Hair, Greg - Werewolf 01 (27 page)

“And you had to kidnap your brother and sister to get that point across to me?” asked Landon. “Nicholas said it was your idea to take them. You killed Paige, their mother. Why?”

“I wanted you to hurt. I lost my mother and the man that should have been my father. I wanted you to lose, too. It isn’t fair that you have everything you do.”

“I’m sorry, Jamie. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you this much. You have to believe that it was never my intention to hurt you.”

“Just like it was never my intention to kill that old man in the town, but I did, and now it’s one of the things that I have to pay for. So what?”

Landon stood slowly, put the chair back in the corner, and stood by the door. He and Jamie locked eyes, no one blinking. Landon inhaled and took on a businesslike demeanor.

“I’ve spoken with the Consuls. They’ve released you into my custody because you are my son. We are leaving in the morning to return to the United States. You and the twins are going to live with me in Louisville. You’re going to be enrolled in high school in a couple of days.” He saw Jamie’s jaw drop. Landon continued, “Within a couple of days of settling in, I’m going to show you, and not just tell you, why I do what I do. I’m going to get you out there, and you can begin to learn firsthand from my experiences. I am your father, Jamie, like it or not, and this is how it’s going to be.”

Landon opened the door, and walked out. He left Jamie alone to contemplate the conversation.

Waiting down the hall, sitting on one of the French sofas, was LillyAnna. She got up and approached Landon. He took her by the hand and led her to her room. He closed the door behind him and motioned for her to sit on the bed. Neither one had said a word.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s happening with Jamie?”

Landon pulled up a chair next to her.

“Jamie has been banished for life,” he said, noticing the intense surprise in her face. “He has to leave in the morning.” He took her hands into his. “I’m taking him and the twins to live with me in Louisville.”

LillyAnna jumped off the bed and ran to her armoire.

“You certainly don’t give a girl much notice on these things. I have a lot to pack. Annelise has given me a lot of outfits since I got here. We need to say goodbye to her and everyone else. Jamie has been banished, but we can come back to visit, right?”

Landon watched her stop looking through her clothes as he responded to her question with silence. He looked away when her eyes met his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“No,” she said with a raised voice while her eyes began to well. “No! You can’t do this. You can’t leave me here. I have to go with you. I thought…I thought there was something between us.”

“There is, but I have to focus on being a father now. I have to be able to give more of myself to them. I think that’s the way to keep everything that just happened from happening again. I have to be involved. I’m also giving up drinking.”

“And I get in your way? You can’t be involved with me there? I can help you. I can do this with you. Let me be a part of their lives, too.”

Landon rose from the chair and walked over to meet her. LillyAnna’s tears tasted salty as he kissed her wet cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “I can’t. I wish I could, but I don’t know how to give all of my attention to two young kids, an angry teenager, and you. This doesn’t mean goodbye. It doesn’t mean that we won’t see each other again down the road. Remember, we don’t age as quickly as everyone else. We’ve got more time. I’ll be in touch.”

Landon let go of LillyAnna and opened the door.

“I love you,” she said quietly, as the door shut behind him.

“I love you,” he whispered, halfway down the hall. He knew she heard him.

29

Landon had already left when LillyAnna awoke in the morning, though her wakefulness was a matter of debate. She had made it from her room to the Blood Room, and she stared out the window to the driveway that circled in front of Burghausen. She had managed to get some sleep, but even that was disquieting, filled with dreams of Landon.

The driveway was quiet. Only the guards and the trees offered proof of life. She had no idea what time it was, or how long he had been gone. In fact, that was all LillyAnna seemed to know—Landon was gone. She again felt the need to cry, but the lack of tears went unnoticed by her as she brushed her cheeks with her hand. Her eyes had already produced all the water that they could for the time being.

Muffled voices from the hallway echoed into the Blood Room. Through the open door came Celeste, Catalina, and Jacinda. The talking ceased once they saw LillyAnna at the window.

“We’ve been looking for you,” said Jacinda. “We know he left this morning, and we’re worried about you. You weren’t in your room, and we had checked here before, but we noticed the door was open this time. You okay?”

LillyAnna turned as if she could see the worried looks on all three faces, though in reality, she never noticed they were there. She moved slowly to one of the chairs and sat, looking into the fireplace like there were roaring flames that only she could see. She spoke not a word.

“Jacinda,” said Celeste, “go find Seamus or Joseph. We’ll wait here with her.”

Jacinda walked briskly out of the room while Celeste and Catalina sat in chairs opposite LillyAnna. The werewolf continued to be lost within her mind. Thoughts of her time spent with Landon in her bed mixed and mingled with an array of feelings that jostled other events loosed from her memory: their fight the first night they met, the way he looked in the park that night after he shifted back to his human form, their second fight during her training, the hunt for his children, the way he made her feel and the way she knew he felt about her, the way he saved her and gave her something to live for. Then her claws began to extend. Her thoughts had turned to Nicholas and Jamie.

Celeste began to reach out for LillyAnna’s hand when Catalina pulled her back.

“Don’t,” she said. “She’s not with us right now. You don’t know what she’ll do. Wait for Joseph or Seamus.”

Almost immediately, both vampires turned when they heard the door creak open slightly wider. Seamus walked through, followed by Jacinda and Joseph.

“It’s okay, girls,” Seamus said. “You can go.”

“We’ll take it from here,” said Joseph.

The Scottish werewolf sat in the chair directly across from LillyAnna that Celeste had previously occupied. All three girls looked back at LillyAnna as they exited the room and closed the door. Joseph sat next to Seamus, and with a wave of his hand, produced the fire that LillyAnna imagined. The dancing light from the newly formed flames slowly brought her out of her zombie-like state.

“LillyAnna,” said Seamus, “can you hear me? Come on out of it.”

Her claws began to retract as she glanced around the room and finally came to rest her eyes on the Consuls sitting in front of her.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes and raising her hand to her head. “I’ve got a massive headache.” She lowered her hand and looked again at Seamus and Joseph. “What happened?”

“Well, you were lost somewhere up there,” said Joseph, pointing to her head. “Jacinda, Catalina, and Celeste found you in here, staring out the window, crying. They said you didn’t acknowledge their presence, even when you were looking straight at them. Your claws were out.”

“You wanna tell us what’s going on?” asked Seamus.

“Of course, it isn’t like we don’t already know, but we want you talk about it so you can get it out,” said Joseph.

“It’s Landon,” she said. “It’s Jamie. It’s Nicholas. It’s everything that’s happened. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand how it all happened.”

“Well, that certainly is a lot on your mind,” said Joseph. “I can tell you’re very angry, and certainly it is understandable given your fondness for Landon. As for Nicholas and Jamie, there are no easy answers. The Senate is also in the dark. There may, in fact, be no answers that will truly satisfy all the questions that have arisen. But your anger is much more deep seated than these very recent events. Truly, it goes back a long time, doesn’t it? You’ve had a problem with men for a while now, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew exactly what he meant.

“We know what he did,” said Seamus. “We know what your father put you through.”

“What do you mean?” she repeated. It was all she could muster. She couldn’t think at all, without thinking of
that
, so she tried not to think. She just repeated.

“Let’s walk and talk,” said Joseph.

All three stood and exited the room. They did talk, as they walked, but not about anything important. Seamus commented about some of the paintings, how they were originals, but neither he nor Joseph mentioned anything about
that
. Not until they reached a courtyard.

“We know your father molested you when you were younger,” Joseph finally said. “We know that’s why he helped you financially, buying your silence.” He walked backwards, away from her, as Seamus moved forward.

Now LillyAnna could think about nothing but
that
. Her anger, the anger Joseph had mentioned, began to drift to the surface, like those first small bubbles in water that’s just beginning to boil.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said.

“You have to,” said Seamus. “You need to. This needs to be dealt with. All you’re doing is keeping things submerged. Scott, Nicholas, Jamie, Landon.” He purposefully paused. “Your father.”

“Please stop. It’s making me very mad.”

“Good. Get mad. You should be angry about what he did to that little girl. The innocence that he jerked away from her, from you. All those times he snuck into your room, the times he bathed you, while your mother cooked downstairs.”

LillyAnna stood there, shaking, the tears pouring out, as Seamus, the Consul Werewolf spoke, circling her. Joseph watched from a distance.

“Where is she, I wonder,” he continued. “Where’s that little girl that Continued to love her father so? There was much more to your suicide attempts than just becoming the ‘monster’ you saw, wasn’t there? You were also trying to kill another monster, weren’t you?”

“Stop,” she said. Steam began rising from the water.

“All those toys he bought you, all the candy he gave. Anything to keep you quiet.”

“I’m telling you to stop.” Bigger bubbles. A watched pot does, in fact, boil. All one needs to do, is apply enough heat.

LillyAnna, still in human form, exploded onto Seamus. All the anger that had built up over all the men she’d met in the past couple of weeks, all the rage she kept at bay from her childhood, was made manifest.

She hit him with a powerful right, another right, then a kick to the abdomen. Seamus didn’t fight back.

“Come on,” he whispered. He watched her begin to back off. “You once were the victim, the weak. Now you have a strength beyond imagination, not just as a werewolf, but as a survivor. Use your pain.”

LillyAnna, now transformed, attacked Seamus with a horrible fury, but it wasn’t Seamus she saw. It was
him
. He’d haunted her as a child, his specter appearing down the hall from her room, gliding toward her. He haunted her since she’d left Cincinnati; he haunted her now.

She propelled the Consul Werewolf back and forth, across the courtyard, until the werewolf could do no more. That is to say, until LillyAnna could do no more; Seamus, never turning, simply took it. She, on the other hand, exhausted from raging, finally dropped to her knees, the beast shrinking until she lay on the ground, in human form, naked.

She looked up to see Seamus, bloodied and scarred, change, then revert back, healed. He nodded at her, smiling, and said, “It is good that Landon left and you stayed. You both need your own time. Realize that you do not need him. Yes, you want to be with him, but you don’t
need
him. You need to figure out who LillyAnna is now. It’s time you saved yourself.” He walked away.

“Take some time off,” said Joseph, approaching from the side. “This was only the temporary dealing. Now, comes the long-term. Worry about training later.”

30

Landon and his kids sat in his black BMW in the driveway of a house off Dixie Highway in Louisville. The red brick abode was situated about ten yards off the road. The advertisement noted that the residence was ‘cozy,’ and judging by its small size, that seemed to be an appropriate euphemism. From the outside it looked as though it barely had the room for a young couple just starting out in life, let alone a single father with three children. It was supposed to be a three-bedroom, meaning the twins would have to share, with a basement. Landon wasn’t sure if there was room for a kitchen.

Jamie had questioned why, with the Senate’s money, they couldn’t get a larger house and why, though this had nothing to do with money, they were moving from the East End to the South End. Landon felt that a large house was just more room than they needed, and he believed that a partial change in scenery might be good for everyone, hence the move from one end of town to the other.

So Landon had paid for the house based solely on the ad, and he now sat in the gravel drive with keys in hand. He looked over at Jamie, who stared out his passenger window, preventing Landon from seeing his face, then at Liam and Mara through the rear-view mirror. The children sat in the backseat soaking in the surrounding scenery.