Dirty Blood (24 page)

It was after I’d texted my mother. We’d been kissing
and Wes’ hand had found its way to my hip again, squeezing me
there. My breath had caught a little and I waited but slowly his
hand had inched back up to my face and hair and after a few more
minutes, he’d pulled away to catch his breath, mumbling something
about ‘protecting my virtue, as well as my life’.

I’d snickered at that until I’d realized he was
totally serious. I wasn’t sure if I found it completely outdated
and ridiculous or endearing. Maybe a little of both.

“Do you think she knows I lied to her?” I asked,
worriedly, when we were in the car. Wes was taking me to pick up my
car from where we’d left it the night before.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think something’s wrong? What if Leo-”

“Not possible,” he said, shaking his head. “The
patrol schedule includes your house. I told Jack I’d found you, but
I didn’t tell him you didn’t go home, so there would’ve been
someone nearby all night.”

“Okay, good.” I blew out a breath, trying to feel
reassured by his explanation. But the closer we got, the worse I
felt.

By the time we got to my car, I was jittery and all
nerves. “Can you come with me?” I asked.

“Absolutely. I’ll follow you back and be nearby. Just
call me when you’re done.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

I got out and walked to my car, digging for my keys.
I could hear Wes following me over. I unlocked my door and told
myself it was no big deal, just my mother being her normal, OCD
self. Wes put a hand on my arm, and I turned back to him. Without a
word, he wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips to my
forehead, holding me that way until I relaxed. Finally, he pulled
away to look at me. “See you in a bit.”

I nodded and got in.

Wes followed me home, and I felt better, seeing his
car in my rearview the entire way. The text was probably no big
deal, I told myself. My mom probably couldn’t sleep and had seen
how messy my room was and gotten ticked off at me. Or maybe she
hadn’t gotten my text before falling asleep and had woken up
wondering where I was. Whatever it was, it was easily explained,
and I felt better knowing that even if she was mad at me, she was
safe.

I turned onto my street, parting ways with Wes as he
continued further down to park his car in its usual hiding place.
I’d almost reached my driveway when I noticed a black Mercedes was
parked at the curb directly in front of my house. It looked
strangely familiar. Probably some friend of a neighbor or
something.

“Mom?” I called out, closing the door behind me and
dropping my bag in the entryway. “I’m home.”

No answer came and I wandered through the empty
rooms, searching. My mother’s muffled voice came from the den, and
I hurried towards the sound.

“…still doesn’t mean your visions are true,” she was
saying, her voice hard.

I stopped short in the doorway, spotting my mother,
and feeling the impact of her words, at the same time. In the chair
across from her sat Vera. Surprise and dread and panic all coursed
through me at once as they both rose to face me.

“Tara, come in here please. We need to talk.” My
mother’s eyes were puffy and glassy.

All of the blood drained away from my face and I
turned to glare at Vera. I couldn’t believe this. Did she think her
visions of me gave her the right to come here and just dump it all
on my mom, expecting her to accept it, just like that? Obviously my
mom was… well, there was no telling what my mom was… “What are you
doing here?” I demanded, my hands balling into fists at my
sides.

“Tara,” my mother said.

I ignored her and stared at Vera. “You had no right
to come here,” I said, through clenched teeth. “Or to tell her like
this.” I looked back at my mother again. “Mom, whatever she told
you, I can explain. It’s-”

“Tara, I called her,” my mother said.

“What?” I took a step back and, for the first time
since I’d walked in, really looked at my mother. She watched me
with a strained expression; her arms were crossed in front of her
with her hands cupped around each shoulder, her knuckles white with
tension.

“You need to come in here and sit down,” she
said.

I complied, mainly because I was completely lost now,
and trying to understand what was really going on. Vera still
hadn’t said anything, but she sat back down when I did. My mother
remained standing, looking down at me with a tight frown.

“I was straightening up last night, after I got your
text,” she paused and her expression grew darker. “But we’ll come
back to that in a minute. Anyway, I was cleaning and putting things
away, and I guess you forgot to hide it again before you left
because I found this.”

She gestured to the coffee table in front of me and I
looked down. The Draven sat on top of the pile of magazines my mom
usually kept there. Well, crap. Had I left it out? I couldn’t
remember right now.

“Where did you find this?” I blurted, without
thinking.

My mother’s eyes widened. “That’s your response? No
explanation, just wondering how I found out? Oh my goodness, I
can’t do this.” She threw her hands up and wandered a few paces
away, pressing her fingertips to her forehead.

Vera cleared her throat. “Elizabeth, may I?”

My mother waved a hand, without turning, in a gesture
to go ahead.

Vera turned back to me and I purposely hardened my
expression, still not convinced she wasn’t to blame for all of
this. “Tara, your mother found the Draven by accident. She wasn’t
snooping, from what I understand, if that makes any difference. And
when she realized what it was, she called me.”

“She called you?” I repeated, skeptical.

Vera nodded. “She and I knew each other many years
ago. I didn’t even know she lived here until last night, when she
called. You can imagine my surprise when I noticed the pictures of
you hanging on the walls. Then again, it finally made sense, when I
realized what you were…” She trailed off, lost in her own thoughts
and I tensed, sure she was going to go into something about a
vision of destiny. I could NOT handle that right now. After a few
seconds she blinked and gave a forced smile. “But I’m getting ahead
of myself. The point is, your mother called me. Not the other way
around, and she already had a pretty good idea of what was going on
before I got here. I was actually able to reassure her that you
were not alone in all this and, in fact, being made quite
safe.”

“The Cause is not safe, Vera,” my mother said, dryly.
She was still standing across the room, arms folded, watching my
expression with scrutiny.

The thing was, she was calm. In any other situation,
my mother would’ve been flipping; pacing the house, gulping coffee,
cleaning out cupboards, yelling. But no, with this, she just stood
there, like it was inconvenient but not unexpected news of epic
proportions. That was my first clue.

“Okay, wait a minute,” I said, putting up a hand when
Vera tried to go on. I turned to my mother. “You mean to tell me,
you knew that I was a Hunter?”

My mother and Vera shared a look, and then my mother
wandered back towards where I sat with a look of resignation. She
stopped just behind the empty chair across from where I sat, and
looked right at me, her jaw set. “Yes. I knew.”

“And you kept it from me, all this time?”

She sighed heavily, but her gaze didn’t waver.
“Yes.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe this,” I said, to
no one in particular. Partly because I couldn’t believe she’d been
keeping it from me and partly because I felt like I should’ve seen
it. It felt so obvious now, in this moment, with Vera sitting
beside her, and the calmness with which she admitted it. Images
flashed in my mind, bits and pieces really, but they all clicked
into place for me; pieces of the puzzle. Her incessant worrying and
annoying over-protectiveness, the elaborate locks and security
systems….Even her OCD cleaning habits made sense; a product of the
stress of living on the run. I felt like an idiot. It made me angry
at myself, which, in turn, made me angry at her.

“I think I deserve an explanation,” I said.

She shot Vera a look. Vera nodded, and my mother’s
shoulders drooped slightly. I got the impression she was hoping for
a way out of telling me the truth – again.

She came around and perched on the edge of the chair,
back stiff, fingers fidgeting with each other. “Alright, Tara. You
do deserve the truth, so here it is.” I watched in stony silence as
she smoothed out an invisible wrinkle in her pants. “You should
know that my life was a lot different before you came along. I was
young, not much older than you, actually, and idealistic and
believe it or not, I was an activist for The Cause.”

“You worked for The Cause?” I asked, with eyebrows
raised. Somehow I just couldn’t picture my scaredy-cat of a mother
as an outspoken politician.

She nodded. “It was something I believed in very
strongly. And I wasn’t afraid to speak out about it. But then, some
things happened, right after you were born. It became more and more
dangerous for your father and me-”

“Wait, so Dad knew? Does that mean he was a
Hunter?”

“Yes, your father knew, but, Tara, I’m the Hunter,”
she said, giving me a meaningful look.

At her words, I felt the first trickle of unease over
the thoughts I’d been pushing away since last night. “Then Dad was
human?”

She didn’t really answer, except to continue her
story. It reminded me of when Wes had told me about his parents and
the script he seemed to have to follow, just to get the words out.
“When I met your father, he was already involved with The Cause.
Their mission and the danger were exciting to me, and it pulled me
in.”

I tried to picture my mother being the type to
welcome danger, to rush at it. The image wouldn’t come. I kept
listening.

“It wasn’t until after you were born,” she went on,
“that the danger became real to me. Especially after word got out
about you.” She teared up, and I could see her struggling to keep
herself composed, but I refused to give her a reprieve; I needed to
hear what was next too badly to let her off the hook just yet.

“What do you mean, especially after word about me?
Does that mean Dad knew what you were? What I was?”

She nodded. Her eyes were watery and threatening to
spill over. “He knew because he was part of that world, too. He was
a Werewolf, Tay.”

~ 25 ~

I stared at her, more surprised than I should’ve been
after what Wes had said, and Leo before him. In a way, I’d seen it
coming, I’d just ignored it. I thought of what Wes had said about
Vera’s visions. ‘A Hunter, but unlike any we’d ever seen
before…’

I looked back at my mother just as the tears finally
spilled over onto her cheeks. She sniffled once and impatiently
brushed them away. “Sorry, I’ve never had to say all this out
loud.”

Despite my anger, I felt a rush of compassion. I was
still angry. Definitely still angry, but she’d obviously done what
she did to protect me. And she’d sacrificed everything, including
her own family, to do it. Whether I agreed with her decisions or
not, I knew her heart had been in the right place. I tried to see
it from her perspective, and realized I couldn’t imagine the kind
of pain she’d been in, to have to make this kind of decision. She’d
lost her husband, and her sense of security, and done the only
thing she thought she could do, to protect the one thing she had
left.

“I get it,” I said, finally.

My mother looked up at me; her red-rimmed eyes were
wide with surprise. “You do?”

“Yeah, I mean, you did what you thought was best. And
you kept me safe. So I get it. It doesn’t mean I like it.”

Her expression turned relieved. “I’ve been worried
about how you would feel about me keeping this from you. Then, when
Julie was killed...”

“You knew it was a Werewolf,” I said. I remembered
her telling me to stay inside, and her changing the alarm codes
like every other day, lately.

“Yes.” She reached for a tissue out of the box on the
end table, and dabbed around her eyes. Vera, who’d been silent
through the entire exchange, sat still as stone, taking it all in.
My fingers played absently with a loose strand in the hem of my
skirt. No one said anything. It felt awkward.

My mother finished pulling herself together and set
the tissue on the arm of her chair. She rose, and wandered to the
open space on the rug, to pace. She was obviously keyed up. It was
frustrating that I didn’t even know what to feel right now. I could
be angry. That was easy. And I had good reason. She’d kept this
from me, my entire life. But I also felt bad for her, in a way.
Whatever she’d been through had changed her. She was a completely
different person than the one my father had known.

“So, now what?” I asked, breaking the silence.

She was still pacing, not even looking up as she
talked. “Now we figure out what to do. I mean, obviously you have
to break ties with The Cause, and then we might even have to
move-”

I cut her off. “Wait, what?”

She stopped and looked at me. “Tara, The Cause is
dangerous in itself. Add to that, what Vera told me about Leo... We
can’t stay here.”

“Yes, we can. Jack has the group watching the house
to keep us safe until we can find Leo and deal with him.” I could
feel my head spinning a little with anxiety, and the speed of her
planning.

She froze in place and narrowed her eyes at me. “Did
you just say ‘deal with him’? You can’t deal with him. It’s Leo.
He’ll kill everyone you know or have ever said hello to in the
hallway at school. Then, and only then, will he come for you. He’s
strong and he’s powerful and he’s patient. Not to mention
completely crazy. You cannot
deal with him
. We need to
leave.” By the time she was finished, her hands had fallen to her
sides and were balled into fists.