The True One

Chapter 16 Part 2

Alek

"Excuse me, what?" She pulled on my sleeve. "What does my mom have to do with this."

I pried her hand off my arm and pulled her along. "I told you, it's better if I show you."

It took us a few minutes of walking through shelves with increasingly faded labels to eventually locate our designated timeframe, sixteen years in the past. Looking at the towering stacks of random materials, however, my resolve wavered. It could very well take hours to find anything useful. People came to this warehouse infrequently but not never. The longer we were here, the greater our risk of being discovered.

"I don't understand why this all hasn't been digitized," Verity said. "Who are these people?"

"Olds who don't trust the internet."

"I don't trust the internet either." She took out a thick binder, paged through it and put it back. "Not anymore. Do you know what you're looking for here or what?"

"Search for anything with Cora Hargrove's name."

"Right, but why would my mom's name be here in the first place?"

Because your mom was a werewolf. A deranged monster who left me an orphan. Aurum Venari killed her to save my life and that's why I'm loyal to them even though they may be lying to me.

"What if I told you, your mother didn't succumb to mental illness. What if I said she had... other issues. Issues you've just recently learned of yourself."

"I'd say you should shut the fuck up." She wiped a tear from her eye. "This isn't a game. I know what happened to her. And it's not what's happening to me."

I hoped not.

"You know a story. A story told to you by your father, who was also told a story. That doesn't make it true."

More tears fell. Her face reddened and my heart sank. I couldn't bring myself to tell her the rest. She needed to see for herself.

"Have you known all this? The whole time?"

The reproach in her tone made me want to melt into the ground. "Be mad at me later. Right now, search. You start at that end. I'll start at the other."

Without another word, she turned away from me. I wanted to find answers for Verity whether she hated me for it or not. But I also wanted my own answers. Twenty minutes later, I'd looked through property tax statements, long retired treasure hunt scenarios, and the notes from an international conference in Singapore for supernatural scientists. Nothing on Verity's mom, or on me.

"Whoa" I looked up from an antique collection of silver bullets to see Verity puzzling over a document she'd plucked from a file box. "This might be something."

I placed the lid back on the bullet collection and slid it back onto the shelf. "What is it?"

"An... intake form of some kind. For a laboratory."

A shiny box on the highest shelf caught my eye. "Hold on, just let me grab this and I'll take a look." I brought over a stool, balanced on it, and reached for the box.

"Alek, my mom's name is on this form. Also..."

I froze, hand halfway to the shiny box. "Also what?"

"Shit," she said. "Alek, we need to leave. Right now."

"Just a little longer. You found her name. There has to be more in that file box about your mom."

"No! Someone is here!"