Rifts (2 page)

"That million dollar smile isn't going to dissuade me. It felt like you knew who she was. So spill."

"I
think
that she's your sister Hope."

"Shut the fuck up!" Why the exclamation? Well, a few months ago, my father - who had kidnapped my mother and spent a great deal of effort and power trying to kill me - admitted that he'd killed all of my mother's children. So you can imagine my surprise at finding that one of them escaped.

"Both Diana and Geb agreed that he'd killed all of her children and that I was the last one. How could this be possible?"

"Hope was tortured and supposedly thrown through a Rift. It's logical to assume that she was killed. Nobody expected her to survive what Geb did to her." His tone was flat but his fingers were gripping the steering wheel like he was about to plummet down a hundred foot rollercoaster drop.

"That would explain why she was so pissed off at me. I do unfortunately look like my bastard father."

"Yeah," he responded quietly.

Oh crap on a stick. Hating this woman would have been so easy. I mean seriously, she stabbed me in the freakin' heart. But when you've been tortured, you develop a kinship with other victims. I could feel her pain and her fear, so instead of busting her in the face, I now wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her close.

Growing up, thinking for thirty-some-odd years that you're an orphan, you get used to the idea that family is what you make it. Suddenly, I had a sister and she needed me. She needed my compassion and my loving forgiveness.

After that, I’d bust her in the face for stabbing me in the heart…

The ringing from my phone snapped me out of my reflection and I asked Drew to hit the answer button on the steering wheel.

"What up, chicken butt?"

"Hey Mom, are you close to home?"

"Yeah, Drew is with me. We should be home in about 15 minutes. We still need to get that milk. Lego is going to have to wait for another day though."

"Bummer."

"Sorry dude, something came up and I can't go into GameStop looking like someone beat the crap out of me."

"
Did
something beat the crap out of you?" His voice took on a worried edge and I cringed.

"Are you kidding me? That thing is
totally
road kill. I just ripped my shirt and bled a little to make it seem fair. Everything is totally cool."

His sigh of relief sounded like a wind tunnel and my body relaxed just a fraction. I hated that he worried about me. I hated that he knew that I had to fight the bad guys and that there was a possibility that one day, the bad guys would be tougher than I was.

"Okay, so… don't forget the milk. I love you."

"I love you more," I called out as Drew hit the end button.

Looking down at the knife protruding from my chest, I realized that I couldn't walk in the door like this.

"Drew, you gotta pull this out before we get home."

"I'm afraid to pull it out. You haven't had your nanites for long enough Grace. I don't know how this will affect your body. I'm not sure whether it will kill you, or not."

I looked at his face in the rearview mirror. He looked grim.

"I can't walk in the door with a fucking knife sticking out of my chest, especially after that conversation. Pull. It. Out. If you need to get me through the door and then to a Healer, that's fine...but he can't see me like this. You know that."

He sighed, "Yeah, I know."

"Okay, so after you get the milk, pull it out."

"Or now," he whipped around, gripped the hilt and yanked it out of my chest so fast that I didn't have time to even screech my surprise.

The way the knife felt sliding out made my stomach turn. I could feel the steel pulling at my flesh, like someone was tugging on a stray nerve and sucking it through a straw.

"Or now," I gritted out. The skin was already knitting together. I could tell from the itching.

"Welp, you didn't die. So that's good."

"Yeah we're not done yet."

He laughed and pulled into the FarmCrest. "I'll be right back. Don't kick up your toes while I'm gone."

"Asshole," I muttered.

His being an asshole didn't stop me from sighing dreamily as I watched him walk through the swinging door of the convenience store. Actually, every woman in the vicinity stopped to watch him walk through that door.

He may have been irritating beyond comprehension but he was quite literally the prettiest man on Earth. His Levi’s were particularly snug today and I could see the muscles flex as he walked.

I sighed again. "Asshole."

It didn't take long for the pain to subside and the nanites to kick in. By the time we pulled into the driveway, the hole had even closed. Dylan stood at the door waiting for us. Lines of anxiety marred his face and my stomach dropped a bit.

When my mother, Diana (Yes, Goddess of the Hunt Diana) told me that I had a calling, I'd worried about how this would affect Dylan, but it needed to be done, right? It seemed as though I hadn’t had a choice at the time. I still worry whether I made the right decision.

Worry rolled off of his little body in waves I could almost see as he walked halfway to the car. I struggled out of the back seat, held my arms open and whirled around to show him that I was mostly damage free. That may not have been the best idea. Blood loss and spinning aren't the greatest combination.

He ran the rest of the way to the car, tucked his head under my arm and propped me up. "Glad you're okay, Mom."

"You and me both, buddy." I leaned over to kiss the top of his head and paused for just a moment breathing in his scent. He wouldn't allow that for long. I made the most of it and tried to relax so that he could too.

"Did… did you just sniff me?"

"Maybe."

"Uh, okay. Thanks for picking up the milk and it's okay about the videogame. I can deal. Will you tell me about the fight?"

"Oh that old bag-of-bones Manticore that got its ass kicked?"

"Is that what beat you up so bad?"

"Gasp! I can't believe you'd think that I got beat up. Look at me. I'm the picture of health."

"Mom – You promised that you'd tell me the truth." His voice was low and his arm tightened around me a bit.

God, I felt like such a jerk. Who puts their kids through this? I looked over Dylan's head at Drew and raised my eyebrows. Sometimes he was a help in situations like this. Most of the time, he was useless. He chose this moment to be useless and shrugged his shoulders at me. That earned him a brief scowl before I wrapped my arms around my son and lead him past the kitchen into the family room.

"Okay, you got me there. Sit down and I'll tell you the story." I shooed him over to the loveseat and settled gingerly into my favorite chair.

"The first thing to remember is that Manticores are
screamers.
The second thing to remember is that even though they look scary as hell and they whack a pretty big punch, they're generally peaceful. So don't go picking a fight with one."

"Hold on, I want to write this down."

"Seriously?" Was this my kid who said that extra reading was actually torture and he'd turn me in to the United Nations?

"Yeah, this is really cool and I guess it will come in handy when… you know… it's my time."

Lalalallalaala! I didn't say it out loud but my brain was screaming it. I had the same reaction when he told me that he'd grown pit hair. I'm not a delicate mother. I was the Mom who had the condom talk. I was the Mom who lectured about being fiscally responsible and good. I was also the one who wasn't ready for him to grow up. I just wasn't.

"Right, go ahead. I'm just going to rest my eyes while you're off."

He scrambled off the couch and brushed past my legs. I got a warm tingle that let me know that he was okay and we'd
be
okay. "Everything is fine. It's good. It's fine. It will be great." If I said it enough, it would become true.

"Are you talking to yourself?" Drew’s breath brushed against my ear and my body shivered in response.

"Nope, I'm talking to you. What's up?"

"I sent your kid off on an epic quest. I figured that you and I could have a pretty thorough discussion before he ever gets around to gathering up his laundry." His brow furrowed. "I don't get it. No matter how much I nag him, he still leaves his underwear all over the house."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at him and just responded, "He's twelve."

"I picked up my underwear when I was twelve," he groused.

"Did you even
wear
underwear when you were twelve?" My eye had scrunched up as my voice rose in pitch. "Like, ever?"

"Good point. Anyway, I've been thinking about this. You not knowing things has really left you at a disadvantage."

"You don't say!"

"Don't be a smartass. I'm trying to make it all better."

"How about I give you an A for effort and then go back to being a smartass?"

"Can we be serious for just a minute?"

"Whoah!" I held my hand up and gave him a perplexed look. "I just had a flashback to me being married. You're getting all stuffy on me AND we're not having sex. Wiggy."

He rolled his eyes and continued. "Look - I'm about to drop a couple of bombs on you, so I really need you to be serious for a couple of minutes."

Unease crept up between my shoulder blades. I didn't want to be serious. As much as I bitched about it, I wasn't sure if I wanted to know all of the stuff he had to tell me. What if it was too big? What if my brain exploded from the weight of it all? There's really only so much serious shit that you can take before you've had enough and the last six months of my life had been pretty damn serious.

I mean, first I found out that I was the daughter of Diana the Huntress. Then I learned that my father had kidnapped, raped and nearly killed her before she trapped him in the Earth's Core.
And then
he found out about
me
and tried to have ME killed but not before leveling Los Angeles. I mean… really… shit was serious enough without Drew adding to it.

"Am I going to need a drink for this?"

He paused and then nodded. "Probably."

I leapt over the side of the chair and headed to the kitchen for a glass of wine. "Hold that thought. I'll be right back."

He followed me into the kitchen and started talking. "Your mother had Hope after my father wiped out half of Europe with the Black Plague – which is why she was named Hope. It was before they got married, actually. She'd come upon a village that was hanging on by the skin of its teeth and met a young man who she quickly became fascinated with. It wasn't until after she'd become pregnant that she realized the man had contracted the disease. She wasn't affected by it of course, but she had to watch as the beauty and creativity that she saw in this man wasted away with the black pus that erupted from his sores.”