Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (26 page)

As I bathed, I tried to brainwash
myself with a deluge of positive self-talk. It wasn’t the miracle
that I was hoping for, but at least my attitude was a little better
by the time I got out.

I’d decided that if I was going to
survive, I’d have to just move forward and not look back. I even
thought about transferring to Billie’s school at the end of the
semester. It would crush Mom and Dad, but they’d have to get used
to me being gone eventually. Why put if off any longer?

I dressed in white shorts and a tube
top then grabbed a book I’d been trying to get through and went out
onto the deck. I pulled the wicker coffee table closer to my chair,
sat down, leaned back and propped my feet up. I was in hopes that a
little sunshine therapy might help. I purposely left my phone
inside so that I wouldn’t feel it staring at me, all blank and
depressing.

Two hours and two shades of pink later,
I went back into the house, no better for my outing. I had managed
to read about a chapter of the book and then drifted into my own
miserable thoughts and hadn’t come back out until just
now.

Even though I could’ve kicked myself
for being so weak, I checked my phone for any missed calls. There
were none.

I decided to surprise Mom and have
dinner fixed when she got home. That would keep me occupied for a
while.

Only it didn’t. As I diced
and minced, my mind kept returning to the ominous words
it’s in your blood.
What
could that possibly mean?

Not for the first time in my
life, I began to wonder about my parents. My
real
parents, the biological ones. I
wondered if either of them had any special gifts or talents or,
like me, curses. I wondered if maybe it was their blood, something
inside my parents, that made me the way that I was or if I was just
a freak of nature, like I felt.

By the time Mom got home, supper was
almost done and we had some time to talk before Dad
arrived.

“
Mom, do you know anything
about my parents?”

Her head snapped up and she turned to
look at me. She was sensitive about these kinds of questions.
That’s why I’d never asked very many. It seemed to hurt her when I
wanted to know about people who’d willingly given me up. I think
she felt betrayed, like I was somehow minimizing all she’d done for
me, how much she’d loved me all my life. That’s why I knew very
little about them. But these were questions that needed to be
asked, especially now.

“
Very little,” she said
quietly,

“
Did you even know their
names? Did you ever see them or meet them?”

“
No. Your mother abandoned
you at the hospital. According to the Safe Haven Law, she wasn’t
required to even leave her name. Not that I asked. I wanted you
free from all ties to those people,” she said bitterly.

“
I know, Mom. And I know how
lucky I am that you and Dad raised me, that I didn’t have to stay
with them. I just wonder what they were like, why I am the way that
I am.”

Frowning, she walked slowly toward me.
“What do you mean?”

I shrugged, casting my eyes to the
floor. My throat was suddenly tight with emotion and my eyes burned
with unshed tears.

“
Mercy, what is
it?”

“
I don’t know, Mom.” My
voice was trembling. “I just want to know why. And I want to know
if anybody will ever be able to love me like I am.”

I felt Mom’s arms come around me and I
blinked back the tears that filled my eyes. It would kill her to
see me cry, so I was strong for her when I felt like I couldn’t be
strong for myself.

“
There’s nothing wrong with
the way that you are, Mercy. There’s no reason that
anyone
wouldn’t love you.
And there’s a man out there who will be thrilled to have you in his
life. You just have to find him.”

My mother loved me, but she didn’t know
all there was to know about me. What if nobody could love me like
this? What if I was destined to fall in love and then be forced to
watch it fall apart over and over and over again? I didn’t think I
could survive this kind of pain again.

Mom held me like that for a long time,
stroking my hair and swaying back and forth gently. She’d soothed
my aches and pains all my life in just this way, but this time her
love couldn’t fix me. She couldn’t wash away or kiss away the
wounds I was suffering from this time. Once again, I was on my own,
separated from those I love by a condition that I didn’t ask for
and couldn’t control.

When I pulled away to walk to my room,
she let me go without a word. She knew me well enough not to press
me just yet.

I lay on the bed, drowning in sorrow,
for what seemed like hours. The house was quiet when the phone
rang. I knew without looking at the clock that it had gotten late.
I also knew without looking who was calling—the only person who’d
have reason to call me late at night. It had to be
Grayson.

“
Hello?” My voice was as
flat and lifeless as my heart.

“
Were you
asleep?”

“
No.”

“
I need to talk to
you.”

“
Ok.”

“
Can I come get
you?”

I wanted to say no, but that wasn’t an
option. For many reasons.

“
Yes.”

“
I’ll be there in fifteen
minutes.”

And he hung up. Just like he always
did. And my chest ached.

I sat on the end of the bed, wishing
for the anger that I’d spurned only days before. Where was that
fiery emotion when I needed it?

I didn’t even bother changing clothes.
I just walked to the door and waited, watching for the Dodge’s
familiar headlights. When I saw them, I quietly opened the door and
stepped outside, closing it behind me.

Grayson pulled to a stop just before he
reached my driveway and cut his lights off. I walked to the
driver’s side, arms crossed over my chest, and I waited. He
motioned for me to come around to the passenger side so I
did.

He reached across and opened the door a
crack for me. I opened it further and sat down without closing it.
I turned toward him and waited quietly for him to get to his reason
for coming.

“
Shut the door. Let’s go for
a ride.”

With a sigh, I did as he asked, pulling
my seatbelt around me as he turned on the lights and shifted into
drive.

Grayson drove for several miles before
he spoke. By that point, my nerves were clanging like dozens of
cymbals.

“
I think the killer is a
relative of yours.”

I couldn’t have been any more surprised
if Grayson had driven us off a cliff into an ocean of striped
mushrooms and green ponies.

I stared at him, mouth agape and
totally speechless.

Glancing quickly at me then returning
his attention to the road, he said, “Those are preliminary results,
of course. The final report won’t be ready for at least two more
days, but I didn’t want to wait to tell you. The lab’s pretty good
about getting this stuff right the first time.”

I knew I should cry or
scream or rant or do
something
, but I couldn’t. On top of
the emotionally crippling day I’d already had, this information had
rendered me curiously (and pleasantly) numb. If anything, I was
fighting off the urge to laugh. I mean, could it get much worse
than this? Could life even
make
a worse day than this?

“
Mercy?”

I chanced a quick look at Grayson. He
looked like he was afraid to do or say anything, like I might crack
if he breathed. He was a little late, though. I was pretty sure I’d
cracked already. He was just seeing the unnatural shape of
brokenness.

“
A relative?” I asked
robotically.

“
Yes. By the number of
shared alleles, it’s likely either a parent or a
sibling.”

“
I guess we know what’s in
my blood now,” I said with no small amount of bitterness. “Pure
evil.”

My laugh was more a harsh bark than
anything remotely jovial. Then something struck me, tipping off my
temper.

“
Wait a minute. You need a
sample from both of us to test DNA.”

“
Yes,” he said
evenly.

“
Then how did you do the
test? Without a sample from me to test?”

Grayson at least had the decency to
look ashamed. “I had a sample.”

At first I felt strangely calm, almost
deadly calm. “From where?”

“
From the napkin I used to
wipe your arm.”

Ah, when I’d bumped my arm. My stitches
had bled and I thought it was the nicest thing in the world that
Grayson had cleaned me up so carefully. Was I wrong to feel
betrayed? Did I have any right to be angry that he’d not only kept
the bloody napkin, but turned it in to the authorities for
testing?

It didn’t take long for my gut to
answer that question. Oh yes! I had every right to be
angry.

“
Take me home,” I spat from
between my gritted teeth.

“
Mercy, I—”

“
Now!”

“
I can’t do that. I need to
talk to you before this gets really nasty.”

“
Oh, you mean it hasn’t
already? I thought we were sharing something special, but all you
were doing was
collecting evidence!
That sounds pretty nasty to me. You let me believe
you felt the same way I did just so you could work your case. You
let me- you-,” I stammered, beyond furious. But there, just below
the angry surface, was the knowledge that, when I’d thought that it
couldn’t hurt any worse, it absolutely could. And it
did.

“
It wasn’t like that, Mercy.
It’s
not
like
that. I just have to be very careful right now. For both our
sakes.”

“
Likely story,” I snapped.
“Stop the car.” When Grayson kept driving, I got louder. “Stop the
car!”

He pulled over to the side of the road
and before he could even come to a complete stop, I jerked the door
open and took off running. I couldn’t stand it in that car with
him. His presence, his patronizing excuses, the smell of cinnamon
that made me ache all over. I couldn’t handle it for one more
second.

A crushing weight was squeezing the air
from my lungs and splitting my chest wide open, but I pushed myself
to put distance between me and Grayson. I had to get away—away from
him, away from life, away from myself.

I had no idea where I was running to,
but I suddenly became aware of Grayson’s voice right behind me,
calling my name. When his hand latched on to my wrist, I tried to
pull it free, but his grip was like warm steel.

He pulled me to a stop and spun me
around. He looked down into my eyes for a single heartbeat before
he wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to his
chest.

I instantly burst into
tears.

Burying my face in his neck, I sobbed,
no longer able to hold all the hurt and the insecurity and the fear
inside. It poured out of me in huge, gut-wrenching
waves.

The harder I cried, the tighter he
squeezed. And the tighter he squeezed, the harder I
cried.

I don’t know how long he held me that
way. I was sure it wasn’t long enough, though. Forever probably
wouldn’t have been long enough.

As soon as that thought surfaced in my
mind, I pulled away. I’d never heal if I kept hanging on to the
past. And Grayson, by his own choice, was now a thing of the past.
He obviously couldn’t have a future with a girl like me.

He rubbed his hands up and down my arms
soothingly.

“
Please don’t. You’re just
making it worse.” I could’ve kicked myself for the words as soon as
they were out, but I couldn’t take them back.

“
Making what
worse?”

I didn’t look up at him, I just wiped
at my face with the back of my hand.

When I didn’t answer, he
asked again, bending slightly to try and look into my face. “Making
what worse?” When I still didn’t answer, he took my face in his
hands and made me look at him. “
Making
what worse
?”

“
This!” I shouted.
“Us.”

“
What the- I don’t
understand.” I had to give him points for his theatricality because
he really did look puzzled.

“
Of course you don’t,” I
said derisively, pulling my face away from his hands.

“
Mercy, what is going
on?”

I had hoped to avoid a scene like this,
to spare myself the degradation, but it seemed a confrontation was
inevitable.

“
Look, you’ve made yourself
perfectly clear. I know things are different now, but it doesn’t
make it any easier. Feelings don’t just go away over night,” I said
angrily. Then I added bitterly, “At least they don’t for some of
us.”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean? You know I have feelings for you.”