Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) (3 page)

On autopilot, as
always, I pulled up to the curbside mailboxes to get the mail and
continued into the garage. I shuffled through the mail while I made
sure the garage door closed all of the way and then went into the
house. I started to set the mail down on the counter when I noticed a
letter with my name on it. It was odd because I never received any
mail except from the Department of Child Services concerning me aging
out of the system. Flipping the envelope over revealed the return
address was Las Vegas, Nevada. I didn’t know anyone from
Nevada. I didn’t actually know anyone from anywhere.

I was put into foster
care when I was two years old and had been with my foster mother
since I was thirteen. I didn’t know if I had any biological
siblings, aunts or uncles. As far as I knew, aside from my foster
mother, I was alone in the world. So, getting a hand written letter
from Las Vegas was a strange thing for me.

I set the other mail on
the counter, my purse and computer bag on a bar stool and opened the
letter. The envelope was made out of soft linen paper with a black
inner lining. Inside I found a folded piece of paper with exquisite
hand writing.

‘
Cheyenne,
I know that you have questions about your family and where you came
from. I know that you have felt out of place and abandoned. I am
sorry that I wasn’t able to be there for you, but I am here
now. Enclosed is a ticket to Las Vegas. Please come as soon as
possible. Love, Mom.’

I read the letter over
and over. In the envelope was a one-way plane ticket to Las Vegas.

I sat on a bar stool
and read the letter for the fourth time. My mom was sending for me.
Or, someone saying they were my mom. This was too strange to be
happening. I looked at the ticket and saw the date was the next day.
My mother wanted me in Las Vegas quickly. I was reading the letter
again when my doorbell rang and I nearly fell off of the stool.

Tabitha had arrived for
our afternoon ritual but something about her presence today seemed
ominous. She had been frazzled and distracted all day long. And
Tabitha never ran as far ahead of me as she did that day in practice.
Something was definitely up but I had bigger fish to fry.

“
Tab,
you will never guess what I got in the mail today,” I was
almost jumping up and down as I held the door wide to let her in.

The sound of laughter
from the neighborhood kids drew my attention to the grassy area at
the end of the cul-de-sac. Amongst the children playing soccer and
wrestling was the boy from my History class and he was staring right
at me.

“
Hey,
did you meet the new guy?” I asked Tabitha, gesturing to where
he was standing.

Tabitha looked over her
shoulder at the boy and let out a curse under her breath. At the same
moment, the boy inclined his head in her direction in acknowledgment
of her gaze. She immediately stepped over the threshold and closed
the door. Once behind the closed door, Tabitha began to shake. It
wasn’t obvious, at first, but she was always so calm that it
wasn’t long before I saw it. My years in foster homes had
taught me that when rational and calm people get nervous there is
always a good reason.

“
You
haven’t talked to him, have you?”

“
No.
He’s in my History class, though. Why, Tab? What’s up?”

“
Nothing”,
she lied, shaking her head slightly.

I could see a shadow
cross over her face like a sea of emotions. I had always heard of
panic being contagious, like when you scream ‘fire’ into
a crowd, but this feeling went to my core. Something was going on but
it couldn’t outshine the news that I had.

I followed Tabitha into
the seldom used living room and sat down. It didn’t escape me
that she placed herself so that she could clearly see the boy
standing across the street.

“
So,”
I began, “I got a letter from my mom.”

“
Your
mom is always leaving you notes,” Tabitha said, absently.

“
Not
Mom, Tab. My bio-mom. She sent me a plane ticket to Vegas.”

I waved the letter and
the ticket in her face until she turned away from the window. Looking
as if she had seen a ghost as she grabbed for my waving hand and
snatched the items out of it. I watched as she read the letter and
examined the ticket. Her body was stiff with what looked like rage as
she stuffed the items into her purse and rose to leave, never
completely taking her eyes off of the boy outside.

“
Hey…’”
I started, reaching for my letter and the ticket.

Tabitha put her hand up
to silence me. I was not one for the talk-to-the-hand gesture, but
she was my best friend so I gave her a pass. She had pulled out her
phone and was waiting for the ringing to stop. She cursed under her
breath when it apparently went to voice-mail and then turned to me.

“
Look,
Cheyenne, I know you think this is a good thing…that your
bio-mom has finally come for you, but you have a great mom here. Why
would you want to leave that?”

I felt as if I had been
punched in the stomach because it had never crossed my mind that
going to Vegas was leaving my mom. Guilt weighed me down and I sank
to the floor beside the sofa. She had been the last in a long line
of foster parents. My social worker had all but given up on me
because my age and behavioral history made me very near unplaceable.
My mom took me in despite my colorful past and the many strange
accounts from other foster families; literally saving me from the
system and I was forever grateful. I couldn’t just leave my
mom. What in the world was I thinking?

I sat there for a long
time watching Tabitha and the boy outside watch each other. It felt
strange to me because it was so familiar, as if the two of them had
always done just that; watched each other. Both Tabitha and I jumped
when her phone rang and she spun to answer it, walking just out of my
earshot. There was muffled hurried speech and then a mumbled curse
before Tabitha came back into the room.

“
I
have to get going,” she said, with one of her brilliant smiles
on her face. I had spent the last three months with that smile and
never once had it not reached her eyes. That time, however, her smile
was just an attempt to appease me and I wasn’t buying it.

“
I
thought we were doing homework.”

“
Come
on, Cheyenne. You are smart as a whip, you don’t need me.
Besides, who has homework on the first day of school?”

And with that, she
walked out the door, jumped into her sleek black Mustang and drove
off. I noticed that the white-haired boy was nowhere to be found and
decided that he was one of her many admirers. She had tons of them.
Ever since she arrived, boys that had never given me the time of day
were asking me to parties and letting me bring a plus-1. It didn’t
bother me since none of these boys were my type and Tabitha didn’t
seem impressed either. It was fun to see them stumble all over
themselves in order to get close to her.

Since my mom wouldn’t
be home until late and I didn’t, in fact, have any homework, I
turned on the TV and got something to eat. The funny thing about the
brain is that there is never anything interesting on TV when you have
a lot of things on your mind. I couldn’t shake the feeling that
something was wrong or that something was on the verge of happening.
You know how people from California say that the weather gets strange
right before an earthquake? They call it earthquake weather. Well, I
felt like my world was about to shake in a very major way.

I had several questions
running through my head. One of them was why didn’t I just
wrestle the ticket out of Tabitha’s hand? I am taller and weigh
more than her, but I somehow knew that those facts didn’t
equate to being stronger and faster. The second was why in the world
would someone say they were my mother and send me a ticket? Or, worse
yet, what if it really was my mother? What could she possibly want
after all of these years? I knew that I wouldn’t get any
answers tonight and resigned myself to talking to my mom the next day
after school.

It was Thursday night,
why school started on a Thursday was anyone’s guess, and my mom
had most weekends off which made Friday the perfect time to talk to
her. Besides, I would turn 18 in three months and I would be getting
my bio-mom’s information then, anyway.

Hours later I found
myself asleep on the sofa with the TV tuned to Late Night with Jimmy
Fallon. I was hesitant to click it off because he was in the middle
of one of those musical skits with Justin Timberlake, but I knew I
needed to get to bed. As soon as the sound went off I heard hushed
talking from the side yard. I walked closer to the window to see who
was out there when I heard my mom’s voice. That was strange
that she was outside at this time of night. Usually she came straight
in and got ready for bed due to her tight schedule. She had incurred
a lot of bills over the years and, even though I knew that her
financial situation hadn’t been directly my fault, I still felt
guilty about it.

I leaned forward until
my ear was pressing against the window. I felt like such a child by
eavesdropping on my mom, but curiosity got the best of me. I stood as
still as possible and held my breath as I heard my mother’s
voice.

“
Listen,
I have done what you have told me. I have kept her safe and out of
trouble until her 18th birthday. It’s not my fault that this
blond chick is messing up your plans. How was I to know who she was?”

“
Ms.
Redding,” said a smooth voice. “We have no intentions of
going back on our word. We simply need you to keep Cheyenne away from
Tabitha for the next three months. Once Lord Oleander arrives, we
will take it from there.”

“
Well,
how am I going to keep her from her best friend?”

“
You
will figure it out or you simply will not get paid.”

“
Oh,
I’ll do it alright. I spent the last 5 years earning that
money.”

“
And,
remember, you must not interfere when we come to take her. That is
the agreement.”

“
Oh,
I won’t. Just tell your ‘lord’ that I want my
money!”

I knew that I was
hearing my mom’s voice but I had never heard this much venom in
it. My mother had taken me in for profit? This must be a mistake. I
would just go outside and ask what was going on. She was probably
auditioning for a play or something, even though she had never acted
a day in her life. I started to open the side door that was next to
the window when I saw the face of the person with the smooth voice
and I froze. I was staring at the profile of the boy with the white
hair from my History class. I ducked out of sight right before he
turned in my direction and prayed that he didn’t see me.

After a few moments and
more talk about when and where my mother was suppose to deliver me
and how she was going to collect her money, the white-haired boy
walked off. My mother turned toward the window at that time and I
jumped back, not wanting her to see me, then ran up to my room before
she came into the house. I climbed onto my bed and pretended to be
asleep. Like clockwork, she opened the door to check on me. This was
a nightly ritual that I had always thought was a display of love and
concern. The fact that her concern for my well-being was attached to
a dollar amount made me sick. She stood in the doorway for a few
moments before closing it and walking away.

Anger, fear and sadness
overwhelmed me. When my adoptive mom agreed to take me in 5 years
ago, I thought that I had finally found someone to love me. She had
read all about my problems with my other foster families and didn’t
even blink. But, in the end, she had just wanted money. It wasn't
love that made her look past all of my faults and mishaps. My first
foster family was a middle class family from Atlanta and I was their
pride and joy. They would dress me up in the cutest little dresses
and parade me around their church as if I was a prize they had won.

One day during Sunday
school, the Pastor’s granddaughter pushed me down and got my
dress dirty. When I started to cry, she started to laugh. The more I
cried the more she laughed. It was horrible. As I stood there with
clenched fists, crying over my dirty dress, I tried to catch my
breath. Her laughter quieted with each breath I took. After a few
deep breaths, her laughter was silenced and she lay at my feet
fighting for air. By the time the Pastor’s wife found us, the
little girl was gasping for breath and I was smiling over her prone
body. The younger members of the congregation were terrified and my
foster parents were scandalized. Needless to say, I was returned to
the orphanage the next day.

For the next several
years I had tried to control my anger in order to stay in my foster
homes. And time after time I failed. My first foster parents thought
I was possessed by the devil. The rest of them simply thought I was
too much trouble for the pay. For 9 years I was shuffled from home to
home feeling like a living, breathing version of Carrie and the
fire-starter. The entire time I was only trying to find someone to
love me. But, after 5 years in the Redding home, I was faced with
another rejection; a true betrayal.

My plan was to wait
until my mom got into the shower before I got off the bed. I took a
couple of deep breaths, trying to fight back the tears that were
inevitable. When my vision began to blur I had to admit that I was
losing the battle and my world began to spiral before me. Closing my
eyes to keep from throwing up I was well on my way to calming down
when a hand covered my mouth. Futility I screamed only to have the
sound muffled and the hand clamp down harder. I struggled against
the weight that was holding me down and tried to get a look at my
assailant.