Diary of An Unnatural (BOOK #2)

Memories

Ava's POV

     The scene fell into place around me.

Val walked down the dark, dank hallway of the Hunter's headquarters. Her blonde hair swayed behind her long and curled, and she wore a tight-fitted black bandage dress that hit only mid-thigh. I knew Val and she never dressed up like this without a reason.

"What now?" she asked someone.

Derek.

He came up to walk beside her wearing a suit and bow tie. "Celia wanted to speak to us before we left. I guess she planned on giving us some last minute pointers before our hunt. She said it was urgent and necessary."

Val grumbled. "That woman and her ambiguity will be the death of me."

"She is your mother," Derek stated.

"Yet that seems to mean nothing to her." Val's face became lined with a frown and a wrinkle in her forehead. "You and I both know she has one thing in mind the moment I walk into the room. She doesn't care about my safety or whether I make it out alive. She only cares about taking down vampires. It has always been about the job."

Derek sighed. "Maybe that is her way of looking out for you. Your mother has always been more of a woman of actions than words. She doesn't easily show affection. For some people, it's hard."

"Like you?" Val asked under raised eyebrows. "You're always full of great advice, but when have you used it yourself? I know nothing about your life before you came here, but you know everything about me. And don't blame that on the fact that I'm the head's daughter. We already established that that means nothing."

"You don't want to know anything about me," Derek simply said. "I am not that interesting. I was naive and selfish when I came to work as your mother. Even more so before I became a Hunter. This is my life now. It has made me a better man. And that is all you need to know."

They stopped at a door, but Val blocked the way.

"So there is something," she presumed. "Something that made you this way. That made you want to choose this life."

"You don't choose it, Valerie. It chooses you."

"But you can try and run from it," she went on, unrelenting, just like the stubborn Val I grew up knowing. "You can get away if you're lucky. My sister's sixteen and still knows nothing. She never will."

Derek shook his head. "You don't know that. Anything could happen."

"But as long as I am in control, I am looking out for her. I refuse to let this life take over her like it did me. I wouldn't wish it on anyone let alone my little sister. She has too much ahead of her. She deserves a future of her own choosing."

"You care about her." Derek nodded, his green eyes intense. "But that doesn't mean you can protect her her whole life. She's destined for this life just as you and I. You can't keep the people you love in the dark. No matter what you may consider best."

Val's brown eyes darkened—hopeless. She knew he was telling the truth. She knew she couldn't keep me from the life of a Hunter not as long as I lived. Then she shook her head back with defiance.

"Watch me."

Val and Derek now walked arm-in-arm into a swank ballroom surely nowhere in Newberry. People flooded the scene all drinking merrily and swaying to the jazz music playing on the stage. Some sort of charity event, I assumed noticing the board at the front marking the latest donation.