by Bell, A. C.
“He told us to give him an hour,” Nikki reminded me.
I stopped staring at the front doors and frowned at her. “I know, I just—What does he need an hour for?” I complained.
“I dunno, but we only have ten minutes left.”
In all honesty, I was worried that I really was being too trusting with Ian. Not just about the possibility that he might still betray us. What if he made a mistake while trying to reverse the curse? Could it be lethal to Mrs. Ware?
Nikki pulled her red cotton glove off and reached over and took my hand in hers. Her warm skin felt like clothing fresh from the dryer placed against my cold skin, made worse by the brisk winter air. “How far along is it?” She asked vaguely.
I avoided looking at her and focused on the footprints in the snow of the walkway up to the building. “Slade says it can take a month, maybe more.”
“Do your teeth still hurt?”
“Not so much.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Can I see?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, considering. Then, as if sharing a secret with her, I turned and held my hand beside my mouth to block it from view of anyone walking by. I opened my mouth wide. The new muscle I had to use in my jaw still felt so weird. Kind of slowly, my new fangs slid through six small holes nestled between where my teeth met, four on top around my canines and two on bottom. Nikki’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in a silent, almost smiling gasp.
“That’s so cool,” she said.
I let them retract, toying with them with my tongue a little as they did. Her chipper attitude cheered me up about it. I’d been trying not to view it so negatively since everything with Amelia, but it was still a big change. Still scary. I switched back to the situation at hand. A glance at Nikki’s watch told me we still had five minutes. I looked impatiently to the building once more.
“It’s close enough, let’s go.”
Nikki chuckled nervously and followed me as I practically stomped to the front doors. Beautifully warm air met us inside, though my hands and feet started to burn at the drastic change. The front room was small, with a linoleum floor designed to look like wood. A few rows of chairs sat along the east and west walls and a desk stood at the north wall. A door in the corner behind it had a square window and a keycard lock. Now that we were here, Nikki hesitated. The receptionists at the front desk, a woman with dark umber skin and a warm smile, stopped watering a lush aglo plant on the desk and greeted us. Nikki didn’t move, so I nudged her lightly with my elbow. Finally, she cleared her throat and moved up to the desk.
“Hi, we’re here to see Anna Ware,” she explained.
The receptionist, Antonia according to her nametag, asked, “Relation?”
Nikki frowned guiltily. They didn’t recognize her because of how little she came by to see her mom. “I’m her daughter.” She pulled out her ID for validation. After Antonia inspected it, she smiled up at Nikki.
“It’s great to see you! Everyone is in the common area right now. I’ll take you back there,” she said.
She waved us over and moved to the door in the corner. After a swipe of the ID card around her neck, the door beeped and let us through. The gathering room was through a door at the end of a brief hall. She let us in and we searched the room for Mrs. Ware. A dozen or so people were sitting at tables around the room, some playing board games, others reading or doing other things by themselves. Antonia spotted Anna at a small table beside a long row of windows on the other side of the wide room. I noticed an orderly standing against the wall, near the door we’d come through. Ian’s hair was darker, a bit longer, his eyes were blue, and his nose was crooked, but it was definitely him. As soon as I recognized him, the illusion stopped working on me and his features returned to normal.
Across the room, Antonia touched Nikki’s mom on the shoulder and smiled down, telling her that we were here. Anna’s brown eyes flitted over to us and landed on her daughter. Nineteen years of guilt shadowed her face and she started to cry. Antonia sat beside her and tried to soothe her, confused. Nikki rushed over and Anna shot to her feet. Nikki flinched when her mom reached for her, but Anna just wrapped her arms around her and sobbed into Nikki’s shoulder.
I let them be for now and turned to Ian. He crossed his arms over his chest and averted his gaze, so I moved over and leaned against the wall beside him.
“It seems to have worked,” he mused, watching Nikki and Anna.
“I don’t even know how to thank you.”
He shook his head and looked down at his shoes. “Don’t thank me, Adeline. I don’t deserve that.”
“Maybe not, but I’m grateful anyway.”
Ian shuffled his feet, still not looking my way.
I watched him thoughtfully. He’d put himself in so much danger to help me at the facility. Even now that we were back home, he still wouldn’t be safe. I had a feeling the Hunters knew how to hold a grudge. “You should go.”
His confused brown eyes flicked to me now. As he caught my meaning, he turned to face me. “Adeline—”
“Slade is right. We can’t ask Renenet and Hemway to hide you. It wouldn’t be fair to them. Plus, I have a feeling you’ll have an easier time hiding from the Hunters on your own. I can just tell the guys that you slipped away after curing Anna.”
His lips parted, brown eyes wide. “I…” He fell quiet again.
“The Hunters were going to let you go, anyway, right? You shouldn’t lose that just because you did the right thing.” I smiled and nudged my head toward the door. “Go on.”
He hesitated a few more moments before moving around me. He paused in the doorway, his fingers tapping on the frame, and then turned around. His eyes found mine. “I’ll miss you.”
Sadness settled in my chest. “You know what’s weird? I think I’ll miss you too.”
He frowned and his glance flicked away After a deep breath, he disappeared through the door. I took a moment to feel whatever I was feeling and then made my way over to Nikki and her mom. Antonia passed me on the way back to her post. Nikki and Anna were sitting at the table now and Anna seemed to have calmed down.
I approached slowly, unsure if I was welcome. It took Anna a few moments to recognize me after all these years, but eventually recollection dawned in her chestnut brown eyes. I hesitated. The last time I’d seen her had been the night Rick had decided to send her here. She’d slapped Nikki, terrified about the TV changing channels and blaming it—correctly, as we now knew—on Nikki. I hadn’t meant to push her so hard. I could still remember all the blood on her hand after it smashed into a picture frame on the wall to brace herself.
“Aveleen, right?” Anna asked as she dabbed her nose with a tissue. Her eyes were still puffy, but she wasn’t crying anymore.
“Adeline,” I corrected awkwardly.
“Please, sit.” She patted the table eagerly and I took the seat across from her.
Nikki looked uncomfortably to me and drew her flaxen hair over one shoulder to busy herself.
Anna looked between us and then around the room, making sure no one was paying attention to them. Satisfied, she asked, “Who was that boy who was here? How did he know how to help me?”
“His name is Ian. He…did he explain at all what happened to you?” I asked.
Anna’s chin-length blond hair wisped around her head as she shook it.
I shifted uncomfortably. “His father did this to you. He put you under some kind of fear curse. Ian remembered reading about it in one of his dad’s journals and said he could fix it.”
Her brows drew down over her eyes, her forehead wrinkling in shock and anger. “Why would someone do this to me?”
“He wanted to hurt my father,” Nikki muttered.
Anna’s breath caught. Her eyes dropped to the table and her lips pulled between her teeth. She shook her head again and looked back at Nikki. “The night before Marcus came to see me for the last time, a man came to talk to me at the diner. He tried to tell me what Marcus was, b
ut I didn’t believe him. At least, not until Marcus came by the next night while I was closing up. I’d already told him I was pregnant and he said he wanted to get married, but not before he told me the truth. After he…showed me, I told him to get out.
“I told myself that I could ignore it, that it didn’t matter if you ended up with magic like him. But the one night when you were a baby, I went in to check on you because you were crying. The light was already on. You must have been scared and turned it on somehow. Instantly, I felt the same mind-flaying terror I’d felt when Marcus showed me what he could do. Rick eventually got me calmed down, but I couldn’t bring myself to hold you after that.” She looked away shamefully.
Nikki frowned down at the table, pinching her lips in a way that told me she was trying not to cry. I found her hand under the table and gripped it to comfort her.
“I don’t know how I can even begin to make up for everything I’ve put you through.” Anna’s lip wobbled as she spoke.
Nikki took a deep breath. “You can start by coming home. Dad has missed you so much and he’s had to do so much on his own.
Her mom nodded vehemently. “I can do that.”
“Good, because he should be here any minute.”
The excitement in Anna’s face was heartwarming. “Really?”
“I think that’s my cue to skedaddle,” I said, rising to my feet.
Nikki stood too and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you for coming with me,” she whispered.
I smiled and hugged her back. “Of course.”
***
I hadn’t told anyone where I was going after that. Not that they would disapprove. Kendra had staked the place out and was certain there wasn’t any Hunter presence left in the area. I came alone so I could sort through my grief on my own. I pulled up along the sidewalk in front of Mom’s house. Unready to go inside just yet, I sat in my car for a few minutes. Eventually, I climbed out and frowned at the house. The SAU had taken local authorities off the case, but due to Mom’s connection to Dad, the police department had hired a crime scene cleanup crew to come in on our behalf.
The living room was more or less back to normal when I stepped inside. They’d cleaned Mom’s and Lantz’s blood off the floor. The impact where his back had0 broken into the plaster of the wall wasn’t fixed, nor was the broken window in the sliding door, but they’d removed the broken dining table and swept up the glass. Plastic covered the opening and was being pushed inward by the breeze outside.
I wrapped my arms around myself as my chest tightened. Just looking at the spot where she’d fallen was painful. The memory was worse. I turned away and headed upstairs. Mom’s room was just as she left it. Her closet was open and her bed, topped with a purple and gold comforter, was unmade. The mirror of her vanity blocked part of the window on the right-hand wall and the surface of the vanity was littered with makeup, bottles of perfume, hair products, and brushes. I picked up the bottle of perfume that was the emptiest and sprayed some beside the collar of my shirt. Now that I smelled like her, I curled up under her comforter.
Sleep had more or less evaded me since getting back from Canada, but the familiar surroundings and thoughts of mom and how she was okay lulled me into unconsciousness. The ring of the doorbell woke me some time later. I rushed groggily down the stairs. A knock came, followed by another ring, but I peeked through the peephole instead of answering. My breath caught and I braced my back to the door.
Agent Stokes. Was he working for the Hunters? I reminded myself that he’d helped me on his own time before. He hadn’t needed to. Besides, if they wanted to talk to me, they would find a way. So, mustering the best poker face I could, I opened the door.
Stokes and his new companion, a stern looking woman with auburn hair pulled tightly back, had turned to leave until the door opened. Stokes spun and something akin to a smile lifted his lips beneath his goatee. “Ms. Parker, good to see you.”
“Can I help you?”
He removed his dark sunglasses to meet my eye earnestly. “I need you to come with us.”
The end of book two of
The Culling trillogy
