Shredding the Veil

Chapter Two

"Dad's called in his attorney."

That was the statement over her first breakfast back at home. Not "how are you feeling, honey," not a "is there anything I can get you," sure as shit not "your dad and I are going to get along until you're better at least." No, just that announcement over Special K and a protein shake.

No longer hungry, Lydia pushed her bowl away from her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her mother frowned and played with the gold chain around her neck. "He's suing for a change in custody arrangements. He doesn't think that between this and the mountain lion incident at the video store in the fall that I should have primary custody."

Lydia snorted. It was nice that a near fatal attack got her father's attention the second time around.

At one level, she couldn't complain too much about her father. He did pay alimony and child support regularly, never once late. He took her every other weekend at his home in the other side of Beacon Hills, the one in the only gated community in town. He kept her in Prada and Louis Vuitton when she asked. Economically, she wanted for nothing.

Of course, she did resent five years ago, he'd started living the cliche with his secretary and, while he was more than passionate about telling mom what she was doing wrong as a parent, he never was very active in his role. Even when she was at his house, it was lounging by the pool in the summer or flipping through channel after channel bored out of her mind in the winter. She often saw Monica, her dad's secretary-cum-new fiance more than her dad.

So the thought he was now suing for custody was hilarious.

Hell, maybe Monica was infertile.

"I'm serious."

"Oh I know you are mom but he's...he wouldn't know what to do with me. Even if he did, it's ten miles from here. I'd even still be at the same school."

Her mother frowned, lines struggling to show but couldn't quite on her face through all the Botox.

"You'd want to live with him?"

"Of course not. I just...I can get why dad wigged out, but he'll get bored with this in about three days when something comes up at the office. What happened wasn't your fault. I was at the dance. The school let some animal on the grounds. It's really their fault."

Or hers for wandering off to the lax field alone to look for Jackson. Not that there was anything to be blamed for as far as her mom could tell. She was bitten, yeah. She'd had a long hospital stay that insurance was covering in full, also yes. Alas, she was going to have a scar that would keep her from ever wearing a bikini again, but as far as her parents knew, Lydia was out of danger.

But Lydia could blame herself, blame her own stupidity over someone who didn't even love her, who'd never treated her very well, for driving her out alone that night. If she did start howling at the moon in eighteen days, she only had herself to answer to.

"I know, but you're not very upset by the news."

"I'm not hungry anymore."

"True. I...would you rather live with dad?"

Lydia snorted. "Not really, it'd be a commute and a pain in my ass. Mom, I just, I still feel pretty weak. I have a ton to catch up with in my classes---"

"I spoke with the principle actually, and all your teachers agreed that it's okay for you to skip this semester's finals."

"What?"

"You have over a ninety-five average in every class. There's no point in the final exams because you've done the work."

She nodded and let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The way everything was going, even though she didn't need to study much, any reviewing would be impossible. She wasn't sleeping well for obvious reasons and the only thing she could think about was the man lunging for her before he changed and bent and warped into a wolf so impossibly large.