Darkness Sheds into Light {Watty 2012}

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Ariana’s head was spinning with a sharp ache she tried to hide from Kid. She sat with over thirty pages of information surrounding her. Life changing information that left her numb.

“What does all of this mean?” the boy wonder asked after staring at her for the last five minutes, she hadn’t moved once.

“I have no idea.” She clutched the paper tight that held the information on Mitch Reed, his marriage to a woman Mary Jane and her only daughter Ariana. “There’s no way this can be true. If she’s my mother that makes Hal Ellis, her ex-husband, my father and there’s just no damn way.”  She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that the man who had condemned her to a life of death and horror was the same man sworn to protect her as a father. “Ariana Ellis?” tears began to prick her eyes. She hadn’t known her last name; she was always told she didn’t need one.

“Hal was human, we both spent enough time with him to know and from what I’ve found Mary Jane looks pretty normal too.”

Ariana followed his train of thought. “And I’m not. I’m very much a supernatural so….now what?”

“We keep digging.”

It was almost unnerving that Kid, a fifteen year old boy, was trying to reassure her before she cracked. “Right. I think its time to pay Marc a visit. This picture was taken in the cargo ship and if he was there he must know something about how I ended up there too.” She fingered the picture and made up her mind about her next move. “Do another search using my name now and I’ll be by later to pick it up. Do you need anything?”

“You don’t have to baby me.”

Ariana rolled her eyes as she stood. “Humor me ok?” they didn’t like to do the mushy emotional stuff but the fact of the matter was Ariana had taken responsibility for him and that was a commitment she took seriously and always would until her last breath.

“I’m fine and when I’m not I know who to call.”

“Don’t wait to call me until it’s too late. Stay out of trouble and keep your head down.” She kissed him across the forehead before leaving. It didn’t matter that she was twenty three, he fifteen, not even a ten year age difference and she regarded him like a son. The thought of a child made something in her chest ache. She pushed it down and kept going.

She did a quick search outside the apartment complex and made sure no blood thirsty hunters were hanging around. She and Kid were high on the list of animals they wanted but she be damned if the hunters ever got them.

Ariana used the walk to the lakeside cabin to think and go over what she had learned that morning. Jax and Marc were uncle and nephew, man she once loved and man she was mated to. She was coming to realize her past life held a lot of drama, drama she really had no time for today in her new life where one wrong move would leave her dead.

Mary Jane Ellis, now Reed. Thinking of that woman as her mother felt right; there was something warm at the thought of her face. With the World Wide Web and endless databases at Kid’s finger tips it didn’t take long to pull a picture of the woman from her driver’s license. It wouldn’t be hard to envision that woman as her mother, accepting Hal as her father was another monster entirely.

She was trying to avoid it but her mind kept going back to Jax. Adding to the drama was the fact he was her step-brother. She had seen it in black and white letters, her mother Mary Jane was married to his father Mitch. They had gotten married six years ago.

The memory she had that morning made much more sense. She had been a teenager and they had been in a room far too colorful to belong to a boy. It must’ve been her room where they had been sneaking in kisses. “Talk about a cluster fuck.” She grumbled as her eyes darting around her surroundings. She was a target and she knew how smart the men tracking her were.

It was another half hour of walking to see the cabin in her sights. It was much bigger than what she had pictured from the stats of it. Easily three floors stood tall and a towering presence over the gravel rock leading into a yard.

Her eyes landed on a black car in the driveway she was drawn to from the moment she saw it.

“Ariana….” He moved his mouth down to the buttons of her top and began to open them with his teeth.

“Holy shit.” She was in awe as she watched him.

“Cursing turns me on and that won’t help your case to get me to stop.” With enough buttons open he moved his mouth over the swells of her breasts. “Actually I’m not letting you go until I get what I want.”

“And what do you want?” her voice was soft as she unconsciously moved his hand against her leg.

“The same thing you want.”

Her headache had dulled during the walk and now she was back with full force. She grabbed the sides of her head and tried to breathe. When breathing didn’t work she reached into her jacket pocket to pull out a pill she dreaded. She cursed the mad doctors as she swallowed it down.

The sound of movement up the porch drew her attention. Ariana hide behind a bunch of bushes at the edge of the property. Peeking from around it she could see the front door clearly. Jax, her mind instantly registered him.

Jax was smiling, holding the hand of some blonde chick who was also smiling. They made their way down the porch and to the black car, his car. “We’re going to be late.” The girl said with a giggle as she tried to wiggle free of Jax’s embrace.

“A minute won’t make or break it.” he leaned in and kissed the girl, his hand came around her cheek and held her close.

Ariana was in the mood for some torture because she couldn’t tear her eyes away and stop watching them. Here was Jax she couldn’t get out of her head smiling and kissing another. She didn’t know what happened but she knew she didn’t like this. She hated the blonde at first glance.

Judging from what Marc said last night they had all feared she was dead or worse and she hadn’t gone with Hal willingly. Was two years all it took for Jax to move on or had they been broken up before her life turned into a place even hell feared? Whatever the answer she felt betrayed as she watched them.

After a kiss Jax and his blonde girlfriend got inside the car. Ariana made sure to make her self small as possible behind the bushes as the car drove past. “This sucks.” She sat back against the hard branches and waited for her headache to shift into a duller pain. When she got up and dusted off her jeans someone else was coming down the porch.

He spotted her before she could duck again; it was a good thing she actually wanted to talk to him. Marc said, “You just saved me the trouble of trying to find you.” he came and joined her at the edge of the driveway.

“Why are you looking?”

“Did you honestly think last night would be the end of it?”

“I hoped so but I did some digging and found some interesting facts I need to ask you about. Can we go somewhere and talk?” Ariana felt on edge as she kept looking behind her shoulder, she didn’t want to see Jax and there was a lot of land a hunter could be snooping behind.

“Sure, come on.”