Page 59 of Bad Blood
Kane Darby was a man who’d been punishing himself for decades. Maybe he’d let himself believe, when he’d met my mother, that it was finally enough. That he could have her. That he could have a family.
But yours will never let you go.
I thought about Kane trying to intervene with Shane, trying to mitigate his own father’s harm. And then I thought about Dean, standing beside me in this garden, his blond hair falling into his face. What Kane had been to my mother, Dean was to me. Like Kane, Dean had spent years keeping a tight rein on his emotions. He’d spent years convinced that there was something dark and twisted inside of him, and that if he wasn’t careful, he would someday become his father.
All of us had a way of regaining the control that life had taken from us. For Sloane, it was numbers. For Lia, it was keeping her true self buried beneath layers of lies. Michael intentionally provoked anger instead of waiting for someone else’s fuse to blow. Dean did everything he could to keep his emotions in check.
And I use knowing things about people as an excuse to keep them from knowing me.
Becoming a part of the Naturals program had meant letting a piece of that control go.For years, you were my everything. I wasn’t talking to Kane now. I was talking to my mother.You kept me from my father’s family. You made me the center of your world and yourself the center of mine.
I wrapped my arms around Dean’s neck. I felt his pulse, steady against mine. His fingertips traced the edge of my jaw. I pressed my lips to his, let them part. I tasted and wanted andfelthim, and I remembered:
Mommy kissing Kane—
The first day of school—
Coloring at Ree’s—
Melody, in the garden. “What’s the matter, scaredy-cat?” Melody is pigtails and skinned knees and bossy hands on bossy hips. “It’s just the poison garden!” She squats down next to a plant. “If you don’t come in, I’m going to eat this leaf. I’ll eat it right up and die!”
“No, you won’t,” I say, taking a step toward her. She plucks a leaf off the plant and opens her mouth.
“You kids stop horsing around in there!”
I turn around. There’s an old man standing behind us. He looks mad and mean, and he’s wearing long sleeves, even though it’s summer. Rough white lines and ugly puckered pink ones snake out from underneath his shirt.
Scars.
“How old are you?” the man demands. I know with all of my being that he’s wearing long sleeves because those aren’t his only scars.
“I’m seven,” Melody answers, coming to stand beside me. “But Cassie’s only six.”
The memory jumps, and suddenly I’m running home. I’m running—
Nighttime now. I’m in bed. There’s a thump. Muted voices.
Something’s wrong. I know that, and I think about the old man in the garden. He got mad at Melody and me. Maybe he’s here. Maybe he’s angry. Maybe he’s going to eat me right up.
Another thump. A scream.
Mommy?
I’m at the top of the stairs now. There’s something at the bottom.
Something big.
Something lumpy.
And suddenly, my mother is on the stairs, kneeling in front of me. “Go back to sleep, baby.”
There’s blood on her hands.
“Did the old man come?” I ask. “Did he hurt you?”
My mother presses her lips to my head. “It’s just a dream.”
I came out of the memory with my body still pressed against Dean’s, my head buried in his shoulder, his hands combing gently through my hair.
