Almost Midnight (37 page)

Not that she needed anyone to be interested. She simply got along better with boys. Girls could be bitches.

For a while, a rumor spread around the school that she was gay. But nope. She was totally into the opposite sex. In particular, Cary.

Almost if Kylie read her mind, she asked, “So how are things with you and Mr. Cannon?

“Good,” Fredericka said, but they'd be so much better when school was out. Cary Cannon, a full were, taught history at the Academy. Only two years older than she, the guy took her breath away the first time she'd laid eyes on him. Smart and sexy. She'd never been a history fan until now.

He'd acknowledged his attraction to her, but insisted they only be friends until she graduated. The wait was killing her. Meanwhile, they met every day after school, and she'd listen to him talk about all his trips to see historic places—Paris, Rome, Egypt. If it had history, Cary had been there or wanted to go there. Someday she hoped to go with him, too.

“How good?” Kylie smiled in that way girls did when they wanted you to tell them a secret.

“We're just friends,” Fredericka said.

“Well, think how good it will be when you move it to that next stage. You two will know everything about each other.”

“Yeah.” It hit her that while she'd gotten to know a lot about Cary, he didn't know much about her. Not his fault. She wasn't exactly forthcoming.

She'd almost told him yesterday about her jewelry, but had chickened out. He wasn't like the male were students. But face it, the man got excited about pyramids, about Notre Dame. Her biggest fear was that he'd think her passion for jewelry was silly. And that was the last way she wanted him to see her.

“This is where I drop off,” Kylie said when they got to the main path, obviously going back to her cabin. Her smile came off so real and it made Fredericka wish that she could be like other girls and have close friends. The way Kylie was with her witch and vampire roommates.

“I want to hear how things go tomorrow. Good luck.”

Fredericka nodded, then instantly realized the downside of having shared her secret. If her work didn't get accepted, everyone would know she'd failed. Why hadn't she just kept her mouth shut?

Fredericka took off, her pace faster than it had been in the morning. With a full moon coming soon, her strength grew greater daily.

“Hey.” Kylie's call had Fredericka glancing over her shoulder. “You may want to mention to Holiday about hearing the falls.”

“Yeah,” Fredericka said, but she wouldn't. She wanted to forget about that.

As she got closer to the office, she wondered exactly what it was that Holiday wanted, because no one could be here to see her. But when she stepped on the front porch, she caught the trace of another were. A familiar trace.

She curled her hands into fists.

What the hell did Marissa Canzoni want? Her gaze shot back to the trail. She didn't have to face this. Her feet were poised to swing around, when she remembered she'd stopped running from her problems a long time ago.

Bracing herself for whatever shit Marissa had dug up and the emotional backlash that seeing her would bring, she walked into Holiday's office.

*   *   *

“Ricka.” Marissa nodded as Fredericka walked in. “Look at you. All grown up.” Thankfully, the woman didn't appear to be about to put on some front, like jumping up and hugging her. There was no affection between them. Not that Fredericka hated her. She'd been the nicest in the long line of her father's bitches who he'd expected to take care of Fredericka the first ten years of her life. Her father would bring them into his home, sleep with them, make house with them for a month, maybe two, and then disappear for weeks at a time. Work, he called it.

But Fredericka always wondered if deep down he'd simply been trying to get away from her. How could he not resent her? Her mother had died giving Fredericka life. Nothing like growing up knowing you'd killed your own mother—especially when you saw the grief in your father's eyes each time he looked at you and said, “You look just like her.”

Some of her dad's women really hated Fredericka. Like Donique, who'd left those damn scars on Fredericka's arm. Like Shelbie, whose cruel words left scars on Fredericka's heart. Or Karine, who simply neglected to feed her. Marissa had simply tolerated Fredericka. A far cry from feeling loved, but who needed to feel loved, as long as you weren't abused, called terrible names, or left hungry.

“Hello, Marissa.” Fredericka moved in and sat down on the sofa in Holiday's office. “What brings you here?” she asked, and tried not to look at Holiday—not wanting to give the fae an opportunity to read her emotions.

“It's your father,” Marissa said. “I'm sorry, but he was killed last week.”

It felt as though her words floated around the room for several seconds before Fredericka could take them in. Even then, Fredericka sat there, not letting one pinch of emotion sneak out. It wasn't the announcement of his death that took a bite out of her heart, but rather the time of his passing. She had always felt better believing he'd been dead these last eight years. Better than believing he'd purposely abandoned her with a pack of rogue weres.

Thankfully, Lucas Parker's dad had taken pity on her and assigned one of his pack matrons to watch over her. Not that there had been any love there either, but the woman had never dared mistreat her, for fear of Mr. Parker's retaliation.

“I, uhh, had a few things to give you.” Marissa held an envelope but reached into her purse and handed Fredericka a small strip of photos. The pictures felt thin, aged. Fredericka didn't look at them—didn't have to.

She knew exactly what they were. She'd been five and her father had taken her to a mall where there had been one of those photo booths. He'd put his money in and they'd made funny faces as the camera took their pictures. It was one of her favorite memories and it had been captured on film.

Fredericka's breath hitched in her lungs. Just holding those images threatened to unearth her vulnerability and lack of self-worth she fought so diligently to deny.

“He loved you, Ricka. I know he didn't show it all the time, but he carried those four photos with him forever. He never carried one photo of me, or the other women he called his own. And when he came to me these last eight years, he would always ask me, “Do you think she's happier, there?”

Loved? He'd abandoned her.

Strangely, the most Fredericka had ever felt loved by the man was when she saw him kill Donique after she showed him the burns on her arm. But that had done a number on Fredericka, too. And she'd never told him any of the things his next bitches did to her. Then their deaths would have been on her, just like Donique's, like her own mother's.

“Thank you for letting me know.” Fredericka stood and shot out.

She heard Holiday call her back, but no way in hell would she turn around.

No way in hell would she cry either! She wouldn't. Folding the pictures, she tucked them in her pocket and ran back to the workshop, determined to make another display board. One where the nickname her father had given her wouldn't appear. If she never heard that name again, it would be too soon.

As her feet hit the hard cold earth, her thoughts echoed from her head to her heart. He'd been alive. All this time, he'd been alive. All of those birthdays, Christmases, when others clung to their families, she'd been alone. He could have been there.

“Rest in hell, Daddy,” she muttered.

She got to the workshop and dug into her pockets for the key. First the right pocket, beneath the photos. It wasn't there. Then the left. It wasn't there either. What the hell had she done with it?

She considered just breaking down the door, but that door didn't belong to her. Holiday and Burnett had entrusted her with the shop. Destroying it would have been unacceptable.

She searched the ground, thinking she might have dropped it. Even got on her hands and knees. The position tugged at her inner wolf and she longed for the full moon that was less than a week away. A time when her spirit felt free of the emotional ties of the human world.

That's when she heard it again. The rush of water cascading down.

It grew louder and louder.

“Come get the key,” a voice echoed from the sound.

She looked down the trail.
The death angels
had taken it? What right did they have to take something that didn't belong to them? She stood up, her fear of the death angels shattered. Nothing but fury motivated her now.

Did they want to condemn her for how she'd turned out? Hold her responsible for her inability to trust, to let people close? For occasionally shooting life the middle finger? Where were they when she'd been young?

The anger and a shitload of resentment had her running down the path, ready to offer a little comeuppance to anyone who dared to judge her.

 

Chapter Two

The sound of the falls grew louder and louder. Fredericka veered off the path and let her ears and her own hostility guide her. Pushing through thick brush and low-hanging trees, thorns clung to her jeans and occasionally caught hold of her long hair. She kept hearing Marissa's words.
He loved you, Ricka.

Lie. Lie. Lie!

The rumble of the falls vibrated the ground. Suddenly the forest ended and she came to an abrupt halt. The falls stood twenty feet from her. Water roared and rushed down into a pond that looked so serene she wanted to toss a rock at it.

Tiny drops of water danced in the verdantly scented air. The trees, the plant life, they all looked … fresh. Fresh like spring, but it wasn't spring. It couldn't be real.

Then she felt it … an aura that she could only define as hope. Like how she felt when she was just beginning a jewelry project, when the thrill of making a new piece hit. Before she was blindsided by her own limitations.

A shadow moved behind the wall of water. She could swear it motioned her inside.

She didn't trust it, but just to prove she wasn't a coward, she stepped into the pond. Her breath caught when she moved but the water didn't.

She pushed on, walked through the wall of white cascading water.

The wet coldness prickled her skin. Her hair hung limp past her shoulders, and water dripped from the dark strands. The person, or spirit, whatever it had been that had waved her inside, wasn't anywhere to be seen. A serene quietness invaded the space.

“What do you want with me?” she yelled, hoping to prove she wasn't afraid—or maybe that her fury outweighed her fear. Either way, she was here. Let them throw her sins at her like stones. She'd take it, and then she'd throw them back and remind them she hadn't asked to be like this. The world had shaped and molded her into who she was.

She moved up to the rock floor, stood there and sensed the brewing of a perfect storm; the calm of this place coming face-to-face with the emotional turbulence raging inside her.
He had not loved her!

The folded pictures in her pocket felt heavy like a rock.

Slipping them out, never looking at them, she ripped them into shreds.

“You want to blame someone? Blame him!”

She dropped down on her butt. Her chest ached. The hairline fractures in her heart gave way to become real cracks. Then she felt them—the tears she'd vowed not to cry. Looking at the tiny pieces of photographs in her hand, she caught one glimpse of her daddy's smile. She threw the shredded photos into the water, wanting them and the pain to go away. To stay away.

The still water started moving in circles, slow at first, then faster. Fredericka's breath hitched in her lungs. The wake of the water brought all the bits of papers into a little cyclone. Round and round they went until piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle, all those tiny bits of images came back together.

She blinked, not believing it.

Then the ebb and flow of the water brought the strip of four images back to her. Left them at her feet.

Through tears, she saw the two smiling faces staring up at her. Her father and her at their happiest moment.

Stunned and completely leery of the power it took to undo her destruction, she scooted back away from the images.

Sobs, sad little hiccups suddenly filled the alcove of rock. It took several seconds to realize that noise came from her.

A shift, a movement behind the wall of water brought her wet eyes up. Then a shape moved through the liquid divide.

Ready to kick ass and ask questions later, she got up onto her haunches. But the person emerging was the last person Fredericka would hurt. She dropped back on her butt and looked up at Holiday.

“Kylie said it was calling you,” Holiday said.

“I don't want to talk about this.” Fredericka found just an ounce of strength to pull herself together.

The redheaded fae came and sat down beside her.

“I won't push you to talk about anything, but … I need to tell you that you have an envelope with what looks like a couple of letters in it, waiting for you in my office. And I just want to make sure that you're okay. You were so upset and I—”

“I'm fine. I always am.” For the first time, Fredericka looked around. As serene as the outside of the falls was, inside was even more beautiful. The sun came through the falls and cast flickering rainbows on the cavern walls. Colors danced and meshed and melded together.

“What is this place?” Fredericka asked.

Holiday looked at her. “You have Native American blood in you, don't you?”

“Yes. Why?” Fredericka asked.

“The Native Americans used the falls for spiritual ceremonies. They considered it a private place. Very few people are called to visit. It's believed that some descendants of those Native Americans are among the few who are called.”

“What do they want with me?”

“It's different for every person, but … coming brings peace, or … prepares us for difficult times. It's like a spiritual hug.”