Chapter 38

Margret slammed the front door closed.

Ren opened his mouth—not really sure what he was planning on saying—but before he could get one word out, she held up her hand. She shook her head.

"Stop." She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes as she did and when she opened her eyes, there was something unsteady about them that made Ren sick to his stomach.

This wasn't his mom. Well, this wasn't a side of his mom that he'd ever seen before. It was like someone had stripped everything motherly about her away, leaving just a woman who seemed like she was out for murder.

Ren knew that he wasn't a good son. If he was a good son, he wouldn't have found out about being a witch and he would have never met the Mantels. He wouldn't be suffering from this urge to hurt people and he would have kept his mom safe.

The Hunter Society wouldn't know his name and he wouldn't have fucking made a contract with Ashton.

But he always thought he could try harder. He was doing his best and he thought that would make up for some of the things he fucked up.

That wasn't the case though. Not at all.

"I want to make myself clear," she said slowly. She enunciated each word so that he couldn't possibly miss them. "I don't give a damn about the Mantels. I care about you, okay?"

Ren's hands were shaking. He nodded.

"Good." She studied his face.

Finally, he saw some resemblance of his mom there.

"Come here." She beckoned him with a hand.

He was hesitant, afraid of the person he'd seen, but it was his mom commanding him now. He let her pull him into her arms and cradle his head like he was a small child. He felt like one. He felt like he was only a foot tall and she was consoling him after he'd had a nightmare. He remembered one night in particular when a strong storm had brung lightning and rolling thunder to the small town. She'd cradled him just like she was now as he cried softly into her chest.

She pressed her hand to the back of his head. Her fingers carded through his hair.

"How long have you known?"

His heart dropped.

"Not long." His throat was dry.

He didn't expect for him to reveal that he knew about that like this. Perhaps he was wishing too much for a better time because if he was being honest with himself, nothing ever went his way. And nothing ever turned out for the better.

She nodded. She pulled away and he was shocked to find tears in her eyes.

His throat constricted even harder.

"Were you going to tell me?" He clenched his fists by his sides.

She looked away. "No."

He was expecting that. He just didn't know that it was going to hurt so much.

He knew that he shouldn't be angry. He might have done the same thing if it was his kid he was trying to keep safe. There might have been a bigger target on his back if people found out that he was part vampire and part witch.

And how would her life have been?

In some circles, witches were worse than vampires. They were seducers that lured people to the forest and sacrificed them to their Gods.

But he couldn't help feeling so betrayed. She'd lied about everything. She lied about his father for years until he found out the truth from gossipers. She lied about his grandparents not being in her life until he found the pictures in the attic.

And then she lied about him just being part human and vampire.

He furrowed his brows. He glared at the wall behind her. As much as he hated her right then, he couldn't look at her face when he was so angry. It didn't feel right.

"Am I human at all?"

His gut clenched in anticipation.

Please. Please let me at least a little normal.

He needed something to hold onto. He needed a breath of air so that he wasn't drowning in all the lies.

She turned away. "I didn't know it mattered."

His angered flared. "Of course it matters. How many full-breeds do you see surviving in this fucking town?"

She whirled back around.

"Don't talk to me like that!"

Her eyes flashed that brilliant blue that he'd seen at the Mantels' house. The color was like the moon, but brighter and blue like the ocean under a black light.

Ren slightly cowered back. His knees almost buckled right out beneath him, but the thing was wild up. It didn't see his mom; it saw a threat.

"Being human doesn't solve anything and I won't let anyone shame me for protecting you."

She was shaking, yet she was firm. "We're not human. Not one ounce and I'm proud to say it."

Ren took a step back.

He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her that all their problems were because they weren't human. But he agreed. He wasn't ashamed of who he was.

Or so he thought.

He just wished that he wasn't anything. He wished that he didn't have to deal with any of it.

The anger wasn't going away. It was stuck to him like glue.

Confidence struck him and he looked her in the eyes.

"I hate you."

The words were not what he wanted to say. His head was full of thoughts about how he wished she would have told him sooner or that she should have just killed him. But those three words must have been the worst.

Margret's eyes stopped glowing. The blue was snuffed out, returning to a dark brown. Her face fell. The anger that had painted her face in long strokes was wiped away to be replaced with a look of dread.

He wished he could have taken the words back.

But he didn't.

His upper lip curled. "What about the Mantels? What are you hiding about them?"

The flash of blue came back, but it disappeared in the next split-second.

"That's not important."

That made him angrier. He dug his nails harder into the flesh of his palm. He glared at her and this time he wasn't afraid to look in her eyes.

"What do you mean it's not important? They're the Mantels! They're the family that slaughtered thousands of humans during the war and hate anything that isn't a pure vampire! They kneel at the feet of the royal Sangui. How the hell is that not important?"

"Because we're talking about you!"

Margret screamed it. The house shook with the force.

Ren closed his mouth and his eyebrows rose as he stared at her. Her chest heaved and she looked just as shocked as he did.

She lowered her head and hid her face behind her hand. "I'm sorry. That was...that was wrong of me. I just—"

She let out a sigh.

"I don't want to talk about it. Not right now."

She looked so small standing there. He felt sorry for her. He was doing all this for her in the first place, but he wondered if he needed to. She was someone else. She was more powerful than she'd ever led on.

"Will you ever talk about it?"

The elephant in the room had been addressed, but it hadn't been explained. There was something sad about that. He thought that finding out he was a witch was hard enough. He never counted on finding out that his mom was up to something just as nefarious as he was.

"I don't know."

Ren saw that one coming.

He turned away. He slumped on the couch and stared out the large window that looked out at the backyard. The thing had settled down though it was still chewing on his insides. He'd never fully recovered from what Mrs. Mantel had done to him and he hadn't thought about how he felt about Ashton. He knew that the next time he saw Ashton he might not be able to stop himself from attacking him.

He hated his guts right now.

Margret move to stand behind the couch. He felt her and some of her emotions. They were still muffled. He didn't know when he would get that power back fully.

He stared at his hands.

"I have powers," he admitted. He couldn't hide his irritation. Being around her was enough to make him want to punch the wall.

"I could feel them," she said. It was a faint whisper that could have been carried away on the back of a feather.

Ren twisted the hem of his shirt.

"You knew all along?" He spat it out. The foul taste made him feel even worse. It seemed like there wasn't a piece of his life that wasn't tainted with some sort of lie or omission.

"And what did you want me to say? That you were going to grow into strange senses?" He could feel her shaking her head. "I messed up. I'm sorry that this is difficult for you, but it's done."

She walked around and sat beside him.

"The Mantels are horrible people. They've done—" She looked up. Her eyes were glistening. "I can't say it. Just know that they're worse than what you've already seen."

The thing buzzed in his chest. He and it both agreed that he didn't like the Mantels. Ashton was...tolerable. At best.

He twisted harder on his shirt.

"I know. You don't have to tell me."

"Good." She looked away. They were both staring out the window.

It was strange how he didn't feel as close as he did before to her. He'd always come to her for his problems, spilled his heart, but it was this time that he couldn't do it. When he really needed it.

He wasn't going to lie and say that he'd told her everything. There were things that he kept away from her out of shame. The bullying, the threats, and how hard the hunger had become. Also the thing that was plaguing him.

Those were things that were because of his vampire side. Those were things that were because he was weak and he didn't know how to control himself.

They had nothing to do with her.

"The contract won't end until it's fulfilled. You know that right?"

He tried to keep his cool. He wanted to blame it all on the thing buzzing in his chest, but it wasn't just the thing that was irritated.

"Yes. I know."

She hadn't looked at him. It shouldn't have meant anything. It didn't mean anything.

Yet, it did. Everything she was doing felt like it was pointed right at him. Like she was holding herself back from telling him how much of a disappointment he was. And as much as he tried, he couldn't completely convince himself that she wasn't thinking about horrible things about him.

"I'm not going to let you leave the house until you tell me."

Her words were laced with something he couldn't recognize. Of course, when he truly needed his new capabilities, they weren't there. Her emotions were muddled, more so than the Mantels had been. This almost seemed like she was countering him.

His knee bounced. He'd let go of his poor shirt which was now wrinkled and twisted because he'd been toying with it so much. His hands didn't know what to do with themselves and they'd settled into that twitching that he was growing used to.

He licked his lips and watched as a flock of birds flew across the yard.

"You know about those dead kids they found?"

That got her attention.

Her eyes locked onto he side of his face. The intense gaze made him feel like he was a speck in a Petri dish.

"Yes." Her voice was faint. This time, he could tell that she was scared. The worry in her voice was echoed in the small room. The walls felt like they were closing in on the two of them.

He was torn between being comforted that she was worried and worried about her reaction.

He looked down at his twitching fingers.

"We found one of them."

She didn't say anything for a long minute.

"What did you do?"

It wasn't an accusation thankfully.

He let out a shaky breath.

"We buried her at first."

"At first?"

He took a glance at her and then looked away again. Her brows were scrunched together and the only way that he could describe the look on her face was disbelief.

"I met him there. I didn't know what to do so I just did what he said. We buried her and we left, promising that we wouldn't talk about it again."

He covered his face with his hands, leaning over with his elbows on his knees.

"I lost grandpa's ring, Mom. I fucking lost it."

His throat clamped tight and hot tears slowly fell down his face. He choked as the constriction in his throat got worse the more he thought about how stupid he'd been. He hadn't been thinking. How was he supposed to be thinking clearly when he found a dead body and met a full vampire in the same night?

The room was still and silent. His heart was pounding in his ears, the blood rushing to his head. He was dizzy and sick to his stomach. The ring. How could he have lost the ring. It was the most important thing on him and he hadn't even thought about it once.

Even his own excuses weren't enough for him.

The silence carried on for far too long. He was angry. Angry at himself and angry at her for making him live through this life. Nothing was working to calm him down and he doubted there were any words she could say to him that would make things better.

She had to hate him. She had to regret ever having him or raising him.

"Look at me."

He couldn't. The hardness in her voice had him shaking.

Then, before he could even sense she was moving, she grabbed his shoulder.

He panicked.

He shoved her hand away. The shock rolled through him, but it was more than that. He was panting as a surge of anger bolted through him. The thing was at the surface. It was sniffing out for blood, hungry, and salivating for mutilation.

His eyes were slightly glazed by hunger. It was no longer just him and the thing. He was the thing. They were both in the same and there was no separation between the two.

He was blind, his own consciousness receding to the dark corners of his mind.

A scream spit through the darkness.

"Ren! Stop!"

Bright blue was gazing back at him and when he could see once more, he had his hands wrapped around his mom's throat.

His eyes widened in horror. He scurried back. He'd pushed her to the floor.

His fangs throbbed and he touched them. He'd been about to bite her.

His mom. The one person that he was supposed to protect.

"Ren. It's okay."

She tried to touch him again, but he didn't let her.

"Don't!"

He couldn't look at her. Shame burned his face.

This was what he was. He was a monster. He was a fuckup. He only ever caused problems and hurt people.

He fumbled to his feet.

"Ren!"

He ignored his mom's cries as he ran to do the door.

And as he ran to the forest, he could still hear them.

It didn't matter. He wasn't going to come back.

He was going to die in the forest and that was going to be the one good thing he ever did.