Beasthood

~Chapter 12- Confront~ Part 1

Erica's jaw dropped open.

Maria smothered a smirk that threatened to appear on her astringent mouth.

Driver gazed at Erica. It was almost as if Jaz had given him a compliment and supported him- though she'd made it very clear that was the exact opposite of what she'd intended. So of course, he knew it was futile to think it, but it didn't stop him wondering at the idea, and liking it.

“H-how can you...?” Erica began, dumbfounded. “I'm your aunt!” she protested; her eyes watery as if she'd been stung.

“Exactly!” Jaz screeched, springing forward, standing tall and audacious as she glared at Erica; all pain and fear forgotten in an instant. “You were supposed to protect me, watch over me, and what did you do?”

“I am protecting you! We all are!”

“Bullshit!” Jaz roared.

Everyone went silent. Jaz's ragged breaths were loud in the room.

Driver peered at her from below his protruding brow.

Jaz's next words came out somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. “I've been drugged, kidnapped, attacked, then dragged into this hellhole where I was violated, attacked again and god knows what the hell you've done to my feet! Did I mention violated? With a metal rod!”

Driver cringed.

“It's hard for me to explain but-” her aunt stammered.

“Try!”

“But,” Erica forced the word and paused to make sure Jaz would listen.

Jaz waited silently, her chest heaving.

“It was all for your benefit.”

Jaz breathed out a sardonic laugh, then frowned in disbelief.

“There are a lot of things you don't know, and I don't want to just burden you with everything all at once,” Erica explained. Her cheeks were tinged red and her forehead furrowed.

“Unbelievable,” Jaz mumbled, gnawing on the peeling skin of her lower lip as she scowled at the ceiling. She shook her head and looked back down at her aunt as she grunted, “Seriously? You have a psycho babysit me,” she glared fleetingly at Driver, “and do all this to me, no worries.... but you're afraid to 'burden me' with some shit that you've probably made up anyway? Just like everything else this past year. Which says to me that you appeared out of the blue, clearly with only this ulterior motive in mind, so please spare me my sanity and tell me you're not my real aunt.” Jaz was begging whatever god was listening up there that this evil witch wasn't in anyway related to her.

The offended look on Erica's face quashed Jaz's hopes. She gasped, her shoulders sagged. She shook her head as if that would make it not true. “No,” she whispered breathlessly.

“I am your real aunt. But, John... is not my brother.”

Jaz looked up at Erica in a confused daze. “Wh-how-what?”

There was a moment of cramping, strained silence. The air was thick and heavy; Jaz could barely breathe under the weight of whatever the next clearly significant and possibly life-changing words were about to fire out of her aunt's mouth.

“I'm the sister of your father. Your real father.”

Horror exploded out of Jaz's face. “What?” She nearly choked on the word. “You're lying,” she wheezed. She couldn't even convince herself she believed that, let alone the others. For some reason, she knew it was true the moment her aunt had said it. Though the fact Erica was a deceitful liar gave Jaz an inkling of hope that this was a lie too.