Chapter 29
I was in such a rush to get to Diana’s apartment that I nearly didn’t bother with locking my car.
I flew up the staircase to the second floor, then skidded to a halt.
A more familiar path tugged to my left. I hadn’t even thought of Fenton being here in the same complex. I could have run right into him.
Right, it was morning, and the sun was shining. He wouldn’t be out. And if he were, he didn’t even remember me. I tore my eyes away from his door to go in the opposite direction.
I hadn’t been asleep yet when I’d gotten the text from Diana. Come to my apt ASAP. I’d left at dawn.
I knocked on her door. A nervous fear gripped my chest as I imagined it opening in seconds, and a crossbow would fire from within the dark inside, and I wouldn’t have even known who it was who killed me.
I stepped to the side of the door to rub away at the anticipatory itch behind my sternum. The door opened, and I braced myself.
“Get in here,” Diana said, and it was almost as dark inside as I’d pictured.
“Wait,” I said. “Just tell me first. Are you alone?”
Confusion twisted Diana’s features. “You think I’d really invite him into my home?”
“Him?” Who was him? Peter Fenton? How much had I said while I was drifting in and out of consciousness with an arrow from the Hunters inside me?
“…Her?” We were in a confusing stalemate between two conversations, and Diana lost her patience. She pulled me into her apartment and locked us in. “We’re alone. Go sit down.”
As soon as I was on the couch, I regretted how easily I’d put myself there at a disadvantage. I perched nervously on the edge of the worn cushion.
“Jesus Christ, Fallon,” Diana said. She took slow, exhausted steps to stand in front of me, and I didn’t let myself avoid her well-earned disappointment, even as my eyes stung. “You killed two goddamn hundred-year-old vampires. You had to know there’d be consequences.”
I pulled the emergency brake on my mind that had been barreling in a different direction. I’d thought this was about the Hunters and their newfound goal of wanting me dead. Diana had heard about me hunting those two vampires?
“What?” was all I could manage.
Diana muttered to herself and rubbed her forehead before sitting next to me on the couch, far more comfortable than I was.
“Fallon, you’re my daughter, but I need you to hear me out like an adult.
Look, I’ve had myself a really great deal with the Reyes family.
They’re not happy about you killing their own.
And if they’re not happy, I’m not either, especially if they want you dead.
We have to work something out here, baby. ”
“You have a deal with the Reyes family? A deal with vampires?” I asked after a period of heavy silence. Diana rarely took life seriously, but this was a joke I didn’t understand.
“They run this town, and their power reaches far beyond it. I made a deal with Lazaro before you were even born. It’s how I can send so much money back to the family, and how I set you up in the beginning, too.”
“Lazaro?” My laugh was devoid of humor. “You work with Lazaro Reyes? He helped cover up my boyfriend’s murder, Mom.”
“That’s what he does.” She was totally unaffected by the death of my first love.
This had to be some kind of test. I looked around, waiting for the other Hunters to jump from the shadows and gloat that I failed another secret trial.
I’d have believed that sooner than this cold, detached version of Diana.
“And you help?” I wanted to fling myself off the couch and get the hell out of here, but my legs were shaking.
“It’s not usually like that. The Reyes family takes care of bad people, Fallon.
We get rid of them so they disappear into ash like they deserve.
And when they become bloodthirsty, dangerous vampires, I’m the one to take them out.
I take out any troublesome vamps they point me towards.
It’s mutually beneficial, and I’m still fighting the good fight, aren’t I? ”
“And people like Derrick are just collateral to all this goodness?”
“I get it. When it’s one of yours, it’s personal.
That’s just the way the world works, though.
Sometimes good people get bad deals and bad people get to live great lives.
You’re not so special that those same rules don’t apply to you.
” I studied her for guilt, for any hint of defensiveness, but her nonchalance was genuine.
“Mom…” This was crazy. I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to anymore.
“I was trying to protect you from all of this, Fallon. After the last time you two tangled, I went to Lazaro and Santos in person to ask them as a personal favor to stop trying to kill you. You well and truly fucked that favor, my dear.” She pressed her face to her hands.
“You…” A hollow laugh was all I could manage. I was weak, and I had to use the couch as support to get to my feet. Diana fighting my battles for me behind my back. If it wasn’t with the Hunters, then it was with vampires. “I can’t…I have a lot to think about.”
“He can come for you whenever he wants. You may view vampires as monsters, but to Lazaro, you’ve killed his friends.
His family. What would you do if you were him?
Well, you’ve already done it, haven’t you?
Revenge, revenge, revenge.” Diana was annoyed at me for killing vampires. And I thought I’d lost my way.
“Then I’ll face him. I’ve done it before.” I looked back at Diana. My mom. I wished I had anything else to lean on in the vast ocean between her couch and the door. She only watched me. Perhaps that tranquil passivity meant she’d already begun mourning my inevitable death.
“You know, I used to think you were just like me, but really, you’re exactly like your dad. Boneheaded. Consequences be damned.”
“My dad?” Now? She was bringing this up now, while I was searching for any bearings on this new world she’d dropped me into?
“You never once asked about him.” Every Hunter, of course, had a father they’d never know.
All except for me had a birth mother they didn’t know, either.
It was a subject you simply never broached.
A taboo, passed down sister to sister. “I hope you can meet him one day. Mary the Mother, be careful, Fallon.”
“If I kill Lazaro, will you…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t believe I had to consider my mom’s future employment when it came to killing the vampire who’d already tried killing me.
“Do it if you must. I’ll survive. You’re more important than all that.”
Diana didn’t move from the couch as I opened her door. She barely even looked up at me. There was no hug and no tearful goodbye just in case. It stung more than learning the shameful truth of her secret life.