Page 8 of The Stone Initiation
This was like déjà vu all over again. My mother, and now Romi. “I need to know. Give mehisnumber.”
“Cameron that’s not a good idea.”
“Give. Me. His number, now!”
Ralph pursed his lips. “Your mother didn’t want you associating with that world.”
“My mother is dead. My brother is dead. I’m done with the low profile. If Lionel Basque doesn’t like it, he can shove it up his stone ass.”
“Your mother signed a contract, Cam.”
A contract that my paternal parentage wouldn’t be revealed, and that Lionel wouldn’t be liable for anything when it came to me. “Yeah, I know. But like I said. She’s dead. Just give me his damned number.”
Ralph nodded and left me alone in the room feeling like an ass for speaking to him that way.
My phone rang, and Levi flashed up on caller ID. I hit ignore.
Not now. I couldn’t speak to him right now.
I pulled out a chair and sat with a thud. Romi was gone. Truly gone. A tear trickled down my cheek, but I dashed it away.
“Don’t cry, little sister. You’re not alone.”
The memory rose to engulf me.
Rain lashing, battering my umbrella, and mud clinging to my new shiny black funeral shoes as they lowered the casket into the ground. My white-knuckled grip on the handle of the umbrella radiated an ache up my arm. A feeling I clung to because the rest of me was numb.
The handful of people who’d shown up for the funeral drifted away, but I stayed, standing beneath a sky that wept for me because I’d run out of tears.
The lady from social services stood a few feet away, clipboard tucked under her arm, ready to whisk me away to whatever home they’d found for me, because I had no one else. No family. No father. I was alone.
The ball of emotion in my chest pulsed, but I pushed it down. Mother would want me to be strong.
The woman took a step toward me, a signal that my time here was up, and rage starburst in my chest. She paused and looked over my shoulder, her eyes widening.
“Excuse me?” She hurried over. “Can I ask who—”
“No. You cannot.” The voice was firm and authoritative.
I tipped my umbrella back to look up at the male whose shadow I now stood in. He was tall with golden hair and pale blue eyes, and he was looking at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. There was something about him that told me I was safe.
“Excuse me,” the woman said, indignant, “but I—”
“This child is under Guardian protection,” the man said. “I have the paperwork.”
Guardians. This was a gargoyle in his human form.
The social worker blinked sharply then took the paper he handed to her. She skimmed it and nodded, backing away from us.
She was leaving? I wouldn’t have to go to a group home? I peered up at my savior. “Who are you?”
The golden-haired gargoyle smiled, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest because I knew that smile. I’d seen it in the mirror often enough. My vision blurred, eyes hot and stinging with the threat of tears.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t cry, little sister. You’re not alone.”
I surfaced with a sob and pressed my hand to my mouth. He’d been more than a brother. He’d been like a father. He’d been my best friend, and he’d found me a home here with Ralph. A man he’d trusted to take care of me.
Ralph and Romi were all the family I had.
