Crimson (The Silver Series Book 3) (15 page)

“
Slow down here, now turn,”
Jet directed.

We pulled into an alley behind a pasta place
and a pawn shop and Mr. Davies shut off the vehicle. We ducked and
a few seconds later the pursuing SUV raced past.

“
Where are we?” Jaze asked
quietly.

“
Where I got shot after we
first met,” Jet replied.

No one said anything for a few minutes, then
Jaze gave a tight smile. “At least we know nobody'll mess with us
around here.”

Jet cracked a smile and Mr. Davies slowly
backed up.

***

I phased in the bathtub after Jaze shut the
door. Nikki was right about the mess. Black dye ran down my arms,
legs, and chest to pool in a puddle at my feet. I turned on the
shower and shut my eyes. Warm water tinged black flowed in rivulets
down my face and back. My arm throbbed dully, but the pain from the
surgery was almost gone. I leaned against the wall and enjoyed the
water.

The werewolf side of me wanted to categorize
every smell, the soaps, cleaners, even the detergent used on the
towels, along with everyone who had used the shower recently, while
the human side of me pushed back memories of the accident, my
family, and all that I had taken from myself and them by drinking
and doing drugs. I hit my forehead against the wall softly several
times in an effort to stamp away both drives.

My thoughts suddenly turned surprisingly
sharp and by the time the water ran clear and my body was scrubbed
clean of the black dye, I realized two things. I couldn’t push away
my werewolf instincts anymore than I could forget to breathe, and I
had the ability to make at least one thing right that I had
destroyed.

***

“
You going home?” Jaze
asked.

I looked up from the bed I was straightening
and nodded.

“
You planning to run there,
or what?” he pressed, his eyes calculating.

I shrugged. “If I have to. I hadn't really
thought about it.”

“
Well, I did,” he said with
a small smile.

He tossed a folder down on the bed and I
picked it up. Plane tickets along with a fake driver's license fell
out. I stared at them. “How’d you get these?”

He grinned. “Let's just say I figured you'd
be going home after our trip to the Davies'. You had that look in
your eyes.”

I held up the very authentic looking
driver's license and glanced at him. He shrugged. “The Hunters have
some valuable skills.” He nodded toward the tickets. “Those are
round trip.”

I glanced from him to the plane tickets and
my heart throbbed painfully at the unexpected gesture. “Thank you.
I don’t know how I'll-“

He shook his head. “Don’t. You took a bullet
for me and you’ve been selfless in the way you’ve taken care of
Grace. You deserve to let your family know you’re alright.”

“
Am I?” I asked
quietly.

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded, a
smile touching his lips. “Yeah, you are.” He left through the door
before I could respond.

I looked at the tickets and the driver’s
license again and my heart gave another thump. I was going
home.

Chapter 15

My heart raced when I exited the taxi. I
walked slowly across the darkening lawn to Renee's house.
Anticipation at seeing her again began to race through my veins. I
hadn't realized how very much I was holding inside, how much I was
lying by telling myself I didn't need my family or Renee, that they
would be better off without me, until I crossed the grass I had
crossed a million times and stood on a porch as familiar to me as
my own home. I lifted a hand to knock on Renee's door, my heart
pounding.

A voice spoke inside. My unemotional
werewolf instincts labeled it as male and too young to be Renee's
father. I reasoned that he must be a cousin I hadn't known about,
but there wasn’t cousin I hadn't met in the four years we had been
together. My heart slowed and I walked down the stairs and around
the side of the house to the kitchen window.

My breath caught in my throat at the sight
of Renee. She stood against the kitchen counter, her blond hair
like a brilliant sunflower in the noonday sun. Her bright eyes, as
blue as a robin's egg, crinkled into the special smile she had
always saved for me. Only she wasn't smiling at me.

Someone leaned on the table with his back to
me, a pair of skinny shoulders covered in a jean jacket, brown hair
curling under a faded red baseball cap, and his thumbs hooked in
his belt loops in a way that was so familiar I racked my brain to
remember who it could be. Then he laughed and my breath caught in
my throat at the nasal tone of it. Chad Parker, a smart kid
everyone had made fun of during high school, but who hit it off big
with one of the major computer companies. He always had eyes for
Renee; now he had millions of dollars and she had no boyfriend to
stand in the way of his advances.

I thought of punching the window and
throwing him out of it regardless of the mess he would make on the
grass, but something about the look on Renee's face made me pause.
I opened and shut my fists in a way that reminded me of Jet while I
studied her face and the happiness I saw on it.

There was a touch of sadness in her eyes.
She didn't forget me; the tiny framed pictures of us that were
scattered across the kitchen table attested to that. They had been
gathered to cluster around a blue folded page that I realized was
the funeral program for me, Colleen, and Debra, Colleen’s best
friend. My sensitive eyesight took in the tear stains on the paper
now protected behind a glass frame with wildflowers around the
edges.

She always liked wildflowers. Even now, her
gaze flitted to the pictures briefly and her smile lessened, but
when she met Chad's eyes again, the smile deepened in sincerity.
There was no doubt that having him there made her happy, and her
special smile, reserved only for me for so many years, showed that
she really had feelings for him.

It hurt that I had only been gone a few
months and she already found someone else, but the rational side of
me said that I didn't know the situation, and I couldn't blame her
for finding a shoulder to cry on. I owed it to Chad for being there
for her. She thought I was dead, and had already gone through the
pain of losing me. With the laboratory men and who knows what else
chasing me, there was no saying that she wouldn't have to go
through it again.

I looked down at my hands and remembered the
way blood red fur climbed up them as they phased into paws. I
thought of my red eyes and the strange wildness that now filled me.
I was a monster, and worse than that, a monster brought back from
the dead. I wouldn't force her to deal with my fate the way that I
couldn't.

Renee laughed again and I closed my eyes to
capture the sound in my memory. I took a deep breath of night air
tinted with the lavender and brown sugar scent of Renee's house, my
second home, and turned away into a night that welcomed me with the
songs of crickets and the whisper of night air across the summer
warmed grass.

The same rational that made me leave Renee's
without announcing my presence battled inside me as I made my way
slowly through the half mile of neighborhoods that separated our
houses. I entered our yard from the side and stood near the orange
trees by the back fence, watching the only other place in the world
that held my heart.

Mom and Dad, in the same positions they had
occupied every evening I could remember of my childhood, sat on the
couch in the partial kitchen with a gas fire in the fireplace and
their feet nestled together on the ottoman as they snuggled under
the same tattered black and red checkered blanket they had used
since before I was born. Dad read a newspaper, probably browsing
the business and sports sections, while Mom read one of her
inspirational books she picked up from the nearby grocery store.
Every once in a while, Mom would nudge Dad's shoulder and read him
a passage from the book. He would nod, mumble something positive
and incoherent, and go back to his newspaper. There was a larger
couch in the living room, but they both preferred the love seat and
the closeness it created.

Eventually, Mom's head drooped against Dad's
shoulder and her book rested on her knee with one finger between
the pages. Dad rose to his feet, tucked the blanket snuggly around
Mom, then went to the kitchen counter for one last refill of his
customary hot tea before he helped her up to bed. He filled his cup
from the kettle, dropped a teabag inside, then looked out the
window while he waited for it to seep.

His eyes met mine and I froze. “Kaynan?” he
mouthed, his eyebrows lifted with disbelief. He set the cup down on
the counter and slid open the back door. I stepped back into the
trees, my heart pounding, but he came down the steps and crossed
the lawn toward me on bare feet. I could have jumped the fence and
run, but the look I had seen in his eyes stopped me.

He peered into the darkness of the trees,
his face a mixture of despair and hope. “Kaynan, is it you?” His
voice shook slightly, but it wasn't with fear.

I forced my pounding heart to slow and
stepped out into the faint light from the kitchen. “It's me,” I
said softly.

Dad threw his arms around me and held me
tight. He didn't say anything, but his shoulders shook with his
sobs. I hesitated, then wrapped my arms around him. Tears flowed
down my cheeks, breaking open the heart I had kept so carefully
shielded since I woke up at the labs.

When both our shirts were damp with tears
and neither of us had any left, he pushed me gently back to arm's
length and looked me up and down. “How is this possible? You died.
We buried both of you. How can you be here?” he asked. Then he
shook his head before I could speak. “It doesn't matter. All that
matters is that you're here.”

He tried to pull me in for another hug, but
I shook my head. “No Dad, it does matter.” The truth of my words
weighed heavily against me, bringing a knot to my throat. “It does
matter. They changed me.”

“
Who changed you?” he asked
when I couldn't speak further.

I swallowed and whispered, “They brought me
back from the dead and turned me into a monster.”

No judgment or fear showed on his face. He
merely looked me up and down, touched my shoulder again as if to
reassure himself that I was real, and gave me a warm smile. “You're
my son. They haven't changed that. Come inside. Your mother will
know what to do.”

The thought of hugging my mom made me so
happy I wanted to cry again, but I also feared what learning what I
had become would do to her. I shook my head again. “I can't go
inside. I don't want to hurt her.”

Dad's face took on the stern fatherly
expression he wore when he tried to be firm even though we all knew
he was a pushover and Mom was the strength in their relationship.
“Now Kaynan, you need to go into the house and say hi to your
mother. She has every right to know that you're alive, and she
always knows what to do.”

I sighed, but knew he was right. I followed
him back across the lawn and up the two steps to the deck I had
helped him build one summer when I was grounded for shoplifting. I
stepped through the back door and the scent of my childhood home
washed over me with a wave of memories of better times. I smelled
Colleen's faint scent and almost turned around and left, but Dad
was already shaking Mom's shoulder, telling her that her son was
home.

“
My son?” Mom said,
blinking up at him. “What do you mean, George?”

Dad pointed toward me and she turned to look
over the back of the couch. Her eyes widened, filled with tears,
and her lips formed my name but no sound came out. She looked from
Dad to me again and stood slowly from the couch. The blanket fell
to the ground unnoticed at her feet. I was shocked at how frail her
body had become over the few months since the accident. Her
shoulder bones showed sharply through her shirt, her cheeks were
thin, and she moved with a shuffling gait so different from her
usual lively step my heart ached.

“
My Kaynan,” she said in a
voice just above a whisper as she crossed the last few feet between
us. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders but barely touched me as
though she was afraid of hurting me.

I fought back a smile at the memory of her
bear hugs and picked her up and spun her around. “It's me, Mom. I
love you so much.”

A small, joyful laugh escaped her and when I
put her down she reached up and set a hand on my cheek. “My
son.”

I wasn’t worthy of the proud, loving look in
her eyes. As much as I longed for her acceptance and her loving
smile, I wasn’t the child she deserved. I owed it to my mom to let
her know what I was. I didn’t want her to fear me, but I had lied
to her too many times, and I would never lie to her again.

I turned my face away and removed my
sunglasses, took a steeling breath, then turned back to meet both
of their gazes. “They changed me. They made me into a monster.”

Mom’s breath caught at the color of my eyes
and she searched my face. “What kind of a monster?” she asked,
though I knew by her tone it didn’t matter. I could tell her
anything, and she wouldn’t care past the fact that her son was
home.

I led her to the table and helped her sit
down. Dad took the seat next to her and I knelt on the floor
looking up at them. “This is going to sound ridiculous,” I said. I
couldn’t think of where to start; my mind raced, but everything I
came up with sounded like something straight out of a horror
film.

“
You’re here,” Mom said.
“That’s all that matters.”