by I. T. Lucas
Her mother had no such excuse. Before, they used to talk freely about sex.
Tessa smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Don’t be angry at her. Her intentions are good. She and Magnus probably assume that because you were violated, any mention of sex will bring you grief, and they don’t want to hurt you. What they don’t realize is that it’s even more hurtful to be treated like a victim.”
It seemed like Tessa had more in common with her than Ella had initially suspected. “You sound as if you’re talking from experience.”
“Unfortunately, I am. Not many people know that about me, so don’t tell anyone. I hate to be regarded with pity. I’m telling you only because you understand how I feel.”
“I do. And your secret is safe with me. I wish no one knew about what happened to me either. Pretending to be normal would have been so much easier.”
“I’m glad we see eye to eye.”
The question was how come Tessa got to keep her ordeal a secret, while everyone in the clan knew about Ella’s. “I’m guessing that the clan didn’t rescue you. Otherwise, everyone would’ve known about you like they know about me.”
Tessa shook her head. “Eva, my boss, saved me. I owe her my life. She killed the scumbag who’d bought and abused me, she took me in, and she gave me a home and a job. But as I said before, this is between you and me. Don't tell anyone.”
It sounded as if Tessa’s ordeal had been much worse than Ella’s. At least Gorchenco had not abused her.
“Your boss must be a kickass lady.”
“Oh, she is.” Tessa perked up. “You have to meet her. But it’s not like she’s doing any ass-kicking recently or planning to return to it anytime soon. Eva has a cute baby boy, and she is wholly dedicated to being a mother.”
“I’m happy for her. I’m sure it’s more fun taking care of a baby than killing scumbags.”
Tessa chuckled. “For you and for me, almost anything would be better than going after scum, but I’m not sure about Eva. I think she’s secretly itching to get back to work.”
“What exactly is her work? I was told that she can hook me up with prosthetics to change my features. I need to have my picture taken for my fake documents.”
“Eva is a detective. Mainly, she’s done corporate espionage, but she’s also gone after cheating spouses. Elaborate disguises are her specialty. That’s why she has taken it upon herself to provide movie-quality makeup to clan members, including prosthetics, for their licenses and other documents. My friend Sharon has taken over the detective work, but she’s still a rookie, so Eva doesn’t send her out on anything too dangerous or difficult.”
The more Tessa told her about Eva, the more fascinating the woman sounded. “I’d love to meet her. Can you check with her when is a good time for her to hook me up with prosthetics?”
Tessa pulled out her phone. “It would be best to go see her when Bhathian is there, that’s her husband, so he can take care of the baby while she’s busy. This evening work for you?”
“Sure. But first, we need to unpack the equipment, watch a few YouTube videos, and familiarize ourselves with how everything works.”
Tessa waved a dismissive hand. “That shouldn’t take us more than a couple of hours.”
27
Julian
“Is this it?” Yamanu poked his head out the window and regarded the building Julian had parked in front of. “Not much to look at. It’s a dump.”
“That’s because you have no imagination.” Julian killed the ignition. “A new coat of paint, some more trees in the front, and it will look great.”
Yamanu got out of the car and waited for Julian to join him. “It’s like putting makeup on a pig. It’s not going to make it pretty.”
“If we are using animal analogies, then the one about not looking a gift horse in the mouth is more appropriate.”
Yamanu slapped his back. “Can’t argue with that, mate. How come Kian is being so generous, though? I thought money was tight.”
“He bought this old hotel a while back and was planning on erecting a new one in its place. But the city dropped an unexpected obstacle in his path, and they did it after the plans for the new hotel were almost done. The pencil-pushers came up with some crap about it being a historic building because someone no one has ever heard about had stayed there once in the late thirties, and therefore it had to be preserved.”
“Kian should have sold it as is.”
“No one would’ve bought it after it was declared a historic building. And instead of waging battle with the city bureaucrats, Kian decided to donate it and take a tax write-off.”
Yamanu looked at the broken windows and shook his head. “Lucky us.”
It was ironic that after all of his posturing about the halfway house project being Julian’s baby, and expecting him to find a location and the financing for purchasing it, Kian had ended up taking care of it.
Now it was up to Julian to make it work.
Inside the building, the situation was even worse. Between the peeling paint, rotted through carpet, and broken windows, the structure seemed suitable for only one thing. Demolition.
Yamanu opened the gate of the ancient elevator. “Just to bring it up to code will require massive work. I don’t think one elevator is enough for a building this size.”
“There are two staircases. One interior and a fire escape in the back. That’s good enough.”
“Are you sure?”
“I checked.”
A grimace on his handsome face, Yamanu turned in a circle. “At least the neighborhood is decent.”
“And it’s close to the village.”
“Twenty-five-minute drive, and it’s not a heavy traffic route, which is the biggest plus.” He rubbed his huge hands together. “Let’s see the rooms. If they are okay, then the rest can be worked on.”
Julian eyed the ancient elevator. “I suggest we take the stairs.”
Hesitantly, he put his foot on the first rung, and the next, and the one after that, but the staircase ended up being surprisingly sturdy.
The carpet covering the corridor was in better shape than the one in the lobby, but not good enough to stay.
As Julian opened the door to the first room, he was surprised that it was still furnished. Given the broken windows on the lobby level, he’d been sure that vandals had either stolen or destroyed everything.
Yamanu went over to the narrow four-poster bed and gave it a shake. “Sturdy. We can use it.” Next, he checked the nightstands and the writing desk. “I’ll be damned. We can use all of it. The mattress needs to be replaced, but other than that the furniture is good quality.”
“Let’s check the bathroom.” Julian opened the door.
It was tiny, with a pedestal sink, an old-fashioned toilet, and a charming claw-foot bathtub.
“What do you think?” He turned to Yamanu.
“Looks good. The question is whether the stuff works. Do you know if the water is connected?”
“I think so.” Julian twisted the faucet knobs. “Water pressure is fine. The heaters are not on, so it’s cold. We will have to check those too.”
The toilet flushed, the faucet in the bathtub worked, and the tub drained adequately.
Yamanu lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “No leaks either.”
“How much do you think we will need for remodeling?”
Yamanu shrugged. “No clue, buddy. This is not my area of expertise. Dealing with idiot bureaucrats, however, is. I’m surprised Kian didn’t ask me to take care of this problem for him.”
“Does he usually?”
“When it’s something ridiculous like this, then yeah.”
Interesting. It seemed that Kian had changed his mind about financing the halfway house and had donated the building even though he could’ve salvaged the situation with Yamanu’s help.
Why hadn’t he just come out and said it?
There had been no need for him to make it look as if he had no choice and was forced to donate th
e building.
“We need a name,” Yamanu said. “A halfway house has a negative connotation. How about Chateau Clarice?”
“Who’s Clarice?”
Yamanu shrugged. “No one I know. It just sounds nice.”
“If it’s going to be Chateau anything, it should be Chateau Bridget.”
“I like it. But both are a mouthful. It needs to be something simple and generic, like The Grove or The Orchards.”
“Or The Palms. Because of the two palms up front.”
“That’s good. The Palms it is.”
28
Ella
Eva was awesome.
A fierce, unapologetic, master of disguise, defender of the weak, and a killer of scumbags.
This was who Ella wanted to be when she grew up.
Maybe not the killer part, she didn’t know if she had it in her, but a kickass woman who inspired respect and a healthy amount of fear.
And according to Tessa, this was Eva at her mellowest.
Sitting in Eva’s living room and sipping on virgin margaritas, the three of them had let go of all pretenses and laid it all out, but only after swearing to take the secrets to their graves, of course.
Tessa shook her head. “I can’t believe you were an active vigilante during the years I worked for you. I thought that Martin was the only scumbag you killed.”
Eva smirked over the top of her margarita glass. “If I got caught, I didn’t want my kids to get in trouble.”
Tessa cast Ella an amused glance. “She’s talking about Sharon, Nick, and me. She’s always treated us like we were her kids. We loved it but thought that she was a little nuts. We didn’t know that she was old enough to be our grandma.”
“It must’ve been so hard for you to keep your immortality a secret.” Ella put her glass on the coffee table. “Always on the run. You’re so brave.”
Eva shrugged. “I did what I had to, but it was also in my nature. When I joined the DEA, I didn’t know I was immortal. I just wanted to fight the bad guys. At the time, I believed drugs were the worst problem, so that’s what I wanted to fight. If I’d known about human trafficking back then, I might have chosen a different path. Except, there is no agency that deals with that. And that’s a shame. After rescuing Tessa, I started looking into it, and that’s how my vigilante days started.”
After hearing Tessa’s story, which she was sure was a highly diluted version of what had really happened to her, Ella could totally sympathize with Eva’s motives for assassinating traffickers.
It made Ella feel guilty for the self-pity she’d allowed herself to indulge in. Poor Tessa had been to real hell, but she didn’t pity herself. She counted herself lucky for getting out alive, and she’d even managed to fall in love.
“You are both so brave, each one in her own way. I feel humbled.”
Eva waved a dismissive hand. “You’re brave too. The way you handled the Russian was perfect, and you did it without any prior training, relying only on your instincts. But still, if it makes you feel safer, I can kill him for you. Not right now, but in a couple of years when I’m back to work.”
Ella almost choked on her virgin margarita. “Thank you,” she croaked after the coughing fit had subsided. “That’s a very generous offer, but if I wanted Gorchenco dead, I would’ve let Turner’s team do it. I specifically asked that they spare him, which complicated my rescue.”
“I understand,” Eva said. “You’re young and soft. But if I hear that he bought another girl, he’s dead.”
“He won’t. That’s not how he is. I was a special case.”
Eva shook her head. “He took what wasn’t his for the taking. That’s bad. But it’s your choice to forgive him. However, if he does it again to someone else, I’ll deal with him when I’m ready. But if he comes searching for you, the Guardians should take him out, and you shouldn’t try to stop them. You shouldn’t live in fear.”
Ella loved Eva’s bluntness, and she loved even more that the woman didn’t regard her or Tessa as victims.
On the contrary, it seemed as if Eva felt closer to the two of them than she did to others. It was kind of a weird symbiosis. They were kindred spirits, with Eva on one end as the savior, and Tessa and Ella on the other end as the saved.
“I need to change the way I look. When you say prosthetics, what exactly are we talking about?”
“Movie makeup.” Eva emptied the rest of her margarita and took the glass to the sink. “But that takes a lot of time and skill. It’s not something you can just slap on in the morning.” She came back with a box of cookies. “A makeover will work better. When Tessa had hers, it gave her confidence a nice boost, am I right?” She glanced at Tessa.
“Yeah, it did. Before that, I had mousy hair, and I wore kids’ clothes. Subconsciously, I wanted to look like a kid and not a woman, so no one would approach me. I don’t think anyone seeing me now would recognize me as that girl. Which also boosted my confidence and made me less fearful. Before the makeover, what I was most afraid of was Martin’s brother coming after me.”
Ella reached for a cookie. “I don’t have a confidence problem, and I’m not particularly fearful either. I just made one really big stupid mistake.”
“Stop beating yourself up over that,” Eva said. “You’re eighteen, that’s still a baby. Your mother should’ve been smarter, though.”
“But I tricked her. I told her that I was staying at my friend Maddie’s.”
Eva smirked. “You see, that’s the difference between your mother and me. I would not have bought that story and would’ve been immediately suspicious. Vivian needs coaching.”
“Not really. I’m not going to do anything stupid like that ever again. She has nothing to worry about.”
“But she does worry, and that’s why she’s not going for the transition, which she should do sooner rather than later.”
“Why? What’s the rush?”
“Your mother is not getting any younger, and the transition is more difficult the older the Dormant.”
“I’ll talk to her.” About this and about keeping important details from her.
Her mother should’ve told her about how Dormants were turned, and that age was a factor. Ella shouldn’t have learned it from Tessa and Eva, whom she’d just met that day.
“Anyway, back to the makeover,” Eva said. “Since gaining confidence is not important to you, we should go for the most drastic transformation possible. Are you okay with it making you look worse rather than better than you do now?”
“A hundred percent.” Ella pointed to her face. “This is what has gotten me in trouble. I’m sick of people gawking at me, and I don’t want to be a target.”
Eva smirked. “What I have in mind will not solve the gawking problem. How do you feel about going Goth?”
“Ugh, black hair looks really fake on me. It’s not going to work.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of pink, or maybe purple.”
“Then we should wait for my mother to transition because when she sees me with pink hair, she’s going to have a stroke.”
Tessa frowned. “But you need to change your appearance to get your picture taken for your fake documents.”
“I was just joking. My mom will have to deal with it. When can we do it?”
“Let me check with Amanda.” Eva reached for her phone. “She’d never forgive me if we do it without her.”
“Right. She told me the first day I got here that she’s the one I should turn to.”
The answer to Eva’s text came right away.
“She says that she’s free on Saturday, and that we should meet up either in her house or yours.”
29
Vivian
“Mom, I need to talk to you,” Ella said as she entered the house. “In my room, if you don’t mind.”
Vivian put her book down. “Did something happen at Eva’s?”
“Nothing happened, I just want to talk to you in private.” She motioned with her head towar
d Parker. “Girl talk.”
“Oh, okay.” Vivian pushed to her feet and followed Ella to her room.
“What is it, sweetie?” she asked after closing the door.
”When were you going to tell me about how female Dormants are turned?”
With a sigh, Vivian sat on the bed. “Did Eva tell you?”
“No, Tessa did.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That it involves sex with an immortal male and getting bitten.” Ella threw her hands in the air. “Did you think I couldn’t handle it? We used to talk about everything, Mom. Nothing was taboo. I don’t want to lose this together with everything else I’ve lost because of one stupid mistake.”
As Ella’s chin started quivering, Vivian felt like crying herself. “Come here, baby. Sit with me.” She patted the spot next to her on the bed.
Sitting down, Ella leaned her head on Vivian’s shoulder. “Talk to me, Mom. Like we used to.”
Her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, Vivian kissed the top of her head. “It’s more than just sex for the immortal guys. And I didn’t think you were ready to hear that yet.”
“I might not be ready for sex, but I’m ready to listen and learn.”
She was right, and Vivian felt stupid for keeping this from her. “When an immortal male induces a female Dormant, it’s a big deal for him. For her too. He’s not supposed to do that unless he is sure that she’s the one for him, and he is the one for her. If the connection isn’t there, he’s supposed to step aside and let another immortal take his place.”
“So, let me get it straight. In order to transition, I’m supposed to fall in love with an immortal male before we have sex, and he has to fall in love with me?”
“You can have sex. In fact, you should do it before you decide if he’s the one, just with protection.”
