Page 58 of Born Chaos

I just nod because my throat goes tight. I saw other kids who had great moms. I wondered what that was like. I had imagined baked cookies and being tucked in at night. Back to school shopping and laughs in the car.

I didn’t know any of that.

“I’m so sorry,” Jon says, shaking his head. If I were a better person, maybe I’d wrap my arms around him and try to make him feel better. But I can’t right now. This is hard. So damn hard.

“We take what life gives us, right?” I move on with a slight shrug. “And it turned out okay. I never thought I’d end up in Chicago, but it turns out this was the best place I ever could have landed.”

“And you met your fiancé here?” Jon asks, trying to move on, too.

And a cold drop of anxiety and fear and pain slips down my spine.

“I did,” I say through a tight throat. “We worked together for a few months. He helped me get my certification. But we’re… we’re not engaged anymore.”

Jon’s brows furrow at that. “What happened?”

Some people’s protective instinct is so strong, you can pick it out without even knowing the person. Jon is like that. Darkness creeps into his eyes, and I see his hands curl into fists.

“He wasn’t the man I thought he was,” I say. And they’re some of the hardest words I’ve ever spoken. “Sometimes loving someone isn’t what’s best for you. In the end, Sebastian and I… we weren’t good for each other.”

Jon slides forward, taking my hand. “I’m so sorry, Juliet. That must be incredibly hard.”

My insides are too tight, like my skin has shrunk in the dryer. My eyes drop to the floor, and I nod. “Yeah,” I say hoarsely.

“But we move on,” Jon says, drawing my eyes back to his. “Because what else can we do?”

I nod. I think he gets it. Life is hard. Life isn’t fair. But in the end, all we can do is keep going. “I’m really glad you’re here,” I confess.

“Me too, Juliet,” he says softly.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Gettingto know the father you never thought you’d meet isn’t a straight line.

One might think we’d spend the entire night talking, catching up on the missed events of each other’s lives. But we’re immortal. We have eternity to do that. And the bond of blood is obvious by the fact that we both seem to wear out on such heavy moments quickly.

At nine in the morning, Jon heads to bed, taking one of the rooms Roman offers him. I hold Roman’s eye as I hesitate outside the door to my own room.

“Thank you,” I say again.

He simply nods, and I slip inside.

I pace my room instead of sleeping. My brain can’t seem to slow down. I don’t know how this changes the future. Does it? I mean… I have a dad now. But he looks like he’s probably only a few years older than me. So the daddy-daughter relationship is out the window, I think. But family? Family can be any variation of bonds.

I still in the middle of the room, my hand clasping around the necklace hanging around my neck.

Jon loved Ingrid, my mother. There’s not an ounce of doubt in me about that.

I’d had a plan. I booked a plane ticket to Kansas and I planned to go find where my mother’s remains are.

It’s been weeks since Sebastian showed me Markus Lontoc locked up in that prison cell. He was a broken, beaten man then. But I haven’t laid eyes on him since. And now I have all the more motivation to keep him alive. What if I could reunite my parents, even though my mother has been dead for twenty-eight years?

I duck back out into the now empty chapel. I spotted them earlier, and now I grab the lock picking kit, tucking it into my back pocket. I return to my room, closing the door as quietly as possible. I grab my sunglasses from the dresser and put them on. I pull the heavy drapery back from the window and swing it open. And then I climb through and set toward the sidewalk through the side garden.

I’ve only been there once, but my memory as a vampire is pretty damn sharp. My feet point in the direction of the warehouse without any question.

This winter feels endlessly long. I don’t really get cold anymore, but I’m kind of sick of the wind and the rain and the snow. The thought of spring has me wishing time would hurry up. I’m getting tired of these slushy sidewalks.

The industrial buildings grow shorter and scarcer. The train tracks go everywhere. The sound of people grows more infrequent, and the noise of equipment gets louder. And just a few minutes later, I spot the worn-down warehouse.

---