Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)(7)

You should see them, a small part of me whispered, as it often did when the lights were out and the night was still. They’re your parents, and they won’t be around forever, especially given their lifestyle. If you deny them even a simple meeting after all these years, and something happens… you’ll live with that for the rest of your life.

My parents had conceived me late in life, and I was a shock to them as much as I was to the doctors, when my mother checked into the hospital with a stomach complaint. My parents would both be sixty-one next year and were already riddled with various medical issues.

It was nights like this when I felt like a terrible person. I hadn’t even opened the gift they’d come all the way to my school specially to give me. It still sat under my bed at home, where I’d shoved it to try to forget about it… because I feared what it would hold.

Because I knew what it would hold.

Its contents were the same as the last little brown parcel they’d sent me, six months prior. I’d rattled it to check; it sounded like photographs. Opening the previous set had left me a trembling mess. There had been almost twenty of them, snapshots of a little blue-eyed girl, ranging from two to five years old, a toothy grin always plastered across her face—often eating ice cream or some other treat—and enveloped in the protective arms of her parents.

It was as if they thought sending me these photographs could rewrite history. Erase the childhood they had given me—everything that had happened in between the moments when a smile crossed my face for the camera—and replace it with the one they were presenting… and make me feel guilt. Make me seem like the monster.

The worst part was that it had worked. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and barely functioned the next day at school. I’d suddenly found myself battling with doubt. I hadn’t even remembered them taking photos of me as a kid, and I’d been nine when I left home. So very young. Could I have been exaggerating things, in my immature little mind? Could there have been another side to things that I just couldn’t see? They were my parents, after all. Surely they loved me? Why would they have bothered to take pictures of me if they didn’t care?

Thankfully, Jean had been there for me when I returned home from school that day. It had been a difficult conversation for her to have with me for sure, because on the one hand she didn’t want to demonize my parents, but on the other, she cared deeply for me, and she didn’t want me suffering further because of a toxic relationship. In the end, she had simply stated facts: the police had found them guilty of physical, alcohol-fueled abuse and consistent neglect of a minor. They had gone to jail for it.

After she’d calmed me down, I had been able to remember why I was staying away from them, remember that it wasn’t out of hate or vengeance, like they might have me believe. I wasn’t doing it because of them, but for me. It would be a lie to say I didn’t resent them at all, but that had faded, like a scar fades with time. I was keeping my distance because I was carving out a new life for myself. By genetics and upbringing, I was fated to follow the same path as them—just like so many young adults with dysfunctional childhoods who fell by the wayside later in life. But, by God, I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I wasn’t going to be the repeat of an old song; I was going to be the damn definition of avant-garde.

That’s why I avoided talking about my past life with my friends—even Lauren and Angie. I never told them that doubts still haunted me from time to time. Because they were my future. The people I had chosen to let mold me, with their happy childhoods and bright futures. They were part of a painting I was creating, stroke by painstaking stroke, of a beautiful spring morning, and I didn’t want any black ink seeping into it.

I wasn’t sure the niggling doubts would ever fully go away. Maybe one day I’d actually feel ready to face my birth parents again, but I couldn’t pressure myself—or allow them to pressure me. They’d made their choices, and I’d been forced to make mine.

A sudden grating noise broke through my thoughts. It sounded like the gate bordering the yard outside. My first thought was that it must be one of the Churnleys, but why would they be leaving the house’s compound at this time of night? And I hadn’t heard any creaking stairs either. My eyes shot open, and I turned to look over at Angie and Lauren. They were both still sound asleep.

I slipped out of bed and crept closer to the window, looking out in time to see a tall, dark masculine silhouette moving with alarming speed toward the house.

The next thing I knew, there was a loud bang downstairs, and the dogs erupted into barking. Lauren and Angie woke with a start, eyes wide and gazing around.

“Wh-What was that?” Angie murmured.

I was already halfway across the room. “Shh! Stay there!” I hissed.

My brain was in a haze of panic, and all I knew was that my instincts were telling me to keep quiet. If this person was a burglar, then we should just let him come in and take what he wanted, rather than try to fight him off. There was literally nothing to take anyway—which made the situation even more bewildering. Who would break into an old shack like this? Whatever the answer, for all we knew he was armed.

The Churnleys’ door opened as I reached the landing, and Mr. Churnley stepped out wearing nothing but a long nightshirt and underwear, his eyes bleary.

“Which one of you—?” he began, but I quickly held a finger to my lips, cutting him off.