Page 114 of Dark Embers

I shrugged and nodded brusquely, eager to know what this had to do with my dad.

“Well, ever since I was a boy, I’ve had horrible visions about the future,” he went on as he led me through the Grand Hall at a brisk pace. “A battle between shifters and vampires. Our kind dying everywhere. I’ve tried and tried to focus my gift so that I can find a way to stop it from happening, but every time I have the vision, it’s always the same. I’m starting to wonder if maybe the purpose of these visionsisn’tto prevent them, but maybe just to save myself…and those I care about.”

I listened to him with growing concern, not missing the fact that he was clearly leading me toward the exit of the Dome.

“Er, Kendall, I don’t quite understand what we’re talking about here,” I said, slowing my pace.

“There’s something else I’ve always seen in my visions,” he continued.

He slowed a little, not enough to walk beside me, but not going so fast as to lose me, either.

“A beautiful girl with thick black hair. I never knew who she was or how she would impact my future, I only knew the feeling I got when I would see her. This girl was vastly important.

“When I first saw Letti a few years ago, I could’ve sworn she was the girl. She looked younger, of course, but visions aren’t always clear. I couldn’t know exactly when or at what age I would meet this girl. So I did everything I could to win her heart, waiting for the day that our purpose would become clear.

“But it never did. The more I got to know her…the less I liked the person she was. I kept thinking, ‘Were my visions wrong? How could this girl ever be someone worth loving as much as I did in my visions?’ And then one day, you came along, and I realized I had chosen the wrong girl.

“Don’t you see, Arya? You’re the girl I’ve been waiting for.”

He looked at me without slowing down and smiled that same charming, sweet smile. But I didn’t feel the same warmth as before. I only felt a gripping sense that something was wrong.

That I needed to get away.

And we were coming very close to the door leading to the subway platform.

I stopped walking.

“That’s very sweet, Kendall,” I said, trying to be as delicate as I could. “But, uh, didn’t you say you had to tell me something about my dad?”

“Yes, I was getting to that.” He stopped, too, and came to stand within inches of me, gently taking my hands in his.

As much as I had appreciated being so intimate with him in the past, right now such proximity was alarmingly unnerving.

“Your mother, her name was Zaia, wasn’t it?”

Bells rang in my head. I had never told Kendall that detail before. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone at school my mom’s name.

“How did you know that?” I couldn’t keep the suspicion from seeping into my words.

“I knew it!” he practically shouted. “It all makes sense now.”

I extracted my hands and took a slow step back, using my peripheral vision to take stock of my surroundings.

“What does?” I asked, hoping to keep him distracted.

“You and I have been connected from the start. Before we were even born!”

He had a wild, excited look on his face, and I was more than a little scared of what he might do. He was talking crazy. He closed the distance between us and grabbed my upper arms. I stiffened, my eyes wide as I stared with growing anxiety at him.

“Arya, eighteen years ago, my mother befriended a fresh-out-of-water mermaid named Zaia. Soon after they met, Zaia told her she had fallen for a vampire who wanted to use her blood to create potential hybrids—shifters that could be turned into vampires! That vampire was Hadrian. He was attempting to fuse different shifter DNA together in order to come up with a shifter that was strong enough to be turned into a vampire. He told her that it was so our two races could one day live in peace and stop fighting. The great unification, or something. My mother warned her against him, but Zaia didn’t listen. She agreed to help Hadrian with his experiments.”

I listened as he held me in place, unable to marry this version of my mother with the one I knew. It had to be a lie, or a mistake. Kendall had it wrong.

“One day, Zaia turned up pregnant,” Kendall went on. “She said it was Hadrian’s baby, and that it tested positive for multiple strands of shifter DNA. Zaia was suddenly horrified by all this, afraid of what Hadrian would do with her unborn child. Then she ran off, and my mother never saw her again. Hadrian has been searching for his lost child ever since.”

He shook me, his eyes blazing with wild obsession bordering on mania.

“Don’t you see, Arya?You’rethe lost child! That’s why he wants you.”

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