Page 41 of I Am Salvation

I follow him into the large brick building.

And already…I know my life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Present day…

I walk up the rickety steps, taking care to avoid the second step, which is broken. There’s no doorbell, so I knock.

A dog barks through the door.

“Shut up, Teddy!” a woman’s voice yells. “Who is it?”

“I’m looking for Frank and Christina Delaney,” I say.

“Frank’s dead,” the woman says.

My father’s dead?

“Could you open the door, please?”

“It’s late.”

“It’s eight o’clock,” I say.

Finally, the door opens. The dog, Teddy, looks like some kind of border collie mix. And he’s really skinny. And filthy. But he’s cute in a shabby kind of way. I instinctively lean down and give him a scratch behind his matted ears.

“What do you want?” the woman asks.

She’s plump with gray hair that looks like it used to be blond. She’s wearing velour sweats, and her feet are in fuzzy beige slippers.

“I must have the wrong unit,” I say.

But then I look in her eyes.

They’re blue—the same color I remember. Not quite as light and sparkling as Griffin’s eyes, but they used to be beautiful.

Back when she was my mother.

“Christina?” I ask.

She scowls. “What the hell do you want?”

“Did you used to go by the name of Stefania Locke?”

Her mouth opens momentarily, but then she twists it into another scowl. “I’m going to shut the door in your face now, asshole. My dog here will chew you to shreds.”

Right. The dog that is currently licking my hand. Teddy looks about as lethal as a Nerf ball gun.

“Do you recognize me?” I ask.

She cocks her head, squints her eyes. “Afraid I don’t.”

I take a step forward, laying a hand over my chest. “I’m your son. I’m Dragon.”

Her eyes widen, but only slightly. “I don’t have any children.”

“Maybe it makes it easier for you to get through your life thinking like that. And I don’t know what happened to you or to Dad since I last saw you. But I am Dragon. I am your son. And you also had a daughter, Griffin.”

She stares at me then. At first it’s more like a glare, but then, after a moment, her eyes actually soften.

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