The Better to Bite(58)

My dad wouldn’t be questioning Granny Helen about her attacker. No one would be talking to her again.

Cassidy shuffled closer and the newly installed porch light fell on her shell-shocked face. Because I knew what it was like when death came and snatched away the one you loved, I opened my arms to her.

She cried on my shoulder, and I held her as tight as I could.

My gaze met my dad’s over her bent head. I could see his helpless fury and his determination. His lips moved, and he mouthed the words, “This ends” to me, and I knew that my dad was going on the hunt.

Only this time, it was the wolves who would be the prey.

***

“I’m alone now.” Cassidy’s voice came from the darkness. I’d gotten up and gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I’d tried to be so careful and quiet as I tip-toed past her spot on the couch.

Apparently, I hadn’t been quiet enough.

Dad had told me that he’d brought her home because her aunt, Rhonda Colter, was out of town with her husband and kids. They wouldn’t be flying back until tomorrow, and he hadn’t wanted to turn Cassidy over to the DHR folks. No, that wasn’t my dad’s way.

He’d brought her to our home. He’d made her hot cocoa, the treat he always made for me when I was worried or down, and I’d sat with her as she cried.

When she’d finally fallen asleep, I’d left Cassidy to her dreams. I guess she just hadn’t stayed with those dreams for very long.

“My mom…” Cassidy pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. “She ran off before I was born, and I never even knew who my dad was. She—she didn’t say.”

I forgot the water and perched on the edge of the couch. I turned on the lamp and its soft glow spilled into the room.

“Granny Helen…” A tear trickled down her cheek. “She was the one who raised me. The one who always took care of me.” She turned her head toward me and there was no missing the desolation in her eyes. “What am I supposed to do without her?”

I don’t know. But those weren’t the words she needed to hear so I bit back the truth. “You can stay here for as long as you need. Dad can clear out the other room upstairs, and you can stay with us.”

More tears. “She…she didn’t die easy. Whoever attacked her, he hurt her.”

Yes, but Cassidy didn’t need my confirmation so I stayed silent.

Her palm pressed against her chest. “My heart hurts,” she whispered. “It hurts so bad.”

I knew what she meant. When my mom had been buried, I’d felt like someone was ripping out my heart. The pain in my chest had lingered for days.

Sometimes, I still felt it.

“You don’t know what it’s like!” Anger burned in her words. “You don’t know how it feels to—”

“My mom and dad were having problems.” The words just slipped out. But then, that was the story of my life. “My dad tried to act like everything was fine, but I knew the truth. I could see what was happening.”

Cassidy blinked and stared at me with wide, tear-stained eyes.

“My mom used to drink. I’d find the bottles that she hid around our place. I didn’t tell my dad, but I-I knew…”

I’d thrown so many bottles out. So many. And seen the anger in my mom’s eyes when she realized what I’d done. But she hadn’t told Dad.

Neither had I.

“They separated. One night, she went out…drinking again, and she called us.” I would never forget that night. “She called and left a message on the machine.” I had gone to the movies with my friends. When I’d gotten home, my dad had just been arriving at the house. We’d gone in the house together and the red light on our answering machine had been blinking.

“I’m so lost, baby. So lost. Can you help me?” A drunken slur of words with laughter in the background.

But the one word, lost, had clicked in my head, and as I pictured my mother, I didn’t see her in a busy bar. I’d seen her car, the lights turned on bright, in the back of an alley.

“She’d gotten lost,” was all I said now. “Taken a wrong turn on a dark night and wound up in the wrong place.” But her ending had been so brutal. “It looked like she’d been mugged. My mom had been shot at least four times, and her blood stained the ground under her.” So much blood. Her mother had been crawling back toward her car. She’d never made it inside again.

“Y-you found her?”

My dad had tried to stop me from finding her, but I’d been desperate, so filled with certainty that something was wrong. “Yeah.” The guilt was still there. Would always be. “I was too late to help her, though.”