Only One I'll Have (UnHallowed Series Book 4)

by Tmonique Stephens

  She wouldn’t have put up a fight if he’d taken her to bed. Hell, she’d have dragged him there if he’d given the smallest sign he was interested in more than a platonic relationship. In light of him blocking her memories, his lack of sexual interest was a blessing. A shudder zapped her spine. Things would be one hundred times worse if she’d slept with him, then regained her memories. God, what a disaster that would've been.

  He only wanted to keep her safe. Well, she could keep herself safe. The one thousand miles between Jacksonville, Florida and Detroit, Michigan ought to be enough.

  The house phone rang—Why does she still have a house phone?—and Ellen jumped up and ran to the kitchen.

  “Hi, honey!” she answered after the third ring. She mumbled something that Sophie couldn’t catch then exclaimed, “Guess who’s here? My daughter! She flew down for a visit.” More mumbling, followed by, “I don’t know how long she’s staying. Well, I’m glad she’s here.”

  Good thing she was staying at a hotel. She had options where none existed before…before Scarla and the UnHallowed came into her life. She didn’t have to stay where she wasn’t wanted. She picked up her purse and looked around for anything else she may have forgotten. A hallway off to the right caught her attention as her bladder cramped. Not about to wait for permission, she headed that way and found a bathroom.

  She freshened up, noted Ellen hadn’t lied. Dark crop circles surrounded her eyes and her roots had two inches worth of growth. Her black roots were showing, which highlighted with her pale skin. Uggh, she felt as bad as her reflection.

  No hand towel to dry her hands, so she opened a door expecting to find a linen closet, instead, she found a slice of her heart in an adjacent bedroom. Too late to brace for the unexpected blow and the onslaught of pain, she stumbled back, only to rush forward.

  The checkered wallpaper, blue and cream comforter, the paper airplanes attached to twine and hanging from the ceiling, the battered dresser that used to be her grandmother’s, and the artist’s work covering the walls. Caricatures of her mother, grandmother, Snicker—the family dog—and Sophie. All of Caleb’s art covered every inch of the bedroom walls.

  “Did I get everything right?” Ellen stood on the opposite side of the room, in the open doorway to the hall. Her O2 dangled from her shoulder like a designer purse.

  “Why did you do this?” Carefully, Sophie moved deeper into the room, afraid to desecrate the space.

  “Well…” Ellen crossed to the dresser, and with trembling hands, straightened the baby pictures. “I couldn’t dig him up and move him to Florida. This is my way of keeping close to him,” she mumbled.

  Anguish and heartache tainted Ellen’s words. Sophie pulled her in for a pat on her back and ended up in a full body hug. “You don’t have to justify this room to me. I understand.” Lord knows she truly did, just as she suspected Bobby didn’t. Otherwise, why was Ellen so defensive? “You did a good job. A real good job.”

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” Ellen whispered fiercely.

  Guilt over so many things clogged her throat, thickened her tongue until speech wasn’t possible. So, she clung to Ellen as Ellen clung to her, each lost. A mother grieving for her son. A sister and a daughter grieving over the truth she had to share soon. Not yet. “I’m sorry I stayed away so long.” But I didn’t remember. A poor excuse, yet it was all Sophie had.

  “It’s okay.” Ellen brushed her damp cheeks.

  But it wasn’t. “No. I should’ve helped you do this.”

  “Bobby helped me after he agreed to let me do it.”

  She didn’t miss the thinning of Ellen’s mouth into a half grimace, half forced smile. Let… Not my business. Sophie eased away to meander about, touching everything, remembering everything.

  Ellen picked up a silver picture frame. She cradled the five by six picture, hugging it to her chest. “I was a horrible mother.”

  Sophie couldn’t muster a reply because she agreed. Ellen made choices for herself, never for her children. She picked men and booze over her kids every time there was a multiple-choice option when it never should’ve been a consideration.

  “I never appreciated him until he was gone. Now that he’s gone, I’d do anything to have him back.” She broke down, her thin body collapsing onto the bed.

  Sophie rushed to Ellen's side. She had no idea what to do, pat her on the back again? Hug her again? Affection had never flowed between them. Ellen wasn’t big on birthdays and Christmases, and very stingy with the I love yous. There were days where dinner was a box of saltines. Days when the lights were cut off. Days when they were sent home from school because they reeked from their dirty clothes and unwashed bodies. At every chance, Ellen made the men in her life a priority instead of her children. The combination didn’t help them make friends. She had a lonely childhood, which bled into a lonely adulthood. All she had was her brother until she met Scarla in tenth grade, and then Chay and the UnHallowed.

  “It’s all right, Ellen.”

  Ellen shook her head. “No, it’s not. I thought I had time to make amends. A mother isn’t supposed to outlive their child. It goes against nature.”

  Her words stabbed Sophie’s heart.

  “You wouldn’t understand. When you become a mom, you will. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for your child, to keep your child safe.”

  Another stab to her heart with a twist at the end to ensure she’d bleed out. She hadn’t kept her child safe. Ozzy was a sadistic bastard almost from the first moment they met, yet she’d stayed. Who does that? Who willingly lets themselves become brainwashed and then decides to bring an innocent into that violent mess.

  My mother…and me.

  The truth left her gasping. Here she was, hating Ellen, when she may as well be a carbon copy.

  “It’s my fault, you know. I drove him to leave with my pushing him to get a real job and stop painting. Get off the computer and get a real job,” she whined. “If he’d stayed, he probably would be alive right now.”

  “Damn.” Nothing could be truer. Ellen was right for all the wrong reasons. Sophie gulped down a breath, aware her hands, legs—shit—her entire body trembled. Not from the cold sweat suddenly coating her, but from true fear. Strained relationship or not, Ellen was all the family she had left.

  And she had to tell her, but how? How to form the words that she was responsible for Caleb's death? She held the gun, pulled the trigger that took his life.

  Ellen shook her head as if wiping the slate clean. “What am I saying? He could’ve been hit by a car in Jacksonville, just like he could’ve in Detroit. I may be crazy, but I just know he’d still be alive if he’d moved back to Florida with me.”

  Bile coated the back of Sophie’s throat.

  “If I could just bring him back. Have a do-over. Make things right.” Ellen snapped out of her spiral and sank to her knees in front of Sophie. “Listen to me, going on as if I had one child.”

  Ellen took Sophie’s hands and pressed kisses into her knuckles. “You’re my firstborn. You were always so self-possessed. I never had to worry over you. You didn’t need me like Caleb did. Heck, you took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. You’re the strongest person I know.”

  That wasn’t a compliment.

  Ellen smiled and for a brief moment, erased twenty years from her face. “You hatched ready to conquer the world.”

  Sophie snorted. “Yeah, but I still needed you.” She wasn’t jealous. Years ago, she’d accepted Ellen could only love one person at a time. Make that two—the man she was currently married to, and her son. Her daughter got whatever was leftover, and that wasn’t much.

  Maybe if she had a mother who yelled at her over her bad grades, demanded she clean her room, and come home instead of staying out until three in the morning, Sophie wouldn’t have met Ozzy. Maybe everything that followed that fateful meeting wouldn’t have happened at all.

  Ellen sighed. Sorrow filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, baby.”

 
The two most useless words ever strung together. “It’s all right, Mom.”

  “You’ll understand when you’re a mother.”

  No. She wouldn’t. If she was fortunate enough to have more than one child, whether it be two or ten, she would love each equally and give them everything they needed to thrive.

  Who am I kidding? A sob tore out of her mouth. She couldn’t protect the one she had. She’d failed as Ellen had, only worse. Much, much worse.

  Chapter Seven

  Sophie needed oxygen, more than what was contained in the recreation of her brother’s childhood bedroom. She pushed to her feet, determined to vacate the house as fast as her legs could move. The hopeful pleading look in Ellen’s eyes stopped her.

  She’d never seen that expression on Ellen’s face, the open need for her daughter’s understanding. The hard shell around all the bottled emotions concerning her mother had cracked wide open. It was too much, too soon, and undeserving. “Why don’t we get out of here and get something to eat?”

  Wincing as she straightened, Ellen took her time climbing to her feet. The canister of oxygen swaying. Hadn’t she read somewhere that oxygen could explode? Maybe it was from a movie. Ellen shuffled, a slow side to side gait, to the bedroom door. Gone was the twentyish girl Sophie had imagined. In her place stood a decrepit forty-seven-year-old.

  Sophie shouldn’t judge. She multiplied by seven and counted her twenty-four years by the canine calendar. Her head bobbed up and down. “I’d like that. I haven’t been out of the house since Bobby left.”

  It was her tone, the way she said the last sentence that struck something within Sophie. She hadn’t noticed a car parked in the driveway when she parked on the curb. “You don’t have a car to get around?”

  She shook her head and gave a weak smile. “No, we only have the one car, and Bobby had to use that to go to work.”

  Leaving Ellen stuck at home until he returned from the west coast. She was a prisoner in her own house.

  “He doesn’t like me driving. I crashed the car last year and I haven’t driven since. The insurance went up too high.”

  Smelled like bullshit to Sophie, but it wasn’t any of her business. She learned a long time ago to stay out of Ellen’s various relationships. She’d had more uncles than she had fingers. Five minutes later, Sophie had her sunglasses on to combat the afternoon glare as they drove out of Ellen’s neighborhood.

  “Take a right,” Ellen said. “We can drive by the old neighborhood. You can’t imagine how much it’s changed.”

  Sophie would rather take her word for it. She didn’t have a well of good memories from the old neighborhood; however, she took the right. Ten miles later, the trip down memory lane was a catapult back in time, not all of it horrendous, especially when they drove past the old house with two little boys playing out front and their mom sitting on the steps watching them. A fresh coat of paint and a new roof made the house inviting, warm, a haven it never was for Sophie.

  The old middle school was gone, sacrificed to the strip mall gods, as was the park she’d played in, now a shiny new parking lot.

  “How about Longhorn for dinner?” Ellen pointed to the restaurant on the other side of the intersection.

  Sophie shrugged, not having a preference. She pulled into the restaurant after the light turned green. Ellen chatted away between drinks and waiting for their appetizers, catching her up on local politics and local gossip, none of which she cared about.

  Between the inherent background noise of the restaurant and the drone of Ellen’s voice, Sophie’s mind wandered. She came to Florida with the intent of telling Ellen the truth. All day opportunities presented themselves, yet she couldn’t form the words. Ellen was frail, fragile enough for a breeze to carry her away. Plus, they were getting along, something Sophie never imagined was possible. Hours together and they hadn’t argued once. Not even a snide remark. Was it wrong for her not to ruin the moment with the truth, a truth she needed to share, but Ellen didn’t necessarily need to hear?

  Sophie signaled the waitress for a refill of her martini and locked eyes with Chay entering the restaurant. “What the hell?” She forgot to mumble.

  “What’s wrong? Good God, that’s a fine slab of a man right there.” Ellen’s husky voice had Sophie doing a double. “Who is that?”

  My stalker.

  “And why is he coming over here?” Ellen gasped.

  Sophie’s heart kicked up several notches for all the wrong reasons. She and Ellen weren’t the only ones staring. Every female, infant to elderly, had locked on Chay. Six-four plus more with his recent growth spurt, on the lean side of muscular, his hair was loose on his broad shoulders. With his lower half incased in black jeans and his white tee defining his pecs, hinting at a six pack, and stretched around his biceps, estrogen spiked the air.

  Jesus! He was hot. The simple silver and leather thong around his throat and buckle added to the effect, which pissed her off, especially when she wasn’t the only one who thought he was the epitome of bad boy sexy. If they only knew how sweet he could be. How attentive and caring…when he wasn’t blocking your memories.

  “You know him?” Ellen whispered seconds before he stopped at their booth.

  “Mrs. Charles.” He held out his hand.

  Ellen actually blushed as she extended her hand to receive a kiss on her knuckles. “It’s Mrs. Garner now.”

  “My apologies. I’m Chayyliél. A friend of Sophie’s.” His glare dared her to deny it.

  Ellen scooted over without any hesitation. “Please, join us.” She waited until he sat, he had to move the table two inches to accommodate his big body. “Chayyliél, that’s an interesting name. Middle Eastern?” She actually batted her eyes.

  “No. Not quite.” His smile was sexy casual and utterly enthralling by the gazes garnered from every pair of ovaries in the room.

  “No?” Ellen flirted. Flirted! “Well, you have a desert sheik look about you. You know, hot sands and sultry nights.”

  Good God, this was not happening, Sophie fumed. Married four times, on oxygen, and she was still trying to pick up a man. My man. Sophie didn’t bother to mentally correct herself.

  “All of my friends call me Chay.” He smiled and leveled his pewter eyes on Ellen. She preened under the UnHallowed’s gaze.

  The waitress made a beeline for the table. “I’ll have a—” He started before she asked.

  “Nothing. He’s not staying.” Sophie cut him off.

  Ellen gasped in mock outrage. “Don’t be rude, Sophie.”

  “Rude is showing up where you’re not invited.” She ignored her mother in favor of glaring at Chay.

  He shifted those pewter eyes and his lazy grin to the waitress. “Bring me a Lager, please.” The woman walked away fanning herself. That deep, raspy voice of Chay’s had that effect.

  “Sooo…” Ellen dragged out the word long enough for it to be a paragraph. “How long have you two been dating?”

  “We’ve never dated. Just friends,” Chay answered while Sophie chose to sip her martini rather than reply.

  The thought of them dating was ridiculous, especially now when she didn’t trust him.

  “Well, that’s a shame considering the heat you two are giving off.” Sophie glared at her mother, who shrugged her bony shoulders and smiled. “The sexual tension is thicker than cold peanut butter spread over dry bread.”

  The appetizers picked the perfect time to show up, allowing her to ignore Chay’s chuckle.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” Ellen continued around the chili cheese fries she stuffed in her mouth.

  “He gave me a job and a place to stay.” After he stole my memories. “Platonic.” She forgot to remove the ire from her voice.

  “And I guess platonic is bad?” Ellen tiptoed around the question, her gaze ping-ponging between Sophie and Chay.

  “Did I mention he’s Scarla’s father?”

  That got Ellen’s eyebrows touching her hairline. Scarla, she knew. Bestie to
Sophie, how could Ellen not know her. Although, she’d never met Chay or any of the UnHallowed, or even Scarla’s regular human parents who raised her until she emancipated herself at sixteen. Her mother never took the time to know who was in her daughter's life.

  Ellen eyed Chay. “You certainly don’t seem old enough to have a twenty-six-year-old daughter.”

  Sophie grunted. “Don’t let that hot stud look fool you. He’s plenty older than he appears. He’s positively ancient.”

  The hint of a grin flirted with his mouth. “I’m more of a father figure,” he said to Ellen.

  Sophie wanted to argue the point, but that would give away too much info on the UnHallowed. She snorted. Even if she did give away all she knew, Chay could erase everyone’s mind in the place. “A really old big brother,” she grumbled, determined to have the last word.

  His gaze turned to Sophie, a thin red rim circled his irises. “So, you think I’m a hot stud?”

  Before she could shoot him down, Ellen piped in, “I do.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes, pissed at her mother, and in general, everyone. “Not compared to Sam, Riél, and Rimmon. Even Zed is hotter than you with his disheveled, scraggly appearance.” Homeless Zed was a stretch, but she went there.

  With each name, his lips thinned, and his nostrils flared. That used to be enough to send her scurrying in the opposite direction. Not of Chay, per se, but she was generally fearful of everything, especially in the early days when she’d first moved into the training center. Was it because she couldn’t remember? Or maybe it was her nature? Ozzy had beaten any resistance out of her. Yeah, Chay took her memories, though not enough of them. He should’ve taken those.

  “Are you sure you two haven’t slept together?” Ellen asked as the waitress returned with Chay’s beer.

  “It wouldn’t have been appropriate,” he rumbled in a low voice.