Hunted [Wild Hunt Series: 1]

2: Dakota

Blood stained Mom's white parka and the cardigan underneath. The fabric was stiff rather than glistening as she sank onto the bottom step and reached for me. Couldn't have been hers; even if it was, she'd clearly addressed the injury. So she was okay. Mom was okay. 

That small relief disappeared as her head fell heavy against my shoulder. She'd been a licensed paramedic going on near twenty years, had experienced more than her fair share of rough days, both the kind that made her grab a beer outta the fridge without a so much as a 'hello'  and the ones that saw her carrying the whole six pack outinto the greenhouse.

"Ajax alright?" I asked tentatively. He wasn't my dad, but he'd raised me. Mom had divorced my real father early on. To my knowledge, he'd taken a job out on an oil rig and never bothered asking after me, not once. Apparently, I'd been an unwelcome accident.

"Yes. No." She squeezed my hand, gasped. "God, your hands are freezing! Where are your gloves?"

My fingers were still white with fear. "Forgot," I said. Gloves could wait. The Smiling Dark would wait. "What's happened?"

She didn't respond.

"Mom?"

"He's alright, hunny. He fell, but he's okay. Just, just seeing him disappear over the edge like that . . . It took only seconds, but God, I swear an hour passed between the time I realized he was going over and when I heard him hit the rocks."

My hand brushed the crusted buttons of her cardigan. "Looks a lot worse than alright."

Shaking off my hand, she zipped the parka. "It isn't entirely his blood. We were making an emergency rescue. Mav's daughter didn't come home last night."

"Which daughter?"

Mom sighed. "Dakota.  Now, I know you two fought like a couple of rabid opossums, but-"

"She slept with Noah."

"Heartbreak is heartbreak. Nineteen years old and moving to Manhattan; you weren't marrying him, Tay. No, don't you dare open your mouth to argue. If that tongue of yours holds any more foul words toward Dakota I suggest you swallow hard. It's a curse to speak ill of the dead." At once her brown eyes widened. She pushed my hair back against my cheek, ruddy fingertips skirting my dumbfounded expression. "Oh, sugar. That's not at all how I wanted to tell you. I'm sorry. I'm hungover and crying for Mav and Ajax and if my daughter is the one to spit on the dead before they're buried . . . "

"She's really dead?"

"Please, Tay. She died a horrible death. I shouldn't have to tell you, but don't kill her again."

I leaned away from her. There was something so tragic in the depths of her brown eyes that my own started tearing. "You think I'd do that?"

 "I know what she did to you growing up, how so many people started calling you a freak for sculpting demons and vampires and those things in the basement we all imagine when we're alone on stormy nights- and I didn't raise you to be shy about speaking your mind. I love you, but your level of tact is...Well, teenage."

"Be twenty next Tuesday," I reminded her. "There will be no spitting or dancing on her grave at the funeral, which I won't even be here for. I'll never forgive her for taking Noah on that fishing trip, but I wouldn't ever wish her dead.  A bad haircut or stubbed toe maybe, but nothing worse. I'm moving to New York and moving on from here. The second I board that flight, my chapter with Dakota closes." I'd never admit it, but Dakota was partly reason I'd jumped on that internship offer. No Dakota meant no reputation preceding me. How nice it'd be, meeting people who didn't think I was a freak or weirdo for liking what I liked.