Falling Page 8

  “And that is why you drove all the way out here to Bethesda, to hear my truth. A truth that you already knew,” Ibrahim pointed out. He gave a laugh. “You’re such an idiot! Don’t you have work you need to be doing?”

  David gave a little rueful smile. “I’ve got, like, a thousand cases sitting on my desk and that poor kid, Shawn, is still languishing in jail.” He shook his head. “I’ve got to do something for that kid.”

  “Yeah, and I’ve got samples I need to spin,” he said, looking over at a tray full of little vials of blood. “And mice I have to torture.” As if they heard him, there was a scrabbling noise from the cages in the back of the lab.

  David just laughed. He was in pain with a nearly broken heart, but Ibrahim still made him laugh. “All right. All right. I’ll get out of your way. Thanks, buddy.” David slapped Ibrahim’s back in an affectionate gesture.

  They’d been randomly paired together in their freshman year at the University of Maryland and had never even thought to room with anyone else after that. David missed living with his best friend, but at least he still had him close by to both harass and get advice from as necessary.

  It would be a long drive back to DC—not in distance necessarily, but in accepting the truth of his situation because he really, really didn’t want to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Erin checked the time on the wall clock above her office desk yet again. Would this day ever end? It was only four o’clock, and already it was fighting for one of the worst days of her life. Second only to the day she lost the election for class president and broke her watch—which her mother had told her repeatedly not to wear to school—just before her boyfriend told her he was taking someone else to prom.

  Yeah, those were easy times compared to today. At least then when she faced her mother, she had a shoulder to cry on. Yes, it was an angry one filled with “I told you sos,” but it was there for her nonetheless. Today, that shoulder was about to turn very, very cold. Erin just knew it.

  But she had to do this. She had to know more about the high priestesses. It was like an itch that just wouldn’t go away no matter how much she tried to ignore it.

  Her cell phone started tweeting Yankee Doodle. “Oh shit,” she groaned. It was Hugh’s ring tone that she’d finally programmed in. She really didn’t want to deal with him too. Why did he have to call her back? It had been so easy to just leave a message on his voice mail and not deal with actually talking to him. But no…

  “Hi, Hugh!” she said, perhaps a little too cheerfully into her phone.

  “What the hell do you mean, you can’t go to the ice-cream social tonight? Why not? And it’d better not be that guy I met last night at your place,” he said, accusing her before she could even get a word in.

  “Thanks so much for calling me back. How’s your day been?” she said, deliberately ignoring him.

  “Erin,” his voice was filled with warning.

  “Ugh! Yeah, mine’s not been great either, and it’s not going to be getting any better,” she said, still playing her game. She really didn’t care that he was ticked off. She was doing what she had to do.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  Yes, she supposed she was. “I’ve got to talk to my mom tonight,” she explained, finally.

  “About?”

  “Family stuff,” she explained, without actually telling him anything.

  “Are you still wasting your time on whatever it was you were researching with that guy last night?”

  “I’m trying to find out about my heritage,” she said, hoping that would answer his question sufficiently without her having to really explain.

  “Your heritage. Erin, how is the past more important than your future?” he asked.

  It was a good question. She almost hated to admit it. “I… I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve got to get to the bottom of. I’m afraid I can’t explain it any better than that.” She was being truly honest with him now. She just hoped he accepted it.

  “And for something you can’t explain, you’re going to jeopardize your career and quite possibly mine?” Oh God, he was getting angry again. She could hear it in his voice. The blandness of it. The level tone. The control.

  “I’m sorry, Hugh. This is just something…”

  “No, it is not something you’ve got to do. This is something that you are doing deliberately. You are deliberately destroying your career.”

  “Oh, come on! Missing one social isn’t going…”

  “And how do you know that? I was planning on meeting people tonight. I heard that Jamieson was going to be there. He’s in charge of Senator Thaber’s calendar! I need to get on that calendar, Erin, and you are following some, some feeling about your fucking heritage?”

  “Well, go without me!”

  “I can’t. I can’t get into a congressional ice-cream social without a staffer, you know that.” The control was back.

  Erin’s stomach began to knot. She needed to see her mother. She needed to talk to her about this Vallen thing, but Hugh needed her to go to this social too. What was she going to do?

  “Fine! I’ll go see my mother tomorrow.” Oh God, she already hated herself for caving. Why was she doing this? She needed… No, her mother could wait another day. Hugh really needed to see this guy, Jamieson. Her mother would still be there tomorrow.

  This wasn’t caving, she told herself. This was compromising. That’s what one did when one was in a relationship, right?

  Erin closed her eyes as she heard Hugh let out his breath. “Good. I’m glad you see how important it is to both our careers that we go to these things. I knew you were smarter than that.”

  Why did she have the overwhelming desire to punch him in the face just now? Either that or bash her own head against her desk, really hard.

  “We’ll talk tonight about whatever this heritage thing is that you want to see your mom about. It can’t be worth risking your career over,” he said with a touch of gentleness in his voice, as if he really cared. But, hey, who’s to say he didn’t?

  “We’ll talk tonight,” Erin said, planning on absolutely, positively not talking about this with him. There was no way she could tell Hugh about the Vallen or the whole seventh daughter of the seventh daughter thing. He would lock her in the loony bin, for sure!

  Chapter Twelve

  Erin suffered through another twenty-four hours before she finally had a chance to go back to her parent’s house in Bethesda to meet her mother. To make things easier and potentially less awkward, she’d even borrowed Lanie’s car to get there.

  Both of the family cats encircled her legs as soon as she walked in the door. Ben, her father’s enormous Saint Bernard, barked once for good measure before following her into the kitchen, his tail wagging a mile a minute.

  “Sweetie! What a lovely surprise!” her mother said from the sink, where she was still cleaning up the dinner dishes. “You just missed your father. He had to go back to the clinic for his evening hours. It's Thursday, you remember.”

  Her mom paused in her work to give Erin a hug, squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe. It had been a thing with them ever since Erin was little. She laughed as her mom finally released her, but remembering why she was here, sobered her immediately.

  “I'm sorry I missed Dad,” Erin said. She hesitated a moment and then admitted, “But, um, actually, I came to see you.”

  Her mom picked up the dishtowel on the counter and dried her hands. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, um… Can we sit?” Erin indicated the kitchen table where Ben was sniffing for scraps. She had spent endless hours eating, and chatting with her siblings and parents at that table. She had even spent many an evening studying or being tutored here by her older sister, Lizzie, who was so much better at math than Erin ever was.

  “Sure.” Her mother sat down, folding her hands up under her chin. She looked intently at her youngest daughter. “What's up?”

  Erin launched into her tale, telling her mother everything
that had been going on in her life over the past week. She'd never been able to hold anything back from her mom, and she didn't think she could even if she'd wanted to. She told her about the apartment, the hypnosis, even her attraction to modern David, and how guilty she felt about it because she was still dating Hugh.

  Her mother sat there silently through her recital, with only the movement of her ever-expressive eyebrows betraying her thoughts on all that Erin told her.

  Erin finished and then waited.

  There was silence.

  At some point—Erin thought it might have been when she told her about the hypnosis and finding out about the high priestess—her mother’s gaze had wandered off to somewhere over Erin’s shoulder.

  After a few minutes, Erin finally said, “So? Can you tell me anything? I mean, are you a high priestess? Am I?”

  Her mother’s gaze snapped back to her. Her lips compressed for a moment, and she seemed to make a decision. Standing, she said, “Yes. I can tell you that you need to leave this alone. Forget about it. Go back to your office, smile sweetly at Congressman Whitmeyer, and thank him profusely for allowing you to live in his apartment for a fraction of the rent. Keep the shades down as much as they’ll go or sit with your back to the windows, as you said you can do.”

  Erin couldn’t believe this. No, that wasn’t true. She could believe it. In fact, it was just what she’d feared her mother would do. But she had hoped, hoped, for something more. Anything more. “So that’s it. You’re not going to tell me anything about my heritage. Who we are, where we came from? Nothing.”

  “Erin…” Her mother paused. “Decisions were made long ago. Some were mine, I’ll admit to that. But mostly they were the decisions of others, and we have to respect that.” She turned and looked Erin in the eye. “I would appreciate you respecting all of the decisions that have been made.”

  Erin rose to her feet. “I don’t know that I can do that,” she said honestly. “Not unless you give me some very good reasons why I should.”

  Her mother sighed and rubbed her hand down her face. “Because they were not made without careful consideration. Because they were the right decisions. And because you are my daughter, and you will do as I ask. That’s why.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough, Mother.” Erin could hardly believe how bold she was being. She never spoke back to her mother. She had never questioned her.

  But this was important. This was her life. Her heritage. She could not just let it go.

  “Well, that’s too bad, because that’s all you’re going to get.”

  “Mother!”

  “Don’t argue with me, Erin. Let it go.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You can and you will.” Her mother’s voice was firm. Commanding. And even more shocking, filled with magic. Erin could feel it. It washed over and through her. It snaked into her mind, grabbing a hold of her thoughts and closing them off, making them slip away.

  Mentally, Erin made a grab for them before they disappeared entirely. She would not let this go. She would not just give up. And she would not allow her mother to manipulate her thoughts.

  Erin’s magic flared within her mind, obliterating the tendrils of her mother’s suggestion. “I can’t believe you! You tried to use magic to make me forget about this.” Erin gasped, outraged.

  “That is how important it is that you stop this!” her mother shouted, suddenly furious.

  Erin could feel her mother’s anger inside and out. She was scared. She was angry—and not just at Erin for refusing to let go of her inquiry, but at herself. Erin reached out further with her magic for more explanation—she was mad at her own mother, Erin’s grandmother, who had made most of these decisions. Even her mother didn’t know exactly why the decisions had been made. She just knew that they had, and there was nothing she could do but uphold them herself.

  “There’s got to be a way to find out.”

  “Goddamn it, Erin! You don’t listen! Let this go!” She was really shouting now, really angry.

  “I can’t.” Erin turned on her heel and walked out.

  She couldn’t. She didn’t know why, but that’s just the way it was. Never in her life had she gone against her mother’s wishes. Whatever her mother had said she should do, she did. Whatever her mother had even suggested to her, she had done.

  But not this time. She would find out more about the Vallen, about the high priestesses, about who she truly was. No matter what she had to do or who she had to speak to, she would find out.

  ###

  Erin crashed onto the sofa in Lanie’s studio, after returning her car keys.

  “Oohkay…” Lanie said, looking down at her with an amused expression on her face. She was dying of curiosity, Erin could tell. This time she was going to get the truth. The whole truth, Erin had decided on her way over here. She’d come straight from her mom’s because, really, where else would she go after such a frustrating experience?

  Erin closed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead. Yes, the pose was overly dramatic, but that’s the way she was feeling just now. “She didn’t tell me anything.”

  The sound of a poof of air told Erin that Lanie had plopped into her beanbag chair on the other side of the low trunk that was her coffee table. “Who didn’t tell you what? You never told me where you were going, you just asked to use my car.”

  Erin opened her eyes and leveled them at her best friend. “Sorry. I went to my parents’ to see my mom. But she refused to tell me anything about…” she paused. This was harder than she’d thought. Her entire life she’d been told again and again never to tell anyone about the Vallen. How could she go back on that? And who’s to say that those instructions didn’t come with a little magical chain attached to keep her from telling anyone. But she was stronger than that. The magical suggestions, if there had been any, had been implanted too many years ago. “My mother refused to tell me anything about the Vallen.”

  “The what, now?” Lanie cocked her head.

  “Vallen.” Erin sat up. “Okay, this is kind of going to blow your mind, but you’re already prepped for it. I might as well just tell you everything.”

  Lanie just blinked at her, but Erin could feel the tension inside of both her and Lanie bump up about ten notches.

  “There are…people called the Vallen.”

  “With magical powers?” Lanie guessed.

  “Yeah.” Damn, Lanie’s ability to put two incongruent things together and come up with a meaningful answer still blew Erin’s mind. She supposed it was what made her friend such an amazing lawyer.

  Lanie leaned forward. “Are you serious?”

  “I am. I’m one of them,” Erin admitted.

  “So you can really do magic? I mean, like, move shit?”

  Erin looked around for something likely. Her eyes fell on the TV remote sitting on the trunk. She pointed her finger at it and willed it to rise and go to Lanie.

  Her ex-roommate’s mouth dropped open as the little, black plastic box floated through the air and then landed gently in her lap. “Oh, shit,” she breathed.

  “My mother calls that stupid parlor tricks,” Erin said. “If we were ever caught doing anything like that when I was growing up, we’d get punished.”

  Lanie’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? Punished?”

  “Yeah. But according to David, not all Vallen families are like that. He said that when he was growing up, they moved stuff around like that all the time,” Erin said with a shrug.

  “David’s Vallen too?” Lanie said, her voice much higher than normal.

  “Oh, uh, yes.” Oops. Maybe Erin shouldn’t have told her that. It wasn’t really her secret to tell. “But please don’t let him know that you know. I mean, I don’t know how he’d feel if he knew that I told you.”

  “Oh, okay. So, this is like a huge secret.”

  “Yes. No one knows about the Vallen. And seriously, Lanie, if you were to tell anyone, you’d probably end up in a psychiatric ward faste
r than you could say ‘just kidding!’”

  Lanie sat back at that thought. She scrunched up her nose. “You’re right. Okay, so no telling anyone. But tell me more about the Vallen. I mean, where do you come from? How do you have these abilities? Are you from outer space or something?”

  Erin burst out laughing. “Lanie! I am not from Krypton! Or any other planet. I’m from Bethesda… Maryland!”

  Lanie gave her a duh, kind of look. “I don’t mean you, you. I mean your people.”

  Erin calmed herself down. “Oh, no. I mean, I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t know where we came from or how we got these powers. I just know that my parents taught me that I shouldn’t use them because they give me an unfair advantage over ordinary people.”

  “Oh. So you never use them?” she asked, disappointment practically dripping from her voice.

  “Well, I…” Erin pinched her lips together. “I can’t help but use one aspect of my abilities.”

  Lanie looked at her expectantly.

  Erin shrugged. “I can feel other people’s emotions if I’m in the same room with them. And I can’t not do it. It just comes to me.”

  “So you know what I’m feeling, like all the time?”

  “If we’re together, yeah.”

  “Wow.” She paused for a minute, thinking. “That explains a lot.”

  “I don’t use that knowledge to hurt anyone,” Erin explained quickly.

  “No! I didn’t think that you did. It just…uh, wow, it explains a lot. So, all Vallen can do that?”

  “No. Everyone has different abilities. I mean, just about everyone can move things, I think. But everyone has differing strengths. Like talents. You’re really good at putting bits of information together. That’s a special talent that you have. I’m good at dealing with people. My mom is good at dealing with little kids, my dad with animals. You know. We all have different things that we’re good at. Our magic is in tune with that.”

  “So, do your parents use their magic in their work?”