“God, you’re calm about this.”
“Turn up here,” I said when we reached our driveway. It led up a small incline. “You can stop here,” I said when we reached the top. Our house was just off to the left.
“Here?”
“Just in case,” I said. I opened the door. “Good night, Buddy,” I said. “Thanks for…”
“For what?”
“Everything,” I said, and got out.
He watched me walk toward the house and then turned around and left. I stood there until his car lights were gone, and I looked at the house. Most of the lights were out, as they usually were in anticipation of an arrival. I felt my legs begin to tremble. It was as though we were having an earthquake and the ground beneath my feet was shaking.
At first, when I entered the house, I saw no one. Then Ava stepped out of the living room with Mrs. Fennel and Marla beside her.
“What are you doing here now? And alone? I saw him bring you to the edge of our driveway.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I said, and turned quickly to the hallway and my bedroom.
She was right behind me. “Are you mad? What do you mean, you couldn’t do it? Don’t you realize how important this is? Get on the phone, and call him back immediately,” she ordered.
I entered my room, trying to close the door behind me, but
she was quickly there preventing it. She shoved me forward, and I spun around to face her. “Stop it, Ava.”
“Daddy is depending on you, on us,” she said, her eyes wide with rage.
“I couldn’t do it, Ava. I love him.”
“Love him? How could you love him, love anyone?”
“I don’t know, but I do.”
She nodded. “You really are a mistake. I was right,” she said, with a cold smile creasing her lips. “Your life is nothing now. When Daddy finds out about this, you’ll be worthless to him. He’ll give you to the renegades.”
I opened the dresser drawer and took out the photograph. “This very well might be my mother,” I said, showing it to her. “I saw pictures of women who could be Brianna’s mother and Marla’s mother, too. Maybe my mother isn’t dead and gone like your mother. Maybe I have a real father, too.”
“Where did you get that?”
“I found it in Daddy’s room.”
“You fool!” she said. “You are a traitor. You really are as good as any renegade. Just stay here and wallow in your misery while I go back out there to bring Daddy what he needs. Thank goodness I had the instinct to train Marla faster.”
She turned and left. I sat on my bed and stared down at the picture with my name written on the back of it. Any moment, I expected to hear Mrs. Fennel’s footsteps in the hallway, or Marla’s. Maybe they would both come to chastise me and threaten me, but minutes passed, and I heard nothing.
I had no doubt that Ava was right. Daddy would disown me now. He and Mrs. Fennel would send me away. There was no point in waiting for it to happen, and besides, an idea floating beneath the surface of my conscious thoughts popped up. I should go find the orphanage and speak to the administrators to see if I could get information about myself and my parents. I had the address.
The idea kept me from sobbing myself to sleep. I began to pack a small bag and made sure I had all of my credit cards and my checkbook. I could get by for a short time with what I had. Choosing what to take in a small bag was difficult. Daddy had given me so many things, had brought beautiful gifts back for me from his travels. Each thing I looked at brought back a cherished memory. I had intended to keep myself from crying by doing all of this, but it had only brought on a flood of tears. How could I not cry? This was the only world I had known all my life. Daddy was the only one who had shown me real love. I hated to think of how much he would hate me now and wanted to run from that as much as from anything else.
When I had put together what I wanted, I slipped out of my room quietly. The house was still as dark as it had been when Buddy brought me home. I was anticipating Mrs. Fennel or Marla waiting out by the front door, but neither was there. Marla wasn’t watching television, either. There was, in fact, a heavy silence in the house. Before I reached the front door, I heard a creak on the stairway and turned to look.
Daddy was coming down slowly, gathering shadows around him to thicken the darkness he already carried. He grew taller, wider, his eyes luminous, two circles of red in pools of yellow. His hand on the banister looked the size of two or three hands, the fingers long, with long nails. The sight of him stopped my heart. I could feel the taste of blood in my mouth and realized I had been biting down on my lower lip. Suddenly, to my utter surprise, Ava stepped out of the living room. What was she doing there? Why hadn’t she gone out on a quick hunt?
“Oh, hi, Lorelei,” she said, smiling. “Everything is perfect now. Don’t worry. Daddy understands.”
A terrifying thought exploded in my mind. I shook my head and backed toward the door. “No,” I said.
“Yes,” Ava said.