Dark Angel (Sequel to White Raven)

Chapter Nine: When Angels Become Demons

"Sorry, Garrett, still feeling hostile," she apologized, giving him an overly sweet smile.

The older man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I suppose you won't start talking to me until I can prove to you who I am," he said, more to himself than to her.

"I don't really care who you are. You attacked my friend, you attacked me, and now you're holding me captive. That's really all I needed to know to form an opinion about you," she shrugged. She shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable.

"Okay, you won't believe me, but maybe you'll believe your mother," Garrett sighed, rising to his feet and promptly leaving the room.

What? Ary's heart started to beat faster in her chest. Did these guys have her mother too? Had they taken Juliana as some sort of insurance policy to ensure that Ary would do what they wanted? Oh great, now how was she supposed to explain this to her mother? Juliana would think that this was some drug deal gone south!

Garrett returned a few minutes later and he was alone. Ary felt relief wash over her. Okay, her mother was safe. For now. There had been countless times over the years when Ary had wished for something awful to happen to her mother. Now she felt bad about it. She didn't want her mother to get hurt because of something she did. She only wanted Juliana to suffer if it had nothing to do with her.

"Here," Garrett returned to his seat in front of her and held out a picture in front of her.

It was a baby picture of her from when she was about nine months old. She was wearing a pink frilly outfit, her tuft of golden brown hair was sticking straight up, and she had a scowl set to her chubby little face. The same picture was hanging on the wall beside the staircase at her parents' house. It used to be a daily reminder of how Juliana used to have total control over her life.

"I'm going to ignore the creepy fact that you have my baby picture and instead point out the fact that you could have pulled that picture up from anywhere. I'm pretty sure my mom uploaded my entire baby album to Facebook," Ary told the man.

"Your mom sent it to me twenty years ago when she first told me about you," Garrett said.

Ary would be lying if she said his words didn't stir something inside her. She had always imagined that she were part of a different family. It wasn't possible that she was adopted though. She did look like her mother and she always managed to find similarities between herself and her father, but as she stared over at Garrett she could also see some similarities with him. The most notable were the eyes. His eyes were the same butterscotch color as hers. Exactly the same. No one else in her entire family shared the same eye color as her.

"Okay, I'll play along. What exactly do you want from me, Dad?" she practically spat out the words.

"I don't want anything from you, other than to help protect you," Garrett stated.

"Protect me? From what?" she asked.

She found his words very hard to believe. If he had come to her four months ago when Michael had still been alive she might have been inclined to believe him, but now? Unless there was some evil criminal mastermind that was secretly plotting her demise there wasn't a lot she needed protecting from.

"Your mom called me a couple of months ago; she said that you had gotten involved with a bad crowd and that not only were you getting hurt, your family was too," Garrett said.

Ary just stared at Garrett. She was pretty sure that her mouth was hanging open. That's how shocked she was.

"First of all, even if you are my biological father, and that's a big if, you didn't exist the first twenty-one years of my life so you have no right to any part of my life,"  she stated and she wished her hands were free so that she could point an angry finger at him. "And secondly, have you actually met my mother? The woman is certifiably insane. She'd pretty much tell anyone anything just so she could get their sympathies!" she exclaimed.