Blood Hunt (3 page)

“I’m thirty-three.”

“No, you are not.” Jim’s voice betrayed unexpected tension. There was silence again for a moment, and then her father continued.

“You’re not thirty-three. You’re twenty-one, the same as you were when … when you disappeared. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but don’t stand here and deny what I can see perfectly well. I know what thirty-three looks like, what it sounds like, what it acts like. You’re the same girl who went away to her junior year at SU and disappeared.”

“Not the same girl …” Tori managed to keep her voice subdued.

Jim sighed, the sound curiously broken. Defeated. “No, I suppose not.”

“Do you believe I’m your daughter?”

“Yes. I … yes.”

Tori shrugged. “I don’t know what else I can do for you, Daddy. I
am
your daughter … but not the same one that I was. You say I’m the same girl, that I haven’t changed or grown, but that’s not really true. Just because I look the same doesn’t mean I’m the same inside.”

Jim sighed again, drank his beer, refused to meet her eyes.

“Did you like the other girl better? Is that what this is about?”

She wouldn’t have been shocked if the answer was yes. Sad, perhaps, but not shocked. She
knew
that Mona liked the other girl, the Tori who had earned a letter on the cheerleading team in high school, much more than this one that had returned to her.

Jim shook his head. “No, Tori, that’s not what this is about. I loved you then, and I love you now, different or not. It’s just … we’re so confused, Tori. We’re worried about you, about how you’re living, about what could’ve changed you like this and still somehow kept you the same.”

“I told you, I don’t know. Two found me wandering around in New York. I don’t remember anything.”

Jim looked up now, meeting her gaze. “If you could say that to me without looking away, I might have an easier time believing it, but you never have.”

Tori considered trying, right there, but knew she would fail. She was not the same girl she had once been, but some things hadn’t changed. She had never been able to look her father in the eyes and lie to him.

“Daddy …”

“Why can’t you tell us the truth, Tori? That’s all we want. I don’t care what it is – I’ll support you through anything, and I hope you know that.”

“I know.”

“Then why lie? Or if you’re not lying, why hide so much? Why avoid so many questions?”

Tori looked away. “You would never in a million years believe the truth.”

“Try me.”

“No.”

Jim put his beer down and sat on the edge of the picnic table, pressing his palms against his head in frustration. His breathing was haggard; dry and weary. Tori felt like crying. She turned her back to him.

“I think maybe I should move out,” she said, hating the shakiness in her voice. She hoped that Jim couldn’t hear it, that he wouldn’t try to use it against her to get the truth. It would only hurt them both. She would never tell him about Abraham, about Theroen and Melissa. She would never tell him about the things she had done, the things that she still sometimes did in dreams and memories and fantasies she refused to even acknowledge.

“Tori … “

“No, listen. I think it’s too much stress, having me right here on top of you like this after so many years away. Too much stress for you, too much stress for me.
I can’t tell you!
I can’t. If you won’t accept that, and won’t believe what Two and I told you from the start, then maybe it would be better not to have me here reminding you every day.”

“I already lost my daughter once … you’re going to go away again so soon? Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Columbus, maybe. Or Chicago. Or … or New York.”

“What is there for you in New York?”

“Two is in New York. She has a life there. She’d help me get started. Your steaks are burning.”

Jim stood up, flipped them over, drank again from his bottle of beer. “Two. So she’s stealing you away from us again?”

The feeling of tears was gone in an instant. Tori turned on her father, furious. “Don’t you
ever
accuse her of that. She had nothing to do with that.”

“How would I know? All I’ve heard from either of you, about who she is or where she came from, is lies.”

“She saved my life. She believed in me when anyone else would’ve given up; when everyone else
had
given up. Do you think I’m different now? You have no
idea
who I was, what I did, how I lived. You have no idea. Don’t you dare blame that on Two.”

“I don’t know who else to blame.”

“Why do you
need
someone to blame?”

Jim raised his voice for the first time in the conversation, shouting in frustration. “Someone took my daughter away from me!”

They stood in silence for a moment, and then Jim shook his head. When he spoke, he was under control again.

“Twelve years, Tori. It may not matter to you … those years seem to have passed you by, but that’s almost twenty percent of my life. I’m going to die sooner or later, and I’ll have missed
twelve years
of watching my daughter grow, and change, and live. I can’t ever have those back. They’re gone.
That’s
why I need someone to blame. I can’t blame you, and you won’t let me blame Two. You won’t tell me anything else. All I have left is blaming myself for letting you go away in the first place.”

Tori felt her emotions turn again, this time as a physical force, something that pulled and tore at her. She shuddered, sat down next to her father, took his hand. “Daddy, no. It’s not your fault. What happened to me … it’s like getting hit by lightning.”

Jim looked at her again. Tori could read concern, and care, and anger, naked there on his face. “At least with the lightning, I’d know what happened.”

“And I’d be dead. Which is better? Me alive and you not knowing what happened … or the alternative?”

“You know the answer,” Jim said.

“Yes. But my staying here is driving you and mom crazy. It’s … not doing great things for me either. It’s probably best that I go.”

“Have you talked to your mother about this?”

Tori laughed, though the sound carried little real humor. “You think
our
discussions are tense? She and I don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. Not like we used to.”

Jim nodded, standing in silence, considering.

“Take some time to think it over,” he said at last.

“I will. I only really started considering it a day or two ago. I might call Two, ask her what she thinks.”

She saw her father stiffen a bit at this, but he said nothing. Tori stood up.

“It’s really not her fault. I don’t know if you’ll ever believe that, but it’s the truth. The only thing Two’s ever done that’s hurt me was when she left me here, and I know why she did that.”

“She knew you belonged here.”

Tori grimaced, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Temporarily, yes. Not forever. Whether I’m thirty-three or twenty-one, I can’t live here forever.”

Jim pulled the steaks off the grill and put them on a plate. “Let’s eat,” he said, without much enthusiasm.

“Will you tell Mom? About me maybe moving out? I don’t think I can … not without fighting with her anyway.”

“If you want me to, I will.”

“OK. Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

Tori gave him the best smile she could muster, but she knew it had come out sad and weak. She could see in her father’s eyes that it hurt him to look at it, and thought she knew why; it was exactly the sort of expression that the old Tori could never have made.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Jim returned her sad smile, shook his head, and glanced toward the screen door that led into the house. “There’s nothing to apologize for, baby. Let’s eat.”

* * *

Dinner had been a silent affair for the most part, and Tori was glad to be done with it. Mona had returned from a trip to the grocery store, and had busied herself preparing vegetables. As Tori and Jim entered, she had looked at her husband, and Tori had read the glance like a highway road sign. The talk had been expected, and Mona had left them alone for that reason.

Tori had braced herself for a flood of questions, but none came. Instead, there had been a few attempts at light conversation, but nothing sustained. Tori had excused herself after a helping of steak and a small potato. As she walked up the hall, she could hear the soft clink of silverware as her parents resumed eating, still not saying anything. She assumed they were waiting until she was out of earshot, or out of the house entirely.

Chalk one up for Mona,
she thought now, changing out of her work clothes and into a comfortable pair of jeans. Her mother was a sweet woman, but rarely knew when to keep her mouth shut.

She could hear her parents murmuring and might have been able to piece together individual words if she tried. It didn’t matter. In the long run, she knew she was right, and her father knew it, too. Mona might never understand it, but there was little that could be done to prevent it.

Tori sat at her computer, idly browsing websites, trying to ignore the noises of her parents’ conversation. She had, for a time, looked carefully for websites relating to vampires, but it had rapidly become apparent that if there were any to be found, they were careful not to reveal it. Most of the people she found claiming to be creatures of the night were little more than angst-riddled teenagers. Of the very few who had sounded halfway serious, all had proven ignorant of a simple test, a single sentence, sent by email.

“I know the
Eresh-Chen
,” she had told them, and not one of them had responded with anything other than puzzled curiosity. Tori knew little of vampire society, but even in her previous, animalistic state, she had picked up enough to know that this was important. Theroen’s blood, passed on to Two, had meant something. A real vampire would have known that the term existed, if nothing else. A real vampire would have responded with more than confusion.

Eventually Tori gave up on the computer, stood in front of her mirror, put on eyeliner. She knew she shouldn’t be going out, not with her parents already concerned, not on a Thursday, not when only two days had passed since the last time. It didn’t matter. She needed to be away from here, needed to go somewhere with music and smoke and alcohol. The conversation with her father had left a tense knot inside of her that demanded the touch of skin against skin. Maybe tonight she would find someone who would be able to satisfy her.

She looked herself over in the mirror, half listening to the murmurs in the background. Mona and Jim discussing the fate of their daughter, no doubt. She wondered how much Jim would divulge of what she’d said, and how much he would keep to himself. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. Satisfied with her appearance, Tori left the room.

The voices stopped immediately, and she walked through the living room in silence. As she neared the door, Mona asked, “Are you going out, Tori?”

Tori rolled her eyes, turning to face her parents. “Yes, Mom.”

“We had hoped you would stay to talk.”

“Not sure that’s a great idea tonight.”

Mona looked to Jim for support, but he shrugged. “Maybe she’s right, hon. Let it sit a while.”

Her mother looked pained, but after a moment her shoulders slumped a bit. “All right. Well, be careful, dear.”

“I will.”

Tori could feel both pairs of eyes burning into her as she turned, opened the door, and stepped through it. The cool night air was a relief. Inside, the murmuring voices started up again.

* * *

The week bled into the weekend. Tori spent most of her time outside of work at bars and motels. There was little pleasure to be had, but she seemed unable to stop, propelled into these activities by a need within her that she couldn’t identify. Was this life? Was this the way she would spend the rest of her days? Trying to get drunk? Trying to get off?

On the following Monday night her parents held what felt to Tori afterwards like an intervention, and she supposed that feeling wasn’t too terribly inaccurate. They
had
to have guessed what she was doing with her nights; if not the boys, then at least the booze. What else was there to do in the evenings but drink? Tori had no friends to speak of, and she wasn’t the type for bowling leagues.

It began as Tori was leaving for the bars. The atmosphere at home had grown decidedly worse over the course of the past week, due not to the conversation but to the lack thereof. The house seemed draped in silence since her talk with her father the week before, as if both sides were waiting for the other shoe to drop, but neither wanted to be the one to drop it. Her mother must finally have become tired of waiting. Tori didn’t think Jim would ever have gotten around to it without his wife’s prompting.

“Tori, we’d like to talk to you,” Mona said as Tori left the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. “Do you have some time?”

Tori knew in an instant what was coming, thought about arguing, decided against it. This had to happen sooner or later.

“OK, give me a minute to pull on some clothes,” she said, and headed for her bedroom. She could feel Mona watching her go, and Tori allowed herself a moment of annoyance. It wasn’t as if she was going to bolt directly for the front door should her mother’s eyes stray.

Jim and Mona were waiting for her in the living room, sitting together on the couch. Tori looked at them for a moment, apprehensive, before sitting down in a recliner that faced them.

“All right. Bring it on,” she said. Jim looked away, as if uncomfortable with what was about to happen, but Mona seemed undeterred.

“Your father and I think we’ve waited too long to talk to you about your behavior, Tori,” Mona said. She was pitching her voice carefully, trying to sound stern without being too judgmental. Tori, who could pick up vocal nuances unnoticeable to most people, could hear that her mother was nervous, but determined to go on. She kept her own voice neutral in her response.

“OK.”