Chapter Sixteen
I ignored Tyson and went about my business getting ready for the day.
I drained the coffee first and placed the empty mug on the dresser, hoping I wouldn’t forget it when I went downstairs. I didn’t need another bad habit like leaving dirty dishes around in my bedroom. Bad habits were hard to break and that was simply gross.
I dug clean clothes out of one of the boxes and I got dressed in the bathroom. The hamper in the bathroom closet had been emptied out and I felt bad about it because I’d added to the pile and was capable of doing my own laundry. If I wanted to wear clean clothes I’d always had to wash them myself. When I was younger I would have to wash my clothes by hand in the bathroom sink with whatever I’d had on hand at the time.
I didn’t like the thought of someone else taking care of me. It made me uncomfortable.
Tyson was sleeping when I walked back into my room. I tiptoed around so as not to wake him. I found my hair brush and a hair tie on my dresser. I brushed my hair and pulled it back in high pony tail on top of my head.
I dug out a pair of socks from the dresser and I was good to go. I had on red leggings and a black short-sleeved t-shirt. The t-shirt said Danzig across the chest in large mustard yellow lettering. The letters were cracked from wear and having been washed so many times. It was a size too big on me and it showed. My socks were black and matched my shirt. I didn’t need anything else and I wasn’t putting on makeup if I didn’t have to leave the house. If I went somewhere then maybe I would consider swiping some mascara on my lashes but otherwise I wasn’t going to bother.
Tyson’s lips had parted ever so slightly in sleep and I didn’t want to wake him. I know he’d told me to but I figured he needed his sleep more than he needed to be downstairs reading letters from Rain Kimber. I did know that sleeping under the dreamcatcher he’d fixed up for me would ensure that he didn’t wake up constantly because he was dreaming about lots and lots of blood. He’d sleep soundly underneath it.
I thought about covering him up with the blanket but didn’t want to jostle him and wake him up.
I left him in my bed sleeping and went downstairs to join the others.
They were already seated around the dining room table pouring over letters and photographs. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with them all reading the letters but if it helped me locate Rain then I would have to get over it. I wanted to find him more than I wanted to keep the letters and photographs to myself.
I found an unopened bottle of water in the fridge and grabbed myself a glazed donut. I picked up a napkin from the table and wrapped it around my donut so I didn’t get my hands all sticky.
Quinton sat at the head of the table. Abel sat to his right with Addison beside his brother.
I moved to the open seat on Quinton’s left. I placed the napkin and the donut on the table. I sat the water bottle beside it.
Before sitting down, I remembered the dirty mug sitting on my dresser and ran back up to get it.
Tyson had rolled to his side and pulled one of my sequin covered pillows to his chest. His arms were wrapped tightly around it and I felt myself softening a little bit at seeing it.
Once again, I left Ty behind sleeping in my bed only this time he looked a lot less lonely than he had the first time I’d left him there.
I went back downstairs and sat down in the chair on Quinton’s left.
No one looked up at me. They were all engrossed in the paper held carefully in their hands.
“Where’s Dash at?” I asked in a soft voice, not wanting to disturb them.
“Living room,” Quinton said. He didn’t even glance my way.
I picked up my donut and took a bite. It was yummy. I wondered if I should even be in here with them. Maybe they’d want me to go to the living room with Dash so I didn’t bother them? I watched Quinton read while I ate my donut and didn’t think he’d like it much if I got up and walked away. I thought about the twins missing spending time with me and I didn’t think they’d like it if I got up and walked away to go sit in the living room with Dash, either. Even if I wasn’t doing anything to aid them, I thought they would like me to stay.
“This guy is nuts,” Addison muttered under his breath.
The donut I was almost done eating suddenly didn’t taste as good as it had mere moments before. I sat what little I had left of it down on top of the napkin on the table. I pushed it away from me. What I had eaten churned in my stomach, threatening to come back up.
They’d seen Vivian and what she’d been capable of. Now they were getting a glimpse of my biological father and the first thing one of them said was that they thought he was nuts.
He did sound a little nuts in the letters. He could be even more of a looney toon in person, who knew. I wanted the chance to find out, and if he was I didn’t think it would bother me a whole lot.
Quinton looked up from the piece of paper held aloft in his hands. His eyes roamed over the twins before sliding my way.
“I don’t think he’s nuts,” Quinton said. “If someone stole my little girl, there isn’t anything in the whole world I wouldn’t do to get her back. Absolutely nothing. It’s obvious he loved you and likely still does. Love can make a person capable of doing anything at times.”
I noticed he’d said little girl and had excluded mentioning the boys. There was something seriously wrong with these people.
“What if you had a boy?” I asked before I could stop myself. This wasn’t a question I necessarily wanted an answer to.
“What?” he asked, sounding confused.
“What if you had a little boy,” I repeated. “Would you do anything to get him back?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He asked, still sounding confused.
“Of course he would, Ariel.” Abel said. “Why would you even ask him that?”
I sat back in my chair and wrapped my arms around my middle. They weren’t getting it. Maybe they didn’t see how differently they spoke about males and females? To me it was obvious.
“I would look for my children no matter the gender if someone took them from me.” Quinton explained in a gentle voice. “But I hope I have all girls and not boys.”
Quinton was nuts. Girls were horrible.
“I don’t,” Dash said, and I looked up to find him standing with his shoulder leaned against the doorway. “I don’t like the way girls with magic are treated. And I like it even less when they are born into a family of witches and they don’t have magic.”
Quinton sat his letter down on the table and folded his arms aggressively over his chest. His eyes narrowed on Dash as his face morphed into an unfriendly snarl.
“I’d never treat any of my children like they weren’t equal whether they were born with magic or not. And you damn well know it. Don’t try to put thoughts like that into her head.”
Dash held his hands up in front of him in surrender. “I would never dream of it,” he said in a soft voice.
I shook my head. How had we gotten here? It was my fault for asking that stupid question.
“I don’t want kids,” I told them honestly. “Not ever.”
“Neither do I,” Dash agreed quickly.
“You’re young,” Quinton said dismissively. “You have lots of time to change your mind. For now, lets focus on finding your dad.”
“How can you not want kids?” Addison asked in disbelief. “Everyone wants to have a family and people around them to love. Kids are awesome.”
I did not want to answer him. I didn’t know much about how he and Abel had lived before their parents had died in a plane crash, but I imagined it to be very different than how I’d lived with Vivian. Perhaps, if I had been raised differently I would feel differently. It wasn’t just that though. It was all I’d heard about the Council and how girls born witches were forced to live their lives. I would not ever bring another innocent being into this world. Not ever.
Quinton could talk all he wanted about how much time I had to change my mind, but he was wrong. Having a tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee in this life and I didn’t think it was smart to bank your hopes and dreams on having all the time in the world because it was a lie.
“You’re right,” Dash said in a quiet voice. “Kids are awesome. It’s the things people sometimes do to children that isn’t so awesome.” He held up a hand, silencing their protests before they could spew them out at him. “I know none of you would ever do anything to harm a child. Ariel knows it as well. Our experiences as children help shape us into who we are as adults and the worst experiences are often the hardest to forget. Forgiveness comes easy, it’s forgetting that’s hard. I don’t ever want to bring a child into a world that is capable of such horrors as I’ve gone through myself as a child. I think Ariel probably feels the same. It’s easy for you to not get it when you were raised by two people who loved you and thought the world revolved around you. They were perfect parents who would have never allowed anything to hurt you so long as they were here to stop it. I didn’t have that. Ariel sure as hell didn’t have that. You don’t understand what it’s like.”
Quinton was looking at Dash with big eyes and his lips were slightly parted. I understood where he was coming from because I didn’t think Dash talked about his past with his mother all that much and he’d just very openly brought it up himself in front of all of us.
Quinton’s surprised gaze swung my way and he lifted his eyebrows in question.
“Are you responsible for this sudden bout of sharing?” He asked in an amused voice.
I huffed, exasperated with him. “I thought we were going to get back to all things Rain Kimber. Don’t go blaming me for things.”
“Maybe we could start out with a dog,” Addison mumbled under his breath. “I’ll even get a small one if that’s what she wants.”
I felt my eyes grow round in my head. They were serious about this baby thing and they meant to have babies with me. That was most certainly never going to happen. Not in two years. Not in five years. Not in twenty. How would something like that ever work? There were seven of them and one of me.
Dash wrapped his arm around his middle as he started laughing softly.
“Your face,” he said. “You look so horrified now that you’ve finally worked out what it actually would mean to have children in the group. Priceless.”
“Shut up,” I muttered angrily.
Quinton burst out laughing.
From behind me, Tyson said, “She doesn’t want a dog. She wants one of those hairless cats.”
Abel scoffed loudly, and Addison burst out laughing.
“I could get her a cat,” Dash said in-between laughs.
“Christ,” Quinton choked out.
I hated them all.