Page 3 of Blood from the Marrow
“I know your name,” she interrupted. “But I don’t know you, and I don’t know why you’re here thirty-two years too late.”
This time, the emotion spilled down the woman’s cheeks before she could catch it. “I hoped I’d never be here at all,” she admitted, voice cracking and so heavy with palpable pain, Marisol felt it in the ache pushing on her chest and kicking into her stomach. She wanted to run. To throw up. To never have left the penthouse.
“So, what are you doing here?” Marisol was ready to get this out-of-body experience over with. To get back home and out of this nightmare. “What made you show up now that I don’t need you anymore?”
She hated the tremble in her voice. It reminded her too much of the little girl who’d cried herself to sleep on birthdays because she was stupid enough to believe that wanting something badly enough would breathe it into existence.
“Leaving you, Marisol… It was the hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life,” she replied, a sob choking her words before she wrestled it into submission. “And I can’t imagine how it must have felt for you, and I wish I had more time to explain, but everything I’ve ever done has been to protect you.” Her mouth trembled and her fair skin flushed violently. “You won’t believe me, and you have no reason to, but I would have given anything for things to be different.”
“What are you even talking about?” Marisol wasn’t following. The more the woman talked, the less she understood. “You left me the moment I was born. Are you pretending that wasn’t your choice?”
The woman swallowed visibly, looking away to formulate an answer. An answer that would be inadequate no matter what she said. “It’s complicated,” she finally replied.
“I’m sure abandoning a newborn?—”
“I knew what you were,” she said, voice low despite no one being anywhere near eavesdropping distance. “From the moment you were conceived.” She pressed her hand to her soft belly. “I knew.”
“Knew what?” Marisol couldn’t hide the sudden tremor in her tone.
The woman looked around. “Your father?—”
“I don’t have one of those either.”
She blinked too long before nodding. “He… was like us.”
“Like what?” Marisol wasn’t going to let her squirm away from talking plainly. She didn’t owe her that grace.
“I hope I can tell you about him one day,” she said without answering the question. Without bothering to wipe away any more tears. “He was the one who told me we weren’t safe together, but I didn’t believe him.” She closed her eyes. “He said we should run, but I was so young and so stupid and I believed I could?—”
“What are you talking about?” Marisol’s nerves were reaching their breaking point. She needed to understand or she needed to leave.
“They killed him, Marisol. There are people who hunt us,” she whispered.
Every word landed like a bullet ripping through muscle and bone. Her stomach heaved and her chest ached for a person she’d never known. The fear in the woman’s eyes was a fire consuming everything in its path. Either she was telling the truth or she was a master actor. Marisol couldn’t discount any possibilities.
“I’ve been hiding ever since, with people like us. When I left you with my mother, I hoped that you’d be safe. That you’d never come into your power. That you’d be so far off their radar?—”
“Who are they?” Marisol asked with a dry throat and a throb curling around her temple.
“We don’t know exactly,” she admitted. “But when I heard the rumors about a witch with wings who could heal…” She moved her hands off her lap like she might reach out for Marisol before thinking better of it. “I’ve kept tabs on you as best I could. With you leaving the hospital at the same time that these rumors started… I just knew it was you.” She drew her eyebrows together in an excellent impersonation of a worried parent. “Why are you hanging around with a vampire?”
The judgement hanging off the word vampire reminded Marisol to be angry. “Who do you think you are to ask me that?” Her words dripped with venom, but she didn’t hold back. “I’m not hanging around with a vampire. I’m in a relationship with her, and she has kept me safe without dumping me on anyone’s doorstep.”
“You knew you were in danger?” She shook her head. “How?”
“Why do you care?” She wasn’t going to explain that she was collateral damage from Elena’s vampire conflict.
Scooting closer on the bench, the woman locked Marisol in her watery gaze and gave her no room to escape. “There is nothing I wouldn’t give to protect you. Nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice. The only reason I savaged my own heart and left you was to keep you safe. Alive. There’s no way anyone else could ever be willing to pay that price for you.” Her swollen eyes didn’t stop crying. “Come with me, please.”
Marisol leaned back. “Come with you?” she repeated, hoping the stranger heard the absurdity of the notion. “Lady, I have no idea who you are or what you want. I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I don’t need you.” She forced herself to stand even ifher knees were shaking and she couldn’t feel her feet. “Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’m doing just fine without you and with no thanks to you.”
The woman sprang to her feet and lunged toward her, taking both her hands in hers. The contact was too much. Marisol pulled away before the touch could settle on her skin.
“I hoped you’d understand, but I didn’t expect it.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “I won’t leave until I hear from you.”
Marisol had reached her limit. She wanted to be sick. To be anywhere but in this insane moment. “And if I never call?”
“Then I’ll never leave.” Her gaze was unwavering. “I only ever left because I was trying to keep you out of harm’s way. Because I thought if you weren’t connected to me—to your father—no one would ever learn what you are.”
