Chapter Fourteen
She wasn't sure of much, but she knew that she'd had sex with a wolfman.
A werewolf.
It didn't matter that he called himself a shifter. He wasn't entirely human. He was something of horror fiction, and she'd slept with him. The idea gave her chills. When she got home at nearly three in the morning, her mother wasn't on the couch.
Sierra's heart stood still.
“Momma?” she called, rushing through the house. She wasn't in her bedroom, wasn't in the kitchen, wasn't in Sierra's room.
She wasn't in the apartment at all.
Sierra rushed out, hurrying next door to Miss Jean's apartment. She banged on the door loudly, not caring how late it was, not caring that she was probably waking up everyone in the building. Miss Jean answered the door after a couple minutes, obviously disgruntled.
“What is it?” she snapped. Sierra was starting to see why her mother didn't like her.
“Have you seen my mother?” she asked, praying that she'd just spent the night there.
“No,” Jean answered. “You need to just put her in a home already,” she grumbled, slamming the door. Sierra didn't know what to do. She wandered up and down the halls of the apartment building, searching for her. She wanted to call for her, but she didn't want the neighbors getting furious with her.
When she searched the entire building, she stepped outside, and there she was.
Her mother was standing, staring at the large wolf statue that stood in front of the building. It was carved out of wood and painted several shades of blue, with bright blue eyes.
“I love these statues,” her mother said without looking over at her.
“It's cold out. You should go in,” Sierra offered, not acknowledging what she said.
“Why? The statues don't go inside,” her mother sounded like a child.
“The statues can't get sick,” Sierra countered. It was going to be one of those nights. She felt guilty enough for leaving her mother alone as long as she did. She'd never wandered out like this before.
“No, they can't,” her mother agreed.
“Momma, let's get you to bed,” Sierra said gently, nudging her to guide her. Her mother grew still.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice wavering in fear.
“I'm your daughter, Sierra,” she explained. “You named me after the dark because I was born at midnight,” Sierra said, recalling the story her mother used to tell her growing up. She wrapped an arm around her mother to start walking her back to the building.
“My Sierra is only fifteen. Get off of me, you liar,” her mother exclaimed, pushing her off of her. Sierra turned to get a good view of her.
She was only sixty, they'd had Sierra in their late thirties, but she looked like she was going on eighty. She was wired and terrified, her green eyes wide and scared, her hands clutched to her chest.
“What are you wearing?” her mother asked, as if seeing her uniform for the first time. “Are you a stripper? I'm being robbed by a stripper!” She screamed the last part in terror, and Sierra shook her head, begging her to quiet down.
“Momma, momma, it's me, look at my face,” Sierra said gently, approaching her.
“You're not my daughter. Stop calling me that,” she was sobbing now. The terror was very visible.
Sierra's heart was aching, and she wanted to wrap her arms around her mother, but she knew better than that. The best thing to do was to give her space and help her the best she could.
“All right, let's go to bed,” Sierra said gently. “If you go to bed, I'll leave, I'm a friend of your daughter,” she lied, wanting it to be over.
“Why did you lie to me, girl?” her mother asked, her voice indignant. She was out of her mind, but she was convincingly sane.
“I'm sorry, ma'am. Let me get you to bed for your daughter. She's at a track meet tonight,” Sierra explained. That lie usually worked. She'd gone to a lot of track meets before her mother got into the accident when Sierra was seventeen. Since then, things had gone downhill.
“Okay, okay,” her mother replied, treating her like a nuisance. Like a stranger. She should have been used to it by then, but it just hurt more and more. “Where have you been tonight?” she asked as they made their way down the hall to the apartment.
“I had to work, and then I had a date,” Sierra admitted.
“Do you love him?” her mother asked. It was a random, strange question.
“Sorry?”
“You look like a girl in love. Are you?” she asked, eyeballing Sierra.
“I hardly know him,” Sierra answered.
“That's not what I asked.”
“I don't know,” she said, trying to be honest.
That wasn't the end of it.
Even after she'd settled her mother into bed, even after she'd cleaned up the apartment and settled into bed herself, the question plagued her.
Did she love him?
If she did, she need to be smarter about it. Her mother could have died. Could have walked into the street without realizing it and been hit by a car. It would have been Sierra's fault for leaving her without care.
She couldn't do that to her, not after all her mother had done to raise her on her own.
Sierra knew that she couldn't do that again, couldn't risk her mother's life.
She had to make a decision soon.