Tempt (Ava Delaney #3) (16 page)

“
Please, Ava. I need you to forgive me. I
am
sorry! I made mistakes, but I
raised you. I protected you, I broke the law for you. And when you
really did need me, I was there. When the vampires wanted you, I
was there. At the trial, I was there. I’ll always be there in the
end. I’m the only one who really cares what happens to you.
Your
only
family.
I’m the only one who doesn’t need you for something.”

“
Except forgiveness,” I whispered. “I get that you took things
to extremes because of the vampires and angels and all of that
crazy stuff. But strip that away, and we’re left with a bitter old
woman who didn’t want her precious son taken away. Did you see her
when you looked at me? Because I know I don’t look a thing like you
or my father.”

I paced,
my fists clenched, memories flooding my mind. “You never even kept
a photo of her for me. You could have given me something huge to
hold on to if you had just told me about her. The real her, not
just her death. All you did was give me a memory of a dying woman,
when she was so much more than that. That’s what you should be the
most ashamed of. That’s what should keep you awake at
night.”

I made it to the door before turning around. “I’ve wasted so
much time on you. I really wanted you to love me. I really wanted
you to see
me
,
not the thing you thought I could be. I could have used a family
instead of having to turn to strangers for comfort. I was going to
run away with Wesley. Did you know that? But I didn’t want to leave
you on your own. How pitifully stupid of me.”

I walked
out the front door with one weight lifted and another weighing
heavier than ever. I’d finally had my say, but the reminders of the
love I’d lost cut deep. The truth had come far too late to make
much of a difference to our relationship. Closing her door was like
closing a door on my past. She might be family, but she had a
deep-bred distaste for me, and somehow hearing how much she had
hated my mother solidified all of the hurt I felt toward
Nancy.

A normal
person would have loved a child, not abused them. I couldn’t accept
that her behaviour was explainable or completely understandable.
But for the first time in my life, I felt a connection to the
mother I had never known. The one who had walked for miles in
labour, slowly bleeding to death. The one who had begged for
someone to protect me. That idea sparked a warmth in my chest that
had never been there before, filling some of the emptiness I
carried.

The only
time I’d felt that kind of warmth had been with Wesley, until I’d
ruined it. I still savoured the taste of pure happiness, and with
Nancy’s revelations, I had another to keep alongside it.

I had no
idea who the angel was, or why he had felt the need to keep
reminding my grandmother to basically dominate me like a dodgy
animal trainer, but if I ever got the chance to face him, I would
have plenty to say.

I
wandered the city for a couple of hours, not wanting to go home and
feed a succubus with my pain. I had no place of my own, nowhere
that I really fit in, but the more I learned about myself, the more
comfortable I was in my own skin. The important thing wasn’t what
they said about me, it was the choices I made. Foolish or not, I
cared about people other than myself, and I did my best with the
little experience I had. I’d tried to close myself off, but it
never worked. I wasn’t meant to grow up hating. That realisation
was powerful.

I didn’t
feel particularly inclined to kill anyone, except maybe a certain
succubus, and my thirst was pretty much controllable for the most
part. Until that certain succubus ramped up the feelings between
Peter and me. Empathy didn’t come in handy on those occasions. But
I hadn’t hurt him. I hadn’t even bitten him. I could control
myself, even when I wasn’t so sure.

I found
myself heading towards Peter’s home. I had no one else I wanted to
turn to, and he was always the first person I wanted, no matter
what the circumstance. In some ways, he was exceptionally
unreliable and cold, but I felt as though he would back me up if I
needed him, and that made me feel safe around him. I couldn’t
remember the last time he had looked disgusted at the mention of my
more vampiric side.

He
wasn’t home, so I sat on his doorstep and watched his neighbours go
about their business. So normal and ordinary. Children playing like
there were no bad guys. Parents feeling safe enough to let their
little ones out on their own, despite murders and a kidnapping
happening right in their neighbour’s home. If they knew, they no
longer cared. People got over the past so easily, why couldn’t
I?

Peter
pulled up and didn’t notice me until he was a couple of feet away.
He stopped and stared at me for a couple of seconds. I gave a
little shrug, and he nodded. He opened the weirdly-secure front
door and hauled me to my feet.

“
In, before I lose my antisocial recluse reputation,” he
said.

I
laughed, but by the time I sat down in his living room, tears
rolled down my cheeks. He didn’t say a word, just handed me a
tissue and sat next to me. He stayed quiet, and I just sat there
crushing tissues in my fists.

“
Okay, I’m done being a girl,” I said after a
while.

“
Nothing wrong with girls. Need a coffee or
something?”

“
If you’re having one.”

He
patted my shoulder and left me alone. I often wondered how he could
live in that house. Knowing he had lost everyone who meant anything
to him within those very walls was strange to me. I always felt as
if there were ghosts in the room, watching my every
move.

Peter
seemed to do okay, despite suffering through the kind of heartbreak
I couldn’t even imagine. I wanted to talk to him, to spill
everything out, to beg him to tell me how to deal. But his past had
affected him, too. That was obvious in everything he did. Even the
supernatural beings of the world were wary of him, for those very
same reasons.

When he
came back with coffee, he sat next to me again and hesitated, as if
he wasn’t sure what to do.

“
Is it time yet?” he asked at last.

“
For what?” I whispered, confused by his
expression.

“
Carl kept telling me you need to stop holding everything in.
He reckons you need to talk about stuff, to get your head together.
I said you just needed to punch something. I’m guessing I was
wrong.”

I
smiled. “Not wrong, but the same things don’t work forever, right?
Never mind me. I’m being a wimp today. I’ve been trying to find out
more about myself, and it’s a bit… overwhelming sometimes. I’ve
spent so long thinking I was something, and then I find out there’s
a whole other mess in there, and I don’t know where to start
really.”

“
I can listen. I’m pretty good at it.” For an instant, the
soft Peter came through, the one who cared about living or dying,
the one he was before the real world came knocking.

“
I just don’t know where to go from here. Everything I’ve ever
believed has been thrown upside down. Between vampires and angels
and succubi and humans, I don’t know whether I’m coming or
going.”

“
What happened today?”

“
I went to see Eddie, my grandmother, and that succubus.
That’s why I came here. I didn’t want to give Alannah a filling
dessert on top of what she’s taking from Carl.”

Peter
shook his head. “If there was anything we could do…”

“
There has to be something. She’s been feeding off everything
I’ve felt for years. And I had no idea. My grandmother’s been lying
to me my whole life. And I had no idea. Eddie’s had plans for me
since before he met me. And I had no freaking idea. Everything’s
messed up, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“
Deal with one thing at a time. That’s all anyone can do. What
happened when you talked to Nancy? Anything good?”

“
Nope. She’s like a stranger to me. Her excuse for everything
is ‘An angel made me do it.’” I burst out laughing. “I mean, come
on!”

“
An angel? Think that’s true?”

I
shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t even care what the angels want
with me. The thing that got me the most was how she talked about my
mother. She hated her, and she definitely didn’t want to be
burdened with me. She kept saying she tried to change, she tried to
do better, but who needs to try to treat a child like a human
being?”

“
What happened to you?” he asked. “When you were a kid. What
did she do to you? You both insinuate things, but neither of you
get into the details.”

“
What didn’t she do? She said the angel told her to make me
afraid, to make me submit, so I wouldn’t screw up the world or
something. She definitely made me afraid. I wasn’t allowed play
with other kids, she only sent me to school when somebody called in
the social workers, and she made it her mission to take the
impurity out of me.”

“
How?”

His
voice was so quiet and soothing that I barely realised I was
answering questions.

“
Sometimes, she didn’t feed me. Other times, she used ice
baths or hot wax to try to expel the demon. I don’t know. She was
convinced there was an actual creature inside me or something. She
invited every lunatic to our home, especially the violent
ones.”

“
She told them about you?”

I
laughed. “Yeah, right. She told them I was evil, or sick, or needed
to be exorcised. That kind of thing. Some people were harmless. It
was all pretty words and dramatics. Others were… bad people. I
begged her to help me, to make them stop, but she washed her hands
of me and let them do their worst. If I’m honest, I’ve blocked out
most of it. Sometimes I get flashes of memories.”

His hand
covered mine, and the words flooded out of my mouth.

“
That first time we met Becca at that vampire bar freaked me
out because it was close to one of the places my grandmother took
me as a kid. I remember screaming at her to please take me home. I
swore I would be good, but she drove off and left me with
him.”

“
Who?”

“
A psychopath. The kind that pretends to be a holy man. I
forget what religion he pretended to work on behalf of, but he
didn’t like little girls. He left scars. In all sorts of places.
Then, he cut off my hair and sent me home. When she saw me, she
knew. She knew he wasn’t holy. But she didn’t say a word. She never
sent me to him again, but what he did worked. I didn’t speak for a
year, and she pretended we went travelling so the school wouldn’t
get suspicious.” I leaned back, surprised by the memories, by the
details that jumped out of me. I touched my back, remembering other
things. Things I never wanted to say out loud.

“
How could I want her to love me, Peter? Why would I want her
to? She let bad people do bad things to me. She couldn’t bear to
touch me. In school, the other kids, and even the teachers, avoided
me as much as possible. What is it about me that’s so obviously
wrong?”

He shook
his head, but I couldn’t look in his eyes.

“
That woman at the trial. Helena. My grandmother went to her
when I still hadn’t talked. It’s all a bit fuzzy. I remember she
did things to me, too, nothing painful, but she was angry.
Outraged, actually. She and my grandmother had a huge fight. I
remember feeling sad because it meant she wouldn’t come
back.”

“
Is that when she left?”

“
No. No, she came back, and Nancy told her things about me.
True things. And Helena tried to bring us together. It started
getting better, then Helena vanished, and I cried for her. Nancy
was furious. She was convinced Helena was going to betray us. I
wasn’t allowed to talk about her again, but I always remembered
her. Life was never as bad again. We started to get along a little.
She would sometimes go back to her old ways, but it was never as
constant. Then, Wesley moved to the neighbourhood.”

I
smiled, remembering the first time I had seen him. He’d caught me
staring, and I felt sure I had made the biggest fool of myself. But
he sought me out after that. All of the girls in my class had
crushes on him, but it was as though the strangeness in me that
repelled others only attracted him.

“
Being close to him made me happy. He made a point of being
lovely to Nancy, too. He brought me places, made me feel normal,
like I fit in somewhere. She obviously saw the change in me because
she began to treat me like a person. For the first time ever, I
felt happy. I mean, it really was the first time I’d felt it. Then,
I screwed it all up and had to leave.” I chanced a look at Peter.
He was staring at the wall, his shoulders tense.

“
You okay?” I asked.

“
Me?” He sounded shocked. “I should be asking you
that.”

“
I’m okay now.” I realised it was true as I spoke the words.
“I’m starting to figure out how to look after myself, I think. I
just have to learn how to let go of the past, I suppose. I’ll get
there.”

“
You’ve a lot to let go of.”

“
Look who’s talking.”