And why I so desperately wanted her to was something I wasn’t ready to delve into at the moment.
“When he died, Mom left,” I began. “She called my warden before she split, and August arrived that morning. Neither of us knew what was going on until the Army officers showed up. After the funeral and everything, August took me to the Sanctuary.”
“And your mom? She justleft?”
“Yep. The last time I saw her was when I told her I was going to bed the night before.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.”
She laid one hand on my arm, and I glanced at it. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched me.
Is she starting to trust me? Just a little?
“Didn’t the Army officers want to talk to your mom?” she asked. “I would have thought they’d question her absence.”
“Mom and Dad weren’t married, and he’d listed me as his next of kin and beneficiary. There was no record of her in his military file.” I shrugged. “Besides, August pretended to be her father, my grandfather, and told them he was staying with me while Dad was deployed. They didn’t dig any further, and why would they?”
“It’s quite a coincidence that she left the same day your dad died.” She finally took her hand off my forearm, as if noticing it was still there.
I heard the question in her voice and frowned. I didn’t want to tell her. Only Rome, Spin, and my warden knew the burden I carried in my heart.
“Same hour, as far as I could discover.” Bracing myself, I told her the truth. “She was a Fallen, Chessie.”
“What?!”
“It happens.”
“Wait a minute.” She held up her hand. “Are you saying a demon lived as a human for fourteen years, and no one noticed?”
“Fifteenyears. I was born a year after she and Dad met,” I clarified. “She acted like a neph. I assumed I was a second. It was only after I was at the Sanctuary that I learned the truth.”
“It’s strange she stayed so long, but, when you live forever, I suppose a handful of years doesn’t matter too much. Do you think your dad knew what she was? Did he know whatyouwere?”
“No, to both. She told me we had to keep it a secret to protect him and ourselves. Of course, he was deployed so often, it was easy to hide things from him.”
We rode in silence for a few miles before she asked if my warden had ever checked on me.
“Shortly after I was born, August showed up at our house to give Mom the whole speech. He realized what she was right away and wondered if he was going to get out of there alive.” I chuckled. “Imagine his shock when she politely invited him in for tea!”
Instead of laughing as I’d intended, Chessie put a hand to her forehead.
“Sorry. Thatisfunny, but I’m still reeling over a Fallen behaving as your mom did.”
“It was like she was playing a role and never broke out of character,” I admitted. “Needless to say, I have a lot of unanswered questions.”
“My biggest ones would be, what was her motive and why your dad?”
I nodded. They were my biggest ones, too.
“Rome’s theory is that Dad had a hold on her somehow. A binding he may not have even known about that was passed on to him in some way. That’s why she left when he died. Rome thinks she knew he was dead the moment it happened.”
“I’d want to research demon bindings before I accept that one,” she said, “but I guess things like that happen. The next question would be, how did your dad inherit the binding?”
“Right. And how would I ever find out?”
“Any other theories?”
“Well, August thinks she may have been hiding from an enemy, or biding her time against one. I find that less probable than Rome’s, but more likely than Spin’s. He thinks she either lost a bet or was tired of being evil and wanted a break.”
