by Laura Del
“Well,” he sighed, “I’ll be leavin’ ye ta it then.”
When he turned to leave, I called after him, and he looked over his shoulder at me. “How much of all that did you hear?” I asked, and I swear I saw him blush.
“All of it,” he admitted, looking down at his shoes.
I grimaced, placing my face in the couch cushion. “I’m so sorry,” my voice was muffled, but I still meant it.
“It’s all right. I’ve heard worse. Trust me,” he laughed a little and twinkled at me before he left me alone to call Mike.
I stared down at my cell, figuring to hell with it, and I just called him. It only rang once when he picked up. “Hi, how are ya? You doin’ good? I hope everything is goin’ okay over there—”
“Mike,” I almost laughed, but thought better of it, “take a breath.”
I heard him breathe in and out, then he said, “Sorry, bébé, I’m a little high-strung.”
“I can relate.” And I could. This whole situation was crazy, and Tina was right, it needed to be settled. “Listen,” I breathed, “I wanted to talk to you—”
“I wanted to talk to you too,” he interrupted. “We’re in a bit of a jam over here.”
“We?” I asked, feeling my brow crinkle, “What do you mean we?”
“You and I,” he explained, and I could hear Angel in the background.
“You’re so fucking stupid, do you know that?” she was screaming at him. “So fuckin’ stupid!”
I had to pull the receiver away from my ear for a moment, she was so loud. “Whoa, what’s going on, Mike? Why’s Angel mad?”
“Pat, ya have a dumb fuck wit of a boyfriend, you know that?” she screamed directly into the receiver this time, and I grimaced.
“Would you stop it and let me talk to ‘er,” he hissed.
“Fine,” she huffed, and I could hear her walk away.
“Okay, what happened?” I asked, and he was quiet. “Mike, what happened?”
There was a brief silence on the other end. Then I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was definitely wrong. Very wrong. “We had a meetin’,” he started, and I knew my hunch was right. “Do you remember when I said that we needed to talk?”
“Yes,” I answered slowly.
“Well, it was about this meetin’ we had. The pack asked me about you and me, and when they did, I said somethin’ I shouldn’t have, and now…” his voice trailed off.
I took a deep breath, preparing myself. “How bad is it, Mike?”
“Bébé,” he replied, growing silent for another second, and I could feel the tension building on the other end of the phone.
“Shit,” I sighed, standing up. “Is it that bad?”
“Worse,” he admitted.
“Tell me,” I insisted. “Now.”
“Pat,” he sighed, “I don’t want ya to get how you get.”
“Christ,” Angel screamed again, “just fuckin’ tell her. Or I will!”
“Would you get outta my face,” he screamed back.
“Mike, what is going on?” In that moment, they had me yelling.
He paused again. Then he dropped the bomb on me. “At the meetin’ we discussed who would be the head bitch. That’s the mate of the Alpha. And when I said that I was already settled on you, they voted. Patricia,” the way he said my name made me not want to know what went on at this meeting, but he continued, “by the next full moon I have to turn you, or they’ll pick another mate for me.”
My heart, if it was possible, sank to my feet. “You’re saying that if you don’t turn me into what you are,” I said tactfully just in case someone was listening, “that we can’t be together?”
“Pretty much,” Mike confirmed, “yeah.”
“Tell ‘er the best part,” Angel interrupted. “Guess who they voted head bitch just in case you say no, Patty?” she paused, and I could hear her breathing become ragged with anger. “Me!”
I closed my eyes, and my arms went limp. The phone slipped out of my hand, and my whole body went numb. I walked out into the hallway; I faintly heard people laughing and joking. Then I vaguely saw someone walk toward me and ask if I was okay. The word “fine,” came out of my mouth before I went upstairs into my room. And that’s when I had my not so quiet breakdown.
chapter
TEN
I had thrown everything around. Clothes, bags, the stool under the vanity, even the bed was upside down. I was so angry and then I was so miserable that I sank to the floor, crying my eyes out. I cried for Mike, I cried for myself, but mostly I cried for the baby I would never hold in my arms. My mother had told me, when I saw her in limbo, it just wasn’t meant to be. It still didn’t make it hurt any less. Asking God why was pointless, He stopped listening when this whole business began. Besides, I wasn’t that religious anyway, even with my mother’s crucifix around my neck. But I still could have used some sort of god on my side or, at least, listening to me.
“Patty,” Tina said on the other side of my bedroom door. “Patty, open the door.”
“No,” I answered, placing my head on my knees, “leave me alone.”
“What’s wrong, babe?” She was using her sweet and quiet voice. She always did that when I wouldn’t tell her what was upsetting me.
I shook my head. “Don’t use that tone with me. I don’t want to talk about it, so just go away.” I was on the verge of shutting down, but I kept telling myself it was good to feel these things, even though I ached all over with emotion.
“She still in there?” Andrew asked as I heard him walk up the stairs.
“Yeah,” Tina said softly, “she won’t let me in.”
“Maybe you should just leave her be,” he suggested.
Tina laughed a little. “You’re cute when you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I leave her alone and she’ll do something that we’ll all regret in the morning.”
“You do know I can hear you, right?” I managed to say through sobs. I really hated when people talked about me as if I wasn’t right on the other side of the door.
“Shit,” Tina hissed. “Sorry, Patty, we do now.”
“She still in there?” Bobby asked, banging up the stairs.
Tina growled, a deep, frustrating noise. “Yes, Robert, she’s still in there. For a whole hour now! In case you didn’t know.”
“Why is she in there?” he asked, confused and ignoring Tina’s aggravation.
“Well, if I knew that,” Tina said, trying to remain calm, “she wouldn’t be still in there, would she?”
If I screamed for them to go away again, they would have surely broken down the door to see the room in shambles, and I didn’t need a trip back to the hospital’s psych ward. I couldn’t cope with that and the feelings I was having at the same time. But all I wanted was for them to leave me alone so I could breakdown in peace.
“Touchy,” Bobby said, finally picking up on Tina’s hostility.
“I think it’s kind of sexy,” Andrew chimed in.
“Not now,” Tina replied, and I could visualize her holding up her hand to him with a smile.
“I got her, Chrissie,” Bobby sighed, and I could hear him step in front of her. “You can go downstairs and relax for a bit.”
Suddenly, I had a sense of Tina giving him her Tina stare. One eyebrow cocked, arms folded, and a pursing of the lips. This was not a look to be messed with. It was a look of pure anger and sometimes hatred, depending on the person. And I knew then that it was the latter. “How about you get the fuck outta my face before I punch you in yours?” she suggested, her voice menacingly low. “She’s needs actual comfort, not you tryin’ to screw her brains out!”
“Whoa,” Bobby’s voice grew louder, and I could hear his annoyance rise, “where the hell did that come from?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe from the fact t
hat you think all a woman needs is the ‘d’ to stop grieving. She’s vulnerable right now, Robert. The last thing she needs from you is making her life more complicated.” Tina had it out for Bob ever since my mother’s funeral, and it looked like today was finally going to be the showdown.
“She still in there?” Sandy asked from the steps, and I rolled my eyes. What did everyone think? That I had miraculously gotten out of the room without anyone realizing? Even if I had jumped out of the window, I’m pretty sure someone would have noticed.
I was getting really tired of this Patricia sob mob that had formed outside the door and, suddenly, jumping out of the window seemed like a really good idea.
“Yes,” both Bobby and Tina said together.
“Okay,” Sandy sang off-key. “I see that I came up here at a bad time.”
“Not at all,” Tina answered as calmly as she could. “Robert was just leaving,”
“Like hell, I am,” he screamed.
“Oh, you’re going,” she warned him, “or I will push you down those goddamned stairs myself.”
“Guys,” poor Andrew said soothingly, “don’t you think we should all just go downstairs and discuss things rational—”
“For the record,” Bobby interrupted him, and I just knew he was screaming in Tina’s face, “she came twice! And without me she would’ve never gotten through that day in one piece!”
“Oh, bullshit,” Tina spat. “You just wanted an excuse to get laid!”
“Wait a second,” Sandy sounded confused. “You had sex with Pat?” she asked Bobby. “When?”
“On the day of her mother’s funeral,” Tina answered for him.
“How did I not know this?” Sandy asked herself.
“She wanted it,” Bobby screamed at Tina again.
“Oh, please,” Tina huffed.
Tina was right and then again so was Bobby. I had wanted anything to distract me from what was going on that day, but he had taken full advantage of my grieving to get laid. However, at that particular moment, all of that was neither here nor there. All I wanted was to grieve in peace for the things I had lost and the things that would never be, but none of them would let me do that. And it was pissing me off.
“What in da hell is goin’ on up ‘ere?” Mortimer asked, and it grew quiet.
“Um,” Sandy said, still trying to wrap her head around everything, “am I the only one shocked about Pat and Bobby having sex?”
“What?” Mortimer sounded aggravated. “Why in da name of God, are ye all disgussin’ dis when she’s obviously in there in pain?”
It was what I had been asking myself for the past five minutes, but I knew two things that he didn’t. One, that Tina was going to get Bobby to admit that he was wrong about everything, and two, that it was all going to come to blows before that. So staying out of it was a very good idea.
“You’re right, Mortimer,” Tina said, returning to her senses, “we should be focusing on trying to get her out of there.”
“Two-faced bitch,” Bobby muttered, and I almost stood up and opened the door to smack the shit out of him, but someone beat me to it. The next thing I heard was flesh hitting flesh, and Bobby screamed, “My noise!”
“Who’s the bitch now?” Tina yelled, then she hit him again and he grunted; it didn’t sound like it was in the face this time. “Bitch!”
Bobby must have gone after her because the next thing I heard was Sandy scream, “Stop it right now, Bob! You deserved that and you know it.”
“Come on, people,” Andrew said, “that’s enough.”
I placed my hands over my ears as they all erupted into a screaming match. Everybody was yelling at once, and it just became a mash-up of unintelligible voices. That is until Mortimer stopped them. “Enough!” They all went quiet, and he continued, “How dare ye all make dis about yerselves. Patricia is in there, probably cryin’ ‘er eyes out, and all ye care about is yer petty little problems. That is quite enough, t’ank ye very much. Now,” he said as calmly as possible, “all of ye get downstairs. And I mean right this instant. Do I make meself clear?”
“Crystal,” Andrew answered once the voice of reason settled over them.
“Come on, Bobby,” Sandy chimed in, and I heard the three of them walk down the steps.
“Christina,” Mortimer sighed, “let me do me job. I’m ‘ere ta protect ‘er, and protect ‘er I shall, even if it ‘appens ta be from ‘erself.”
“I’m stayin’,” she protested. “I can’t leave her like this, Mortimer.”
“It’s all right,” he comforted her. “I’ll take good care of ‘er. Besides, ye should go downstairs and ice dat hand.”
She sighed, and I finally heard her go downstairs. I thought it was over until Mortimer knocked lightly on the door. “Patricia,” he almost whispered, “if ye don’t let me in, I will bust the door down.”
I slowly rose to my feet, opening up for him. When he slid through, I closed it again, sinking into my previous fetal position. “Saints alive,” he said as he looked around the room at the damage. Then he looked at me, kneeling down. “What ‘appened, Patricia?” he asked softly, and I shook my head. So he decided to sit down next to me. He didn’t lay a finger on me, he just sat there in silence, leaning his head against the door while I cried into my knees.
After a couple minutes of sobbing, he lifted my head gently, making me look at him. “What ‘appened, me darlin’?”
“Everything is so screwed up, Mortimer,” I sobbed. “First, the thing with Samuel, then I lost my baby, and now this.”
He wiped the hair out of my face and dabbed at the tears with his shirt. “It’s all right, darlin’. It’s gonna be all right. Ye’ll see.”
“I just wish the pain would go away,” I admitted. “You can do that, right? Make the pain go away.”
“I can, but I won’t,” he explained. “Life is pain. It’s also luv, ‘appiness, loss, and all d’ose other t’ings that make it life. If ye lose the pain, Patricia, then ye lose the pleasure too. So, no, I’ll not take it away from ye. It’ll make ye stronger in the end. Besides, I’m a firm believer in everythin’ ‘appening for a reason.”
I looked at him, really looked at him then, and I realized that I had heard this speech before. When I was a teenager, my cat Annabelle died and my mother had spoken those exact words to me after we had buried her in the backyard. She had said it with the same conviction and the same emphasis that hearing it again now gave me chills as it had then.
So as I looked into his face, I finally remembered where I had seen him before. My mother had pointed him out once upon a time in a pub. She had taken me to England for my sixteenth birthday, and I remembered her waving him over to our table. Only she hadn’t call him Mortimer, she called him, “Cousin Tim?” I asked aloud. “That’s where I know you from. You’re cousin Tim.”
He smiled. “I was waitin’ fur ye ta remember. Only, I’m not yer real cousin. Yer mother just called me dat ta make ye feel more comfortable.”
“Why didn’t you mention this when you walked into the house?” I asked, trying to figure out why he didn’t announce the he was a cousin of my mother’s when he was invited in instead of that story about college.
He shrugged. “I didn’t wanna get inta it wit yer father.”
I nodded. I understood that. Pops could get very suspicious when it came to random people showing up at his door to begin with, so I guessed it was a good thing he stuck to the ‘knowing me’ story, instead of my mother, considering he hadn’t aged a day since I had seen him last.
“So,” he sighed, “do ye want ta tell an ole friend of yer mothers what ‘appened ta make ye so upset?”
I shrugged, pulling my head away from his hands and leaning back against the door. “I called Mike, like you already know,” I sniffed, “and it turns out that the werewolf pack had a meeting, and he has to turn me before t
he full moon, or we’ll never be able to be together. And to top it all off, they voted to replace me with Angel. She’s a friend of Mike’s from the old days, and she’s my friend too. You can imagine how pissed she is. She was practically about to rip Mike’s throat out when I called.”
He was quiet for a second, and I could see out of my periphery, him shaking his head. “Wolves,” he finally said. “They do like ta stick ta themselves, don’t they?” he paused, placing his hand on my knee. “Ye love ‘em?”
I nodded, trying not to cry again. “Something awful.”
“Okay.” He turned a little so he was facing me, and I looked over at him. “‘Ere’s the way I see it. Ye have two options. One, ye can give up and just let ‘em go. Or two, you can fight for ‘em. No holds barred. So whatcha gonna do?”
I looked at him for a minute, and he really looked at me. It was as if he could see what I was thinking, which was probably the truth. After all, he was a vampire. “He tried to kill me. It’s a little more complicated than it once was.”
“Yer so Aggie,” he laughed a little as he said my mother’s name. Agatha Wyatt, no one could ever say that name without a smile on their face. She always used to say that she should have been a writer instead of a nurse. She had the name for it. “Yer always over thinkin’ everythin’.”
“It’s a pretty big thing to overlook, Mortimer.”
He nodded. “Yer right, of course. But yer also overlookin’ all the good times ye had tagether. Ye shouldn’t let ‘em tryin’ ta kill ye ruin dat.” I glared at him, and he laughed. “All right,” he conceded, “yer so stubborn just like yer mother.”
“How well did you know my mother?” I changed the subject, anything to stop us from talking about the thing with Mike and the pack.
“Okay, since yer not feelin’ up ta talkin’ ‘bout yer problems, I’ll humor ye.” He looked down at his hands in his lap and then smiled at me. “She was one of a kind, Aggie was. She was like no one I’d ever seen before or since. We met when she was all of sixteen years old. The same age dat she introduced ye ta me dat night ye remember. She was full of fire—”
