instantly. They would never let me in. They would try to hurt me. Street smarts would tell them the clean stranger at their door was probably a young cop.
I knocked and took a deep breath.
I heard footsteps behind the door and muffled voices.
The knob turned. “You got to have the wrong apartment, bitch. We don’t deal, and even if we did, we wouldn’t deal to some dumb college bitch like you.” Selena answered the door, skinnier than I remembered her being. Her dark arm was covered in track marks.
Ignoring her, I reached a hand out, faster than she could comprehend, and grabbed her by the throat so she couldn’t make a move. The push came out slowly, preventing her from screaming. I stepped into the apartment, taking Selena with me. Suddenly, the picture filled the dark hallway of the entrance to the apartment.
Selena was eleven. She was walking home after going to the store for her mom. A man came up to her and showed her a picture of his lost dog. He acted sad. She agreed to help him search. Suddenly, she was in a trunk. She threw up, she was so scared. He pulled her from the trunk and dragged her to a trailer out in the woods. She ran away from the trailer when she was thirteen. She knew the way home. She walked there, scared and starving, but they were gone. Her family had left her behind. Her house was empty.
The picture flashed and she was back on the sidewalk and the man asked her to help him search for the dog. She screamed as loud as she could and ran, just like her mommy had told her to. A clerk came out of the store and grabbed the man. The police came and asked her questions. Selena’s mommy held her and kept her safe, and they took the bad man away. The picture flashed again and Selena was walking down the aisle squeezing her dad’s hand. He gave her to the handsome man in the military uniform. Selena smiled at the man and faded.
She got her wish, the one she always spoke of when we lived on the streets together. All she had ever wanted was to be married and normal.
I sobbed silently as Selena vanished, leaving behind a white pebble. It floated in the air for a second and crashed to the floor, rolling away from me. I knew it was the magic pebble she had told me about once. Every night when she was held captive, she made a wish and rubbed it, praying for either her life to end or the opportunity to get away.
“Selena, what the hell? Who was at the door?” Mila stormed out of her room in nothing but underwear and a tank top. She frowned angrily at me. “Who the hell are you? Get the hell out of my house.”
My hand shot up to Mila’s throat, the same as I’d done to Selena to prevent her from screaming.
Mila tried to struggle for a second but went still as the air sparkled. The air around us filled with a picture. Mila’s mom was passed out on the couch with pills around her. Mila’s father was screaming at her mom and Mila was hiding under the table, watching. Mila closed her eyes and prayed. She might have been twelve. A knock at the door broke the noise. A woman came in. She yelled at Mila’s dad and peered under the table at a frightened young Mila. She offered her hand, but Mila looked at her mom on the couch and shook her head. She couldn’t go with her aunt and leave her mom. Her aunt left. Mila was starving. She needed food. Her stomach hurt. She took the pills from her mom and ate them. Then instead of food, she needed the pills. She left school and ran away when the pills ran out.
The picture flashed and Mila was back under the table. When her aunt put her hand out, Mila took it. She hugged her and pulled her away from the house. Mila went to a small but clean apartment. There was food and hugs. She faded from the picture as a nurse in uniform stroking the hair of a dying man, speaking soft words to him as he passed. A silver ruby earring hung in the air. It was the only thing Mila had from her old life. It had been her mother’s. I reached for it as it tumbled to the ground and rolled near the white stone.
I collapsed onto the floor in a pile of tears as I remembered their pain for only the second I allowed myself. I knew I could roam the streets for years, sending everyone back if I allowed myself to know their pain.
I needed to close myself off from it all.
Chapter 21
Which is worse: pride or prejudice?
Aimee
I looked up from the letters, confused and yet reminded of why I’d always liked him. “You’ve been writing my dad for a year and a half, pretending to be me?”
“I had to.” Shane walked up to his truck. “He was so sad, Aimes. He was getting to a dark place. Alise left with dickhead, and he was alone and always asking me if I’d seen or heard from you. I couldn’t take it.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I pressed my lips together.
“Don’t say anything.” He said it with a tone, one I didn’t like. “I didn’t do it for you. He’s the only family I have left.”
“Your dad and mom?”
“My mom killed herself, Aimee.”
My lips fell open. “Shane.” Tears filled my eyes.
But he ignored my sympathy and pressed on. “And my dad remarried that girl, the one my sister went to school with. My sister took a job in Sweden and left me here, disgusted and heartbroken by the whole thing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“My dad has a new baby boy, but he said I’m not welcome there until I can act respectable to my new stepmom.” He chuckled bitterly. “Which means I probably won’t ever see the kid.”
“I had no idea.”
He looked hurt. “How could you? Where have you been? Busy with your new friends in the city? Are you even in Seattle or is it still Portland?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Stop saying that and get in the truck.” He opened the door for me.
“I can’t.”
He leaned in as though he might kiss me, but might also possibly rip my head off. “Get in.”
“Maybe I can hang out a little longer.” I wasn’t scared of vampires or werewolves or demons, but the look on his heartbroken face crushed and scared me.
I climbed in, pretending my stomach wasn’t clenched tight. It remained so, even when I glanced up at the window to see my smiling father waving. I waved
back, wishing everything was different.
Shane got in the truck and started it, not looking at me or speaking. We drove in awkward silence until I finally blurted, “I’m seeing Aleks.” I said it, rattled and stressed.
“I don’t care. No wait—I do. Do you love him?” He slammed on the brakes and stared at me, his eyes piercing mine.
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Not the way I love you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he snapped, turning back to look at the road. “You do still love me but you’re dating him?”
“I don’t think about loving you, or living with my father, or being best friends with Giselle. I’ve put you all in a pile of things I can’t have—things I can’t hurt if I’m not here.”
“Are you kidding me!” He slammed on the brakes. “Aimee, you are fooling yourself if you think anyone has been spared by your distance. We are all hurt and abandoned.”
“I know.” I blinked out the tears flooding my eyes.
He sighed, pulling me into him. He smelled like ocean air, deodorant, and the wind.
I took a deep breath of him, refueling myself with love and comfort. I let it last too long before I pulled away from him. “I need to end this with Aleksander before I start something with you.” I winked myself out of the truck and back to the mansion.
There wasn’t even a second of dread and contemplation before Aleks burst through the front door. “Hey, we have a problem. Ari is gone. No one can find her.”
“Oh great.”
“Ben’s a wreck and Lucas is actually running like a madman all over town. Probably as a wolf. We’ll be picking him up from the pound I suspect.” He smiled at his own joke. He was handsome. Everything about him was as if he had been made just for me. His dark-blond hair and white-blue eyes made my knees weak, but his voice was like listening to my favorite song. The problem was that he had the same effect on every woman he met, but I liked to pretend he existed just for me.
“We need to talk about us first.”
“What?”
I bit my lip, trying to keep a small amount of distance from him. “Lucas told me you and I never got together in the way the world was before Ari pushed and changed it. I was with Shane. I guess Ari is the one who got us back together. She made a mistake and Shane and I ended up seeing each other and dating.”
“I’m aware of that.” His voice was cold, the humor long gone.
“I’ve been thinking that if I was with him before and I didn’t kill him, then I should be able to do it now. If I’m able to let him in my life again without hurting him, it’s what I want. He was always the one for me.”
“I see.” His devastatingly handsome face remained stoic as it did with most things. “I never knew I played second fiddle. I thought you chose me. How foolish.” He chuckled painfully and then was gone, leaving me surrounded by the warm wind. I took a deep breath, feeling relief mixed with sickness.
Nothing would be easy but being with Shane was what I wanted, and being honest with Alex was what was right, no matter how hard it was.
I winked myself home to my dad’s and knocked on the door.
“Hey, kiddo, come on in.” He held the door open for me. “You’re back so soon.”
I walked inside and hugged him as hard as I could. I ignored the heat in my hands craving his life force. I ignored the pain I’d brought him, trying to protect him, and I just held tightly to him. “Daddy, I made a mistake.”
“With Shane again, is it?”
“Always.”
He pulled me back. “Well, let’s have a little Austen then, shall we? You can tell me all about it over some tea.”
“It’s just what I need.” I sighed into him, letting him lead me inside.
“The new TV is pretty fancy. Blake bought it for me for Christmas last year. He said some fairly rude things about our old TV.”
“That’s Blake. Do they come and visit?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s a long way and a lot of money. Which movie?”
“Pride and Prejudice?”
“Good, I like that Darcy fellow.”
“I missed you, Dad.”
“Me too, kiddo.”
“I’m glad I’m home.”
His eyes sparkled. “Me too.”
Chapter 22
Death by jazz hands
Ari
I wanted to go back to Lydia’s.
I wanted to curl up in my bed and go to sleep.
I wanted to let the whole day just pass me by.
The hunger in my hands was long gone from having pushed several people in one day, but the itch in my legs was still there. I knew what I needed to do, I just really didn’t want to do it.
Forcing myself, I got a taxi to the airport and booked my flight. I kept looking around for Lucas, expecting him to sniff me out. I was sadly disappointed when I checked my cell phone to find nothing but messages from Ben. He begged and pleaded for a chance to see me and try to fix things. The new churchy me cried inside. She was desperate to fix things with Ben. She tried to torture me with images of the loving and gentle caresses and flashes of soft romantic words spoken and the way Ben looked at me. The love in his eyes made sorrow in my heart, even if it wasn’t mine.
There was no consoling the other me so I pushed her behind the curtain I’d made in my mind. I deleted the messages on the phone and searched for Dorian’s number.
I sent him a quick text.
We need to chat.
I sat staring at the phone like a stalker, waiting for him to respond, but he didn’t answer before they called my flight.
I sent another quick message.
You’re my dad.
Instead of beating around the bush, I went for the big guns, hoping he would respond.
I waited until I was the last person boarding the plane, staring at my two delivered texts. He never responded. Both messages had an R beside them. He’d read them and not responded. My imaginary world, where he was excited about being my father, collapsed.
There was still a little orphan inside me who dreamed of a family.
Dorian was my one shot. He might not be a fatherly man but he was all I had.
In the whole world he was it.
I closed the phone, ignoring the blinding tears filling my eyes, and dropped it in the trash as I boarded.
Deep down all I wanted was to see Aimee so she could tell me everything would be okay. I thought about her as I sat in my seat and buckled my belt. I’d never been on a plane in my life. Nervous about flying, I watched the people sitting around me. They seemed normal and calm. I pretended to be like them.
The takeoff was frightening but once we were in the air, I calmed down.
The turbulence was nerve wracking, but I knew that every mile we flew led me home.
I was unsure of what I would find, but there had to be something about Jal that hadn’t changed. I missed my hometown, even if it wasn’t mine anymore.
When I stepped off the plane at the Albuquerque International Airport, I was confused as to where I was supposed to go. I needed to find my connecting flight to Hobbs. Following the other people leaving the plane with me turned out to be a mistake. They all splintered off in different directions.
“You lost?”
I glanced over to a man in a dark-blue uniform. He was a little older than me, with a very nice smile. He had an Australian accent. I liked accents.
“I am.”
His dark-brown eyes sparkled. “Well, just my luck. I never stumble upon the pretty girls who are lost.”
I laughed.
“Where are you going?”
“Hobbs.”
“You need a connecting flight?”
“Yes.”
“This way.” He started to walk, pointing me in the right direction.
“Thanks.”
“No prob. So you from Hobbs?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m from a small place just south. Jal.”
He smiled
brightly. “Yes, I’ve been a few times, a couple of years ago.”
“Was there a diner on the outskirts?”
He laughed. “Cookie’s. I haven’t thought about that place in ages. God, I loved the food. It’s a bit of a dive, but the burgers are the best I’ve ever eaten. You going there?”
“I am.” Cookie was like a long-lost relative. He was everything my uncle had been to me, before. I couldn’t wait to see him.
“Well, have a burger for me.” The man stopped and pointed. “This is your gate. Looks like you board in five minutes.”
“Thanks so much.”
He bowed slightly. “It was my pleasure. Have a safe flight.” He turned and left me standing at the small gate with only a few chairs. I sat in one and waited for them to call boarding.
I tried not to think about the fact Lucas would never find me. They didn’t know where in New Mexico I was from. I had never spoken about home with any of them in the new world. Home in this world had been an orphanage.
There would be no getting back to Portland, not that I wanted to go back. I hoped Cookie would give me a job and I could build a life in Jal, somewhat certain of a few things.
The flight on the small charter plane was beyond frightening. It was something out of a movie with twin turbines on the front. The entire trip I was certain we would crash and I’d be the sole survivor because of my demon blood.
Luckily, it was fast and over before it had started.
The best part was when I got off the plane to the dry warm air.
Like a sweet musk, it filled my nostrils and welcomed me home. I loved the air and heat that forced the drenched awful feeling of the coastline to leave me.
I stood near the plane and inhaled deeply several times before I went inside to catch the transit from the airport. It was a coach line bus direct to Jal.
Calm and peace hit me when I got off the bus at the stop. The town looked just as I recalled. Nothing was different. I walked along the street, smiling at people who looked at me like I was nuts. Missy West, who I had gone to high school with, gawked at me like I had three heads when I waved at her. She gaped and waved back awkwardly.