Tainted

by Claire Farrell

  Chapter Three

  I closed the door behind Shay and Phoenix, but as I took a step toward the living room, Jessica’s father roared her name from upstairs, rooting me to the spot. I winced as what sounded like a lamp crashed against the floor. The noise was quickly followed by the man stumbling down the stairs. I ran and caught him before he face-planted on the floor. He looked me in the eye and recoiled.

  “Take it easy,” I said, trying to find something in him that reminded me of Gabe or maybe gave me an idea of what my mother had been like, but there was nothing. He was just a stressed-out man looking for his daughter in a place he wasn’t familiar with. Margie and Anka came down after him.

  “He wouldn’t stay put,” Margie said in a disapproving tone.

  He struggled, but I held on tightly.

  “Relax,” I said. “Jessica’s fine. Just waiting for you to wake up.” I sensed Jessica behind me and tried to lead her father into the living room, but he aggressively shrugged me off.

  Anka went over and tried to check his stitches. He shoved her away, sending her toppling against the bannister.

  “Anka, go home while I deal with this,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “He’s just scared.” She stepped around the man to squeeze my hand. “I’m fine, Ava.”

  “We’ll leave until he calms down,” Margie said, taking Anka’s arm and guiding her to the door.

  When I heard the front door close, I turned and glared at Jessica’s father. “First, you’re going to apologise for being such a dick to my friend.”

  He stared at me blankly.

  “This is my house,” I said. “Either calm down or get out.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Jess, let’s go.”

  I realised that he had been looking through me the entire time, more concerned with making his escape. I was just furniture in his eyes.

  “Dad!”

  “You heard her,” he said.

  “I wasn’t talking to Jessica,” I said coolly, beyond pissed off and probably not thinking very clearly. “She’s safe right where she is.”

  He snorted. “Oh, and you can somehow keep her safe?”

  “Yes, actually. This place is off limits to anyone who means us harm. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody here is trying to kill you. From what I hear, that’s a big change for you.”

  “Please,” Jessica said, going over and blocking him from the door. “Just listen for a few minutes. They could still be out there waiting for us to reappear.” She looked at me over his shoulder. “Right?”

  I shrugged. Whoever had been after her was long gone.

  “And my arm hurts really bad now, and you probably have concussion,” she added. “Let’s just calm down and have a rest while we figure out what to do next. I mean, if we leave and you pass out again, then I’m on my own, so let’s take a breather here. Okay, Dad?”

  They stared it out for a moment before he squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “Fine.” He adjusted his glasses and smoothed down his hair. “But then we’re leaving.”

  “I’ll go make tea or something.” What I really needed was to give myself a chance to calm down.

  In the kitchen, I tried to remember that those two had gone through hell, and I probably shouldn’t add to it by getting annoyed easily. The man had been chased by who knew what then had woken up in a strange place without his daughter. I should have been more understanding. And I had been until he put his hands on Anka. That wasn’t going to happen again to her, not if I could help it.

  Thinking about that made me realise he had managed to hurt someone, even though in a minor way, inside my home. That put some questions in my mind. Had he been able to cause harm because it was accidental, or was there some kind of loophole because he hadn’t stepped inside with an intention to harm? Just what were the limitations on the rules of protection?

  I threw a bunch of teabags into a creepy vampire-frog teapot Carl had bought me as a joke. I did a quick count and removed the sixth bag. There was enough drama without inviting bad numbers into the equation. I caught myself wiping down the counters in even strokes that added up to fourteen and forced my hand to quit. I didn’t need to revert to comforting myself with numbers every time I encountered a reminder of my heritage.

  I took the tea and some biscuits into the living room and sat on a chair. Jess and her dad were at opposite ends of the sofa, wearing identical stubborn expressions.

  “So…” I poured the tea into three cups. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m a… well, people come to me for help, and I find a way to help them. But I can’t help if anyone is violent to anyone else under my care. Do you both understand?”

  Jessica nodded, but her father didn’t react. Arsehole.

  “Maybe we could start with you two telling me what you know about Seth. What he looks like, the people he associates with, the—”

  “We don’t know anything.” The man’s expression shifted as he retreated behind an invisible wall.

  Okay, so wrong tactic. “I just realised we haven’t even been properly introduced yet. I’m Ava. Pleased to meet you.”

  When he didn’t respond, Jessica rolled her eyes and said, “His name is Adam.”

  “We have to leave,” Adam said.

  “We just decided to stay for a night,” Jessica said in an exasperated tone.

  “I know, but I can’t. I don’t want you in the presence of a tainted nephal. Not now. Not ever.”

  I drew back, trying hard to control my disgust. “I thought that’s what Jessica is.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I am.”

  “No,” Adam said. “The taint isn’t strong in her. There wasn’t enough time for it to fully infect her because I took her first.”

  Took her? “And Seth just… let you?” I asked. “He attacked her mother then stepped aside and said, ‘Go ahead, man. Your baby.’”

  “Of course not.” Adam glanced at Jess. “We had help. We were protected for long enough to get away.”

  “And her mother?”

  His face paled. “I… she died while I…”

  “While you?”

  “While I cut the baby from her womb. I had no choice! She was dying, but the baby had a chance to be saved. That’s what I was brought here for!” Sweat rolled down his cheeks.

  “Okay, calm down,” I said, seeing a frantic look cross Jessica’s face. “Jess, do me a favour and run outside. Look for Anka and Margie. Your dad’s feverish, and he needs—”

  “No!” He shot out his arm to grab Jessica.

  She jumped up and ran from the room.

  He glared at me. “I won’t let you! I won’t let you turn her into something dark. I won’t let you…” He blinked rapidly before promptly passing out on the sofa.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank feck for that.” I headed outside and found Jessica leaning against the wall in my garden. “Hey,” I said. “See anyone?”

  “Some kid was loitering outside your gate. She’s gone for help. I didn’t want to go back inside.”

  “That was Dita, Anka’s daughter. Your dad passed out. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

  “I bet you are,” I said. “But me? I wouldn’t be fine.”

  “Yeah, right.” She shrugged. “I saw you kill a monster. You’re strong.”

  I put my back against the wall and nodded toward the house next door. “Anka couldn’t hurt a fly, but after everything she’s been through, she’s still standing. She’s not fine all of the time, but she doesn’t let it stop her from pushing forward. That’s my idea of strength. And there’s nothing wrong with not being fine sometimes.”

  “So what makes a monster-hunter not fine then?”

  “One, I’m not a hunter. And two, lots of things. I’m a person, Jess.” She didn’t look convinced, so I carried on. “Last year, I saw a picture of my mother’s face for the first time in my entire life. The only two people who knew her are either dead or have no m
emory of her. I’ve nobody to talk to about her, and sometimes it kills me. I can only imagine how you feel when he talks like that.”

  “What do you think about what he did?” she asked, ducking her head and looking at me from under her eyelashes.

  “He had to save you.” I hesitated. “I understand the reason he gave.” I didn’t say how repulsed I was at the thought.

  “What if he could have saved my mother, too? Maybe I’d be more tainted or whatever, but we’d be a family.”

  “People don’t survive an attack by the first vampire. It’s too much for a person to handle.”

  “But we’re alive,” she said. “Both of us. How does that happen?”

  “I ask myself that all of the time.” I gave her a wry smile. “Sometimes, life is out of our hands. There’s a lot about fate and destiny and all of that shit, and while I think that, ultimately, we make our own futures, somebody else had a hand in our pasts.”

  “I need to find my friend. Parker has to still be out there.”

  I thought of Pheonix’s earlier reaction. “I’ll do what I can to track him down. I promise.”

  She fidgeted for a few moments before asking, “How come we weren’t followed in here?”

  “This place is kind of a sanctuary.”

  “But why?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Are you going to help me kill him?”

  “Seth? We don’t even know for sure if he’s in the country.”

  “Dad told me that the only reason we’re alive is because he promised I would be the one to kill Seth. I have to… I don’t know how I’m going to do that. Are you supposed to help me? Is that why we both survived?”

  “I don’t know, Jess. The thing is, sometimes I can’t—”

  “Ava,” Margie called from behind me. “Is he all right?”

  “Fever, I think,” I told her. “That and the fact he can’t calm down for five seconds straight. He’s in the living room.”

  “We mixed up a tonic for him, something to give him a peaceful sleep.” She looked at Jess and smiled. “But he’ll be fine. He’s in the right place. Trust me.”

  I stopped Anka, who had been following Margie, as she passed us. “You don’t have to go in there.”

  “He’s not usually like that,” Jess interjected. “I swear he isn’t.”

  Anka nodded. “I have no feelings on the matter.” She strode into my house with her head held high.

  I looked around the cul-de-sac and noticed a lot of curtains twitching. “We should get inside. Meeting the entire neighbourhood might be a little much for you right now.”

  “Wait,” Jessica said. “What were you going to say before?”

  I rubbed the ringed scar on my wrist. “Um, it’s kind of… awkward. I’m a little tied down when it comes to…” I sighed. “I have to ask for permission to help you, and I might not get it. Okay, kid? So I might not be able to kill Seth for you, but I can hide you here for a long time.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

  “But—”

  “You don’t understand what it’s been like. I can’t keep running. I want a life, Ava. A real life with… I just want all of this to stop.”

  I felt sorry for her. “Let me see what I can do. But let’s keep this between us for a bit, okay? If anyone asks, you’re in hiding. That’s all.”

  She stared at me for a long time. “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Even though you’re friends with that royal fae… man.”

  “He’s been through a lot,” I said under my breath. “Phoenix was a good man, and so was his father. But his mother was an evil bitch who went out of her way to destroy her own husband and rip any happiness from her son’s life. She took his memories, made him forget his human wife and his children. She even made sure his children were taken to Hell.”

  She squinted. “Like, actual Hell?”

  “The real deal. They were taken to a slave market and ended up being sold to vampires in England. Eventually, the truth came out, and Phoenix was reunited with his children, but he has no memory of them. We’ve gone through more than just a vampire war here. Imagine what it’s like for Phoenix to know that he was once happy but he just can’t remember it. So please try to cut him some slack.”

  She stared at me, her eyes eerily expressionless. “Where are the werewolves now?”

  “Free. And technically, they don’t exist. A lot of people wouldn’t be happy to know that a pack was kept alive here.”

  “I don’t get how you’re going to hide those… things.”

  How often had I been called a thing? “They’ve been treated pretty horrifically, too.” I brushed the flyaway hairs away from my face with a weary sigh. “Listen, Jess. Everyone here has a story. You can’t judge any of them.”

  “I’m not trying to!”

  “I’m just saying that life is a lot more satisfying when you give people a chance.”

  “It must be easier when you have a place to live, too.”

  My irritation melted away. “You’ve never had a home?”

  She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the concrete. “We’ve never stopped running. You don’t understand my dad. Sometimes, I don’t either, but he acts like he has no choice in any of this. He’s terrified. I’m not even sure if—” She sucked in her lower lip and shrugged. “I should go see if he’s okay.”

  I followed her, wondering what she had been dragged through in her short life. Inside, Margie and Anka were finishing up with Adam.

  “We’ve made sure he’ll sleep for as long as he needs,” Margie said. “Every time he gets overexcited, he’s going to set back his healing. He’s as bad as you, Ava.”

  “Ha, bloody, ha. Is he gonna be okay?”

  “All he needs is some rest and relaxation. Is he staying here?”

  I nodded. “Jess is staying here, and she’ll probably want to be close to her dad. Just let everyone know that she needs some space for a bit. Make sure they back off, okay?”

  Margie laughed. “As if I can stop the inevitable.”

  “I’ll keep Leah and Dita out of your way,” Anka said.

  I glanced at Jessica. “They might be good company for her. She can join their lessons with Carl. Maybe she can start at the new school whenever it opens.”

  “School?” Jessica said, looking terrified. “I’ve never been. I mean, I don’t know—”

  I cut her off before she could get too worked up. “It’s the same as most of the kids who will be attending. I told you. You’re not the only one with a story. Plenty of people around here are working hard to have a normal life after years of craziness. There’s no reason you can’t do the same.”

  She smiled. She looked so pretty when she was happy, but I was fairly sure her default expression ran along the lines of worry mixed with fear.

  I patted her shoulder. “Let’s sort out the spare room for your dad. Anka and Margie can watch over him. Maybe between the two of us, we can carry him upstairs without hurting him.”

  With a lighter step, she trotted up the steps after me. We started organising the room.

  “I’m strong,” she confided. “No fangs, though.”

  “You know about that, huh?” I covered my mouth with my hand, strangely embarrassed.

  “You kind of showed the world.” She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “That’s what kept me going. Back in the games and everything else, I knew there were people like you, like me, helping each other. I feel like I already know you.”

  She hummed as she drew a sheet across the bed. I didn’t feel as though I knew her at all. My first soul was definitely going to be interesting.

  Chapter Four

  When the doorbell rang for the fifth time, I said wryly, “I didn’t know somebody had called a meeting.”

  “News spreads fast around here.” Carl interrupted his busy schedule of eating me out of house and home to answer the door. “
And we’re officially worried, so we want to know what’s going on.”

  I looked around at the people gathered in my living room. “I think you all are just bored because there’s no war going on.”

  Lorcan stretched out his arms and grinned. He had recently cut his hair as short as Peter’s so people would stop confusing him with his now semi-famous father. It suited him. “You getting into more trouble is always interesting.”

  “I’m not in trouble,” I protested. “I just happen to have a house guest who might be.”

  “Oh, and is that why she’s claiming that Seth is after you?” Esther asked from the hallway.

  I stared at her in shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not welcome anymore? It’s ’cause I’m bald, right?”

  I rushed over to hug her. As far as I knew, she was still supposed to be in the clinic after receiving a serious head injury. Her hair had been shorn, revealing a thick ugly scar on her skull, though it didn’t detract from her looks in any way. Her dark brown eyes had a little less sunlight in them, but she was one of my closest friends, someone who had stood by me when everything in the world had gone wrong.

  “Baldness looks freakishly good on you,” I said. “I’d just look like a weird egg.”

  She laughed and held me tightly. “Aiden’s on the run,” she whispered. “The new alpha wants to pass judgement on him for his crimes. I left the hospital to avoid the questions. I might disappear for a while until all of this dies down.”

  My blood chilled. Her brother had cheated his way to the top as alpha of the shifters. I could only guess what payback they would have in store for him. “Anything I can do?”

  “I’ll let you know.” She pulled away from me. “So where are the guests?”

  “Upstairs.” I sat on the arm of Lorcan’s chair. Peter, Val, and Anka had already taken over the sofa.

  “Tell us everything.” Carl gestured for Esther to take his seat. “I’m out of the loop since I moved, and I hate it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You moved four doors away. Don’t be ridiculous.”