Chapter 5 #2
Celia stepped inside, and I expected floor-to-ceiling books but instead was surprised with modern empty glass walls and a stout woman sitting behind a computer, the quiet hum of electronics filling the room.
“Hello, Celia.” The woman greeted us with a genuine smile. She had a short cropped brown bob, olive skin tone, and round cheeks.
“Hey, Jane, I’m going to need another loaf of sourdough. Derek and I finished that last one off in two days,” Celia said easily.
Jane smiled, cheeks going pink. “You got it.”
“Jane is my sourdough dealer. Best bread inside Veil Haven,” Celia told me but loud enough for Jane to hear.
“Oh, stop. You’re sweet. To what do I owe the pleasure? You never come in here.” Jane wore tortoiseshell glasses and had bright red nails with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her coffee cup had a cat on it, which reminded me of Linda, steam curling lazily from the lid.
A small pang hit my chest as I thought of Linda and Rae and the entire freaking world I just left behind when I followed three strangers into a portal.
Real smart, Stella.
“Well, I have a suspected legacy here. She’s a lost-born.” Celia gestured to me. “And I need to prove DNA.”
Jane brightened, sitting up straighter. “Oh, a legacy? Well, that should be easy.” She stood and walked over to some cabinets at the back wall. When she opened one, she removed a cotton swab and some gloves. “You don’t meet many lost-borns now days. Especially her age.”
I peered at Celia with alarm, my stomach tightening as I watched Jane put on the gloves.
“Don’t worry. No pokes. We don’t keep blood DNA samples for obvious reasons. In fact, we spend a lot of our life trying to never pierce our skin in any way.”
“Because of the vampires?” I asked.
“You got it, kid. So this is a cheek swab. Every hunter gives one at birth, and the records are kept here in case we ever need them to prove ID. Like now.”
Jane walked over with the gloves on her hands and the swab pinched between her fingers, stopping just in front of me. Celia directed me to sign a basic one-page consent form, which I did.
“Who is the suspected family?” Jane asked.
“Sinclair,” Celia said proudly.
Jane seemed to stumble for a second, her eyes going a little wide, but then she recovered, her fingers tightening briefly around the edge of the desk. For the first time, she looked at me, eyes going from my hair to my nose to my lips and back to my eyes, slow and deliberate.
“Oh” was all she said.
Oh no. Was my birth mom’s family bad? Weird? Disgustingly rich so that no one liked them? I wanted to ask her opinion on them but thought better of it in front of Celia, my questions piling up in my throat.
“Open up,” Jane instructed.
I did, tipping my chin up, and she massaged the cotton swab on the inside of my cheek for about thirty seconds, the motion gentle but thorough, and then walked over to a machine at the back, fiddling with some things, screens lighting up one by one.
As we were waiting, Celia talked to Jane about sourdough bread, and I peered outside the glass at the passing students, trying to ignore the nervous energy buzzing through my body.
Two girls had stakes shoved inside thigh holsters like it was a normal, everyday accessory.
Black tattooed runes were imprinted on their forearms, similar to Celia’s but not the same.
They looked older than me, maybe twenty.
“What are those marks?” I pointed to Celia’s arm.
“Hunter marks. You get them when you pass your high school final exam here. That’s what Asher and the others were doing last night when you were in the club. The final is a raid to vanquish as many vamps as possible to prove you’re ready for the next step into Nightguard Academy.”
My stomach dropped, a cold weight settling there. “Did Asher pass?” I suddenly felt responsible if he didn’t. He had saved my life at the club.
“He’ll…have another chance,” she said.
No. He failed because of me?
A loud beep came from the machine Jane was working at, sharp and sudden in the quiet room.
“Results are ready!” She moved to her computer, and Celia stepped behind the desk to look over her shoulder at the screen.
I hesitantly followed her and watched the big blue loading bar with the words scanning matches underneath, inching forward at a painfully slow pace.
“She does look like Molly,” Jane offered, and Celia grinned.
Hope bloomed in my chest as my throat tightened.
Molly. Mom. Mother. Mommy. Mama. Words I’d never said in my entire life. Words I desperately wanted to say.
If this Molly woman was a vampire hunter and had gotten into some kind of trouble on earth while going into labor, then it made sense why she dropped me off at the hospital. Maybe she’d been looking for me this entire time.
My stomach twisted into knots as the bar moved closer and closer to completion.
Jane looked up at me excitedly. “We have DNA samples of every hunter in Veil Haven, including other schools, all over the world. I don’t know a hunter alive who has not come up in the database.
Even lost-born. There is always a grandparent or something that pops up to show us your lineage.
Your parents will be in here, I’m sure of it. ”
I began to bounce on my heels, rocking back and forth as I willed the name Molly Sinclair to pop up on the screen, my hands curling into fists at my sides.
The computer beeped, and Celia slipped her hand into mine and squeezed.
No matches.
The words hit me right in the gut, and I staggered backward, dropping Celia’s hand, the room tilting for a second.
Was this some sick joke?
“Oh,” Jane said.
“No. You said yourself every hunter has given a sample. Look up Molly Sinclair’s DNA sequence,” Celia ordered, her voice suddenly sharp.
Jane swallowed hard and peered up at Celia. “I don’t think I’m permitted to just pull up single hunter profiles?—”
“Jane, please . She ate a Celestis wafer last night and breathed fire on a bloodsucker. She’s a hunter, and I need to know who she belongs to,” Celia pressed her.
Jane looked over the top of the computer to the front door and then over her shoulder to a back door at the far wall as if checking that a supervisor wasn’t present, her jaw tightening.
Then she started typing furiously, pulling up files and opening windows, the keys clicking rapidly under her fingers. I stepped forward, trying to swallow down the tears when she typed Molly Sinclair into some gene sequence database.
File corrupted.
Jane and Celia gasped at the same time.
“Is that normal?” Celia asked.
“I mean, it happens, but…”
“But a Sinclair? Would a legacy really allow their data to be corrupted? They’re obsessed with genealogy,” Celia pushed.
Jane chewed her lip, eyes darting back to the screen. She deleted Molly’s first name and then typed Kitty . Kitty Sinclair.
RESTRICTED.
Jane’s hands shook as she typed Robert Sinclair .
RESTRICTED.
Jane quickly closed all the windows frantically and spun in her chair, facing Celia and I, her face pale. “I’m sorry, ladies. This is as far as I can go with this, or I’ll lose my job.”
I glanced at Celia to see absolute rage on her face, her jaw set tight.
“Thank you, Jane.” She flicked her head to me and nodded to the door.
I followed her, feeling numb and confused inside, my thoughts lagging behind my feet.
When we stepped outside and moved far enough away from the building, I stopped Celia.
“What’s going on? Who is Kitty? What’s a legacy?”
Celia rested a hand on her sword hilt, glaring at a building in the distance.
“A vile narcissist who loves no one but herself, a.k.a. Molly’s mother, and if the entire Sinclair DNA line has been corrupted or restricted, it means someone is trying to keep you from finding out the truth about your real mother and father. ”
“Someone or Kitty?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s Kitty,” Celia shot. “The woman loves one thing in this world besides herself and that’s money. If she heard of a possible heir about to take her inheritance, she’d do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Anything.
My stomach dropped, and my heart beat frantically in my chest. “And Kitty’s a legacy?”
Celia sighed. “By marriage. The Sinclairs were one of the founding families of Veil Haven several hundred years ago.”
Ah, that was what a legacy was.
“So what do we do?”
She sighed. “We have to go see the witch herself and steal some of her hair or something.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “What? Can’t we just find something of Molly’s to get a sample, like her hairbrush or something?”
Celia’s face dropped.
“Oh, Stella, I’m sorry. I thought you understood. Molly is…gone. She died almost two decades ago. Other than her jacket and a few mementos, I don’t have anything of hers left.”
I wasn’t sure I could feel any worse or more overwhelmed, but I did. The hopes that I’d have a mother to welcome me into her home and tell me how she’d been searching for me all these years were dashed.
“Oh. You said she went missing… But I thought maybe… I didn’t know she was dead.”
I rubbed my arms, looking at a few students sparring in the distance, blades flashing briefly in the sunlight.
Celia stepped into view. “No, unfortunately, she has been dead for eighteen years. But I only have twenty-four hours to prove she’s your mother, so why don’t you spend the weekend at my house? I have a daughter your age. You guys can hang out for the weekend, and then school starts Monday.”
My head swam. “School?”
She nodded. “Here. You’re going to go to Nightguard, right?”
I wanted to please her, to tell her everything she wanted to hear. She was so kind and was clearly fighting for me in a world I knew nothing about. But this was also moving really fast.
“I… I’m scheduled to start Spokane Community College. I’m going to be an ultrasound tech in two years and get my own place,” I said, telling her my carefully laid-out plans. “Maybe a dog.”
She took in a deep breath, exhaled, and bit her lip, her fingers curling against the seam of her jacket. “Okay. Just come to my house. We can talk about all that later.”