On the way home, my phone beeped. I noticed I had a message and was hopeful it was Quinn. Instead, it was from the call I ignored from my mom earlier. The message began and my mother’s voice sounded devastated, “Parker, sweetie, I need you to call me right away. Your father…well your father is in the hospital. Call me or meet me there as soon as you get this.”
Fear welled up inside me as I mashed down the gas pedal and headed straight for the hospital in town. My mom’s car was in the parking lot and it was parked all crooked as though she was in a hurry. She even left the door partly open so I knew something was terribly wrong. Once inside the emergency room doors, I ran straight to the counter where there was a woman on the phone ignoring my panicked state.
She finally looked up at me, “My father’s been brought here. Harris…can you tell me where he is? What happened to him?” I begged. My name echoed in the hallway and I turned to see my mom running down the hall toward me. She's drained of color and her hair was a mess, she had mascara streaks down her face from crying.
“Mom, oh my god, is he…”
I start to hyperventilate and she responded before I could finish, “He's fine. Well, he isn’t fine, but he's alive for now at least.” I asked what happened and she began to relay the nightmarish story to me.
“Someone found your father on the side of the road. He had been attacked and was bleeding to death. They think it was the same person that killed Christine Randall. His throat was sliced open, but he was still breathing when they found him and they had to give him a blood transfusion. He's in a coma, but the doctors are hopeful.”
My heart could not take much more devastation today. My dad and I had always been so close, and I'm not ready to let him go.
How did Lizzy get to him, or was it someone else? I picked up my phone to call Quinn and got the same error message I’ve been getting, which must mean Liz destroyed his phone.
I texted Mitchell.
Me: I need you to get a message to Quinn for me. My dad is in the hospital, he may not make it, Lizzy attacked him, or possibly someone else, I don’t know. He almost bled to death. Just wanted to make you aware this may not be over.
My text received no response, but it was only a matter of minutes before Quinn was standing at the door of the waiting room. He came over, put his arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into him letting the tears fall.
He stroked my hair and held me against him. I repeated the story to him that my mom had told me, once I calmed down. “I’m so sorry, Parker, I feel like this is my fault. Lizzy is dead though, and she won’t hurt anyone again,” he stated with sorrowful regret.
“Are we sure it was Lizzy? What if there's someone else killing people?” as I asked this he was shaking his head in doubt.
“I'm almost positive it was her, probably after she left us and before she attacked Jackie…that's my guess at least. It seems to fit the timeline you gave me for when he was attacked.”
Jackie and Mitchell walked in and I jumped up and hugged her, she’d been crying. My dad was always like a dad to Jackie too. If anyone knew how I was feeling right now, it was Jackie.
The doctor came in at that moment and my mom about knocked me over trying to get to him. He said my dad was resting comfortably and that his tests look good and they put him in a comatose state in order to allow him to rest and heal appropriately. There was no way to know when he would wake up, but it shouldn’t be more than a couple of days at the most, they said the medicine can affect people in different ways.
It felt like a weight lifted off my chest when he said that, and I could tell my mom felt better too, her knees buckled as she about collapsed with relief. Quinn caught her and helped her to a seat. She thanked him a bit cautiously, she didn’t know yet what to think with Quinn being there and Jackie and I talking. Things had done an 180-degree turn almost overnight. She probably didn’t need to get used to Quinn anyway though, I'm pretty sure that once my dad is better he will revert back to not speaking to me. At the moment, he's just here out of guilt.
Quinn agreed to stay with my mom while I went to see my dad. Jackie came with me and held my hand. I never have liked hospitals, the way they smell, the general feel and look of them, just depressed me. My dislike started back when I was visiting my maternal grandmother and with all these tubes and machines she looked like a shell of her former self. Now anytime I go into hospitals I felt a sense of dread.
As we approached the door to my dad’s room, I squeezed her hand tighter. He looked like he was sleeping, he was so pale and fragile looking. There weren’t too many machines hooked up which helped. We each sat on the side of the bed and took his hand in ours. Jackie started talking first. “Hey, Mr. H, hope you haven’t heard too many bad things about me lately. I got into a bit of trouble and did some things I'm not proud of, but I'm back to my old self now. I'm ready for you to wake up and challenge me to a game of pool or to pick on me about being too skinny.”
My voice cracked as I tried to talk, “Daddy, it’s your princess. I'm so sorry about this, it’s all my fault.”
Jackie came over to my side of the bed and put her arm around me. I placed my head against hers as we both sobbed. It seems all I do these days is cry my eyes out and wonder how I'm going to survive any more heartache. She got up when the nurse came in to check his vitals. I wanted to stay longer so I waited in the hallway and Jackie went on back to the waiting room. When she turned the corner, I slid down to the ground and put my head in my hands.
There were footsteps coming toward me. Someone sat beside me and cradled me to them. It was Mitchell, I could tell by his cologne. I laid my head against his chest and he rubbed my shoulders.
“My sweet, Lupita. Jackie went to get you something to drink. She said you were going to dehydrate with all these tears and I think she was right.” His index finger swept across my cheek to remove some of the tears I had shed. “She asked me to come take care of you. I hope you don’t mind,” Mitchell said as he kissed my forehead.
“You're a good friend, Mitchell. I'm sorry…”
He stopped me before I could finish, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Parker. We were all brainwashed and taken advantage of in some way. Trust is a difficult thing to maintain even amongst the best of friends. You can trust someone with all your soul and the minute a piece of doubt is planted it can grow so strong, especially when it is nurtured."
"Quinn told me that Lizzy can condition people and that's what happened with Jackie. She convinced her to trust Will and even to think she was falling for him. That persuasion broke once Liz was killed. Remember how you felt so confused? You had everyone telling you different stories and you had no clue who to trust? Well, that's how Will forced Jackie to feel for the last two months and that's the way Quinn feels right now. You need to go and talk to him and try to work things out. Your dad is going to be asleep for a while. Jackie and I will take your mom home or stay with her in the waiting room, whichever she prefers. You need to take Quinn and go somewhere private where you guys can work things out.”
“He hates me, Mitch, he’s not going to want…” As I was saying this, he put his hand up to my mouth to stop me.
“You know that isn’t true, he could never hate you, trust me. He and I talked. In fact, I was talking to him when I got your text and all I got out was that your dad was in the hospital before he just took off in the middle of the conversation to be here for you. He is torn like the rest of us. We all have the same tortured feelings right now, betrayal, hurt, grief, shame…” he reached out and lifted my chin to look him,“love and heartache as well. Go talk to him…please.” I smiled and kissed his cheek.
“You know how when you're feeling down, it can make things easier to think about a time when you were the happiest?” He nodded, and I continued, “Well I was sitting here thinking about that day we played Laser Tag. You have no idea how happy that day made me, Fangs. It was just nice
to spend the day with a friend and be normal for the first time in two years. That day will always mean a lot to me.”
He smiled, “Me too, Lupita. You know I've loved Jackie since I was five years old. There's never been anyone else that could affect me the way she does or that understood me. I never imagined being with anyone else but her either. Until the past few months being with you…”
I sat up to interrupt him, but he stopped me again, “You mean a lot to me, Parker, but I'm glad you stopped me that day when I wanted to kiss you again. I love you.”
Hearing him say those words made my heart soar because I knew at that moment he loved me the same way I loved him, as the truest of friends.
“But the best thing about what we have is that it’s uncomplicated and it's fun and I don’t want to lose that. One thing I can promise is that I'll protect you until the end of time. No one will ever hurt you as long as I am around, not even Quinn. You two are meant to be together, just like Jackie and I, so if I didn’t believe he truly loved you, I wouldn't encourage you to go to him.”
“You're my very best friend and I'm so glad to be able to say that. I love you, Fangs,” I said.
He kissed my cheek touching the corner of my mouth with his and said, “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Lupita.” He stood first and reached out to help me up. He wound my fingers in his and I leaned my head against his arm as he escorted me back to the waiting area.
Everyone looked up, and I was afraid it was going to be weird with him holding my hand, but it wasn’t. Quinn looked up at me and smiled sadly. I went to sit by my mom. Smoothing her hair behind her ears, I said, “Mom, Mitchell is going to take you home to rest and I'm going to take a ride with Quinn and we can meet back later, is that okay?”
She stroked my face. “Of course sweetie.” She looked at Quinn and back at me and said, “You have a good one here, don’t let him go. He reminds me of your father.”
It was nice that my mom was fond of Quinn again, I'm just hopeful that he still wanted to be with me.
We walked out of the hospital and got into the car without saying a word to each other. Quinn drove and I kept glancing at him, but wasn’t sure where to start explaining things. The drive was filled with agonizing silence. When he finally pulled over I knew exactly where we were. “The waterfall?” I said in surprise.
“It’s our special place, I’m not letting anyone ruin that for us,” he said and then he was opening the door for me.
He swept me up off my feet and I screamed in surprise. He ran me to the base of the fall and then disappeared and was back again with the blanket and a cooler. He got me out a soda and popped it open for me. “Jackie said to make sure I get you hydrated again. I can’t have a werewolf mad at me you know.”
I laughed, “No we wouldn’t want that.” It tasted like heaven going down my throat. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.
“I’m sorry,” We both stated at the same time and chuckled. “Go ahead,” We both said again at the same time.
Quinn threw his hands up and said, “Oh screw it” and grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. His lips eagerly met mine as I wound my arms around his neck and gave in to the desire letting everything else melt from my mind.
Reality came crashing back pretty quickly. Moving back from him, I decided to start things off, “We can’t avoid talking about it, as much as I'm enjoying this right now. I need you to tell me what happened, tell me about your time with Lizzy, please.” He stiffened and it seemed as though it was the last thing he wanted to talk about.
His face became solemn as he began, “You may not want to hear this, I'm not even sure I want to tell you.” I sucked in a breath and waited for him to tell me, expecting the worst in my mind of things like him cheating on me with her. He began, “She played mind tricks on me, something she's very good at. She held me prisoner and made me think Mitchell was helping her. She poured human blood down my throat to ignite my cravings for it.”
He stopped to look at my face and judge my reaction, I stayed calm so he continued, “That's the only thing she would feed me. Most days she starved me and, when I grew weak, she would force it down my throat. I tried to fight it, but it’s like trying to not chew a cheeseburger when you haven’t eaten a bite in days.”
Shame washed over his face and he stared forward at the falls. “All I could think about was you, but she twisted my thoughts. She was so vague about everything. She told me that you had done something that I would never forgive you for, she said I didn’t know the kind of person you truly were. According to her, if I found out what it was I would hate you. Either she was talking about you and Mitchell, and she doesn’t know me that well or she was just playing mind games again. She was so persistent she even said that even you didn’t know the size of the mistake you made.”
That had me curious, how would she know about Mitchell and me? What could I have done to make him…? No, I'm not going to let her play mind tricks on me anymore, she is dead and gone.
“What about Christine? Did she say why she killed her?” That had been bothering me for a while if she had merely done it to feed then there would have been more killings.
“She thought that Christine was you because she smelled me on her.”
Before I could stop myself, the tone of jealousy erupted from me in asking, “What the hell does that mean?”
A look of guilt washed over his face and I grew more suspicious. His tone was apologetic, “I’m an idiot, it was the day you and I were fighting because of that...” a deep annoyed breath sounded from him, “kiss with Will in the park. Remember, I was cozying up to Christine in class to make you jealous? She kept rubbing my back and other things…”
Again I snapped to attention, ready to explode, and he considered what he had said and recanted, “No…no, no, I meant that she was rubbing up against me, wait, geez, Parker, nothing happened. She got frisky with my upper half and that’s it. Damn, I give up.”
Watching him squirm, for something that didn’t sound sexual, was hilarious. I burst into laughter and his eyebrow raised at me in confusion. “I get what you're saying, baby. Continue.”
He sighed in relief and said, “Anyway, she didn’t know who you were. When she smelled me on Christine, she thought she was you and killed her in rage. When she figured out who you really were, and that you were a werewolf, she decided to keep you alive. She was going to have you turn against me and kill me and then I guess Will would've tried to win your affection at that time. I felt terrible that Christine was killed because of me, but I must confess that I'm glad she didn’t get to you first.”
I didn’t speak it out loud, but I was thinking the same thing, even though I felt terrible that Christine died only because of mistaken identity. At the same time, I wanted to rip her throat out for putting her hands all over my man. Sorry, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I can’t help it.
“Jackie explained everything to your mom…well as best as she could. As soon as you guys went to visit your dad, your mom started in on me about breaking your heart. Which, I fully deserved her wrath for how I left things at the waterfall earlier. Jackie came back just as I was getting ready to leave and told her that it was all a lie. She was great; you have an incredible sister there.”
I grinned, “I'm lucky to have her back, thought I lost her.”
He squeezed my hand, “I was afraid I lost you all for a second. Mitch is my best friend and I thought he betrayed me and then I found out you had feelings for him and…well...” he stopped talking and looked away.
“There's something you should know about Mitchell though, and it’s completely my fault because I asked for it.” Trying to find the words was difficult with the look Quinn was giving me at the moment.
He exploded, “What the hell did he do?”
It was my turn to burst out laughing at his assumptions. “No, nothing. I was just trying to tell you that I asked h
im to tell me about how…I asked him to tell me about the time you turned him.”
Some sense of relief washed over him, but there was now a look of dread. He took my hand and said, “I really wish he hadn’t done that, but I hope you know…”
I put my hand on top of his and said, “It's fine, I know that was not who you are and it doesn’t make me feel any different for you. I just wanted you to know that he told me and that it was because I asked him to. You aren’t mad are you?”
He shook his head. “No, just ashamed.”
Leaning over, I kissed him and said, “Never feel ashamed around me, I'll never judge you.”
Then, I continued with my ramblings, “As for my feelings for Mitchell, I was never in love with him. It was just a matter of two people, who felt like they had lost everything, clinging to the only friend they had left. We bonded and are just the best of friends now. So things will seem different with us and I'm telling you this so you don’t read into anything if he kisses my cheek or holds my hand too long. We talked about it and we both feel the same way, I love you and he loves Jackie. There's love between us, but it is the deepest of friendship, nothing more. Do you get what I mean?”
He winced a bit and said, “I'll do my best to not want to rip his head off if you two are acting too cozy, but there is a line between what should be just for friends and what should be for couples, I mean kissing…”
I put my hand up. “On the cheek only. We have nicknames for each other too now and we've held hands for support and we'll hug. I don't want it to make you doubt me if you see this stuff.”
He flinches again and asks, “So what's reserved for just me?”
Taking my hand, I gently caress his face. “This,” I say as I kiss his lips softly and lovingly, “and this,” as I kiss his neck.
“You’re damn straight, I better not see you do that with him.” We both laughed and he pulled me against him and pressed his lips to mine.
My head still raced with today’s events and out of nowhere I pulled back from his embrace and started to rant. “There's some other stuff from today that's bothering me. I still can’t believe that Will was the one that changed me and that he's Lizzy’s brother?!”
He took my hand in his and noticed the dried blood; he brought it closer to his face and at first I thought he was hungry from the smell. Then he calmly asked, “Where is your fingernail?”
The memory flooded back, of Will grabbing me and dragging me along the ground as I answered, “Back in the woods, not far from here. When I took off running to find you and Jackie, Will grabbed me and threw me to the ground. When I realized it was him I tried to get away, but he grabbed my legs and pulled me back to him and as I clawed at the ground it ripped out of my skin.”
A hiss escaped his lips and he brought my finger to his mouth and kissed it. “Damn him, it’s a good thing he's dead, because if he weren't I would rip his throat out for hurting you.”
A confession left my lips that I didn’t expect to tell him and I wasn’t sure why I did, but he pulled back from me and demanded I repeat what I said, because it came out as such a light whisper. “I thought he was going to rape me…he was tugging at my clothes and his hands were…”
I stopped and Quinn looked devastated, he reached out and pulled me close to him and I heard his voice crack, “No one's going to ever hurt you like that I promise. I'm sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry he hurt you, I'm sorry you were scared and most of all, I'm sorry that I wasn’t there for you.”
The anger welled up inside me, I pulled away from him. As I watched how guilty he felt, it made me hate what Will did even more. “You do not need to apologize, he…Ugh…I just can’t believe I wanted to spare his life…I…it’s my fault you couldn’t be there for me. I thought he was my friend, I felt he was misled and that I could save him, but I'm so stupid. And all the ways he tricked us, the way he manipulated Jackie…it just makes me so…so angry!”
My hands were shaking with rage and Quinn reached for me, but it was too late, I jerked forward and my body wrenched in pain and I was a wolf in minutes.
There was terror in Quinn’s eyes as I looked up at him. He had not expected me to change. I moved toward him and he backed away from me. Thinking happy thoughts helped me to shift back and I stood there, naked, as he stood frozen in place.
“I’m sorry; my shifting is starting to be more random now. If I get too angry, it's hard to stop from changing. I don’t understand why it just started happening. I mean, I've always been able to calm myself.”
Quinn seemed to be putting something together in his head so I start looking around for my clothes. They were in shreds all over the ground. I picked them up and held them in the air. “Damnit, I'm so sick of ruining good outfits.”
He laughed, thank goodness. I was beginning to think he was in a state of shock. He took his jacket off and came forward and wrapped it around me. As he reached around my shoulders to cover me, he whispered, “This is my favorite part of when you change into a wolf, seeing you when you shift back.”
His breath at my ear, and the words he said sent shivers down my body. He lightly kissed my collarbone. He turned the conversation serious again, instead of letting us get carried away in the moment.
“The reason you're unable to calm yourself as easily is because you never had a true reason to be angry.” He chuckled at what must have been a totally lost look on my face. “Ok, you started having more episodes of shifting when I disappeared right?” I nodded slowly trying to foresee his conclusion.
“Ok, well, you're not an angry person. You aren’t going to want to kill someone just because they made fun of you or they played a joke on you. That rage that causes you to shift spontaneously, it happens when someone you love is in danger or threatened…Right?”
Biting my lip, I looked upward as if trying to see what was in my own mind and muddled through the thoughts in my head; finally, I shook my head in agreement. “You had me, Jackie, and Mitchell in danger, now your dad. The people that mean the most to you are the key to your rage. If they're in peril, you'll be vulnerable to shifting. Make sense?”
Laughing hysterically, I said, “So basically I hulk out? Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I'm angry. Roar!” I lunged with my arms raised and tackled him. We rolled on the blanket wrestling and laughing.
We sat back and he began to kiss me again until my text went off. He picked it up and pulled away from me. Great, what now?
“It’s from your mom. Your dad’s awake,” he said.
I beamed up at him, “Let’s go!” Running to the car I realized how naked I was and we had to make a stop at the house first. It might be difficult to explain to my mom what became of my clothes.
We arrived at the hospital in record time and I ran to his room. I inhaled deeply and opened the door.
“Hey Princess.” There were never two words I wanted to hear more at this moment. As soon as I got to his bedside, I gave him a zerbert on the cheek which is something we have always done since I was a kid. It’s something I saw on the Cosby show. Rudy, the youngest in the family, used to give her dad zerberts. It’s where you put your lips against their face and blow hard, it’s a raspberry, but on the face instead of the stomach.
He chuckled and told me to pull up a chair. “Did you see the person who did this to you, daddy?” I asked him as I held his hand in mine.
He looked at me with total bewilderment, “No, sweetie. They came up from behind me. I couldn’t even tell you if it was a man or woman. It all happened so fast. I just remember being grabbed and feeling a burning pain at my neck. I reached for it and felt the blood gushing out. Everything went black and I woke up here a few minutes ago.”
After talking to my dad for a while, I left my mom to spend the night with him. Quinn drove me home. Mom said it was fine if he spent the night with me tonight so I wouldn’t be alone. I'm sure that meant he should sleep on the
couch, but she didn’t specify so he came to my room with me. I changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed with him. He wrapped me in a blanket and kissed my head.
“I love you.” We both said at the same time.
“We really need to get out of each other’s head,” I said, giggling.
“Before we go to sleep, I wanted to talk to you about something Will said. The part about you being gullible for trusting him, he was wrong.”
That was unexpected and I turned to face him, “But you basically said the same thing about me trusting Will, so…”
His head shook in disagreement, “I was upset that Will betrayed you…more than once even, but I don’t think you're to blame. Trusting someone, and giving them a chance to prove they have changed, doesn't make you an idiot or gullible. It makes you Parker and it's one of the reasons I love you so much. You have the biggest heart and you always want to open it up to people. The ones that betray your trust, the ones that hurt you, they're the fools. I didn’t want the past few months and all this betrayal you've faced to make you bitter or angry.” He kissed my head and pulled my body closer to him.
My phone rang and I reached over to answer it. “Hello, yeah I saw him and he was doing great. Yeah, I know, I miss you too, sweetie. We'll make time for each other soon. I’ll call you in the morning. Don’t worry about me, I'm fine. I love you. Goodnight.”
I hung up the phone and turned to Quinn. He looked like he was trying to fight back his anger. “What's wrong?” I asked anxiously.
He took his index finger and thumb and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, but hearing you tell him that you love him, hearing you call him sweetie, is more difficult than I imagined.”
Snickering, I said, “Goofy, that was Jackie, not Mitchell.”
He covered his face with hands, “I’m sorry, Parker, I’m a douche. I'll do better, I promise. I’m glad you've forgiven Jackie and you guys are friends again.”
Sighing, I said, “I'm working on it at least. I know that someone was feeding her bad information, but her betrayal of trust was the worst. I wish she'd had more faith in me. Of course, Mitchell has it worse than I do. He had to see her making out with Will, and you should've seen the devastation that caused him. We were both hurting so badly over the last few weeks. I do love Jackie and I want things to get back to the way they were, but that's going to take some time, for all of us I think.”
He nodded and said, “Just make sure you get there. Don’t let Liz and Will ruin that for you. She's your sister in every way that counts and that's something you don’t want to lose.”
There was something in the way he mentioned her name that made me wonder out loud. “I’m sorry, I know this has to be hard for you, the fact that you killed her to save Jackie…to save all of us, I know you loved Lizzy.”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a sad smile as if he remembered a bittersweet memory, “No, I didn’t love that monster. The Lizzy that I loved died back in the 50’s, she was killed on her way home from school. There was no hesitation from me, I don't regret what I did, and I don't mourn that thing. I merely mourn my friend that died many years ago.” He held his arms out to me, kissed me and I snuggled closer to him and closed my eyes, this should be the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.
My dreams were filled with scenes from the previous day, Lizzy’s death, Will torturing me, and the events leading up to his death. The look on Quinn’s face as Liz tortured him with hints of my feelings for Mitchell, the look of the betrayal he felt when I chose to save Will’s life.
Then, I was there watching my father bleeding to death on the side of the road and Quinn stood over him. I jerked up, sweating profusely. I turned to look at Quinn and he looked so peaceful, I snuggled back against his chest and looked toward the window where there was a set of eyes looking in at me….eyes that were very familiar. Will's eye's.
Books Written by Amy McClung
YA Paranormal Romance
The Parker Harris Series:
Cascades of Moonlight, Book #1
Dreams, Spells, & Moonlit Tales, Book #2
The Dark Moon, Book #3
The Cold Moon, Book #4
(Mitchell's novella)
YA Fantasy
The Crispin Sinclair Chronicles
The Shimmering Pool (10/3/14)
NA Contemporary Romance
The Southern Devotion Series:
For the Love of Gracie, Book #1
Curves in the Road, Book #2
Complicated Relationships, Book#3 (2015)
YA Contemporary Romance:
Stand-alone novella
Promises in Stone Coming November 2014.
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