Dylan's point of view
It was a good thing that Jack Hollow was only a short car ride away from Ellen's small apartment in Warrensburg. Kansas City was a hell of a lot closer than his previous address in Tallahassee. Well, address might not be the best word, since it hadn't exactly been a house. Or any kind of home, for that matter. It had been a cell in a secret supernatural prison. Ellen had arranged for him to get transferred to a closer facility so that Demona could get to know her father. Ironic, in a sad way, that she was in a prison of her own right now, the prison of her own mind and body, unable to enjoy the presence of both parents. Something she'd craved all her life.
A craving I understood quite well. I wasn't sure if I should be glad that my mother was dead instead of crazy and imprisoned the way Jack Hollow was. It seemed like there wasn't a right answer to that horrible dilemma.
I was more than a little relieved when Ellen finally pulled up in front of a large brick building that looked like it hadn't been lived in for a long time. In fact, it looked like the kind of place only drug dealers and thrill-seeking teens might frequent.
"Wheatley-Provident Hospital," Ellen told me, staring at it. She made no move to get out yet, so I stayed in my seat as well.
Taking in the haunted-looking building, I couldn't help but remember the history lessons back in my mundane school, the one I had attended before going to boarding school. The hospital had been the first one that had been built for and by the black community of Kansas City.
"Okay," Ellen said quietly. "Let's go." Still, she removed motionless, staring into thin air.
She had been quiet ever since we'd discovered that her husband – ex-husband? I wasn't sure what he was to her right now – had done something to both Eros and her daughter. Something that might turn out to be her salvation, get her out of her coma, but it seemed just as likely that whatever he'd done to them had only contributed to their doom.
I had stayed with Ellen the night before, since we couldn't exactly bang on the facility's doors in the middle of the night. It hadn't been awkward – I found things were hardly ever awkward around her. She had a way of making me feel at home. Still, it hadn't been a fun sleepover either. She had bitten her nails to the quick and plucked at a pillow until she'd managed to actually tears it apart, white tuffs of filling poking through the holes she'd created. Her entire body was filled with a nervous energy that made me remember Demona at her worst. Ellen's expression mirrored the one Demona used to get whenever Eros was in trouble. Even if Demona had her father's hair and eyes, she was very much her mother's daughter. I wondered if either of them realized how very much alike they truly were.
"Are you ready to go in?" I asked, unsure how much more waiting around I could take. I might not be as anxious as Ellen was, but this was no easy feat for me either. And where Ellen seemed to freeze at the sight of Jack's prison, I felt my blood boiling in my veins, urging me on to leap into action.
"Yes," she decided, her voice stronger now. "Yes."
This time, she opened the door and stepped out onto the wild grass of the unkept garden surrounding the building. No other cars were parked in the area and it made me wonder how many prisoners were inside. Surely not many, since the building itself was rather small. Not the vast white structure I saw in my mind's eye whenever I thought of what a hospital should look like. Instead, the place was made of dark bricks and looked more like this prison it was now than the hospital it had once been.
The sliding doors letting us into a small hallway were made of frosted glass that didn't allow anyone to look inside. Once we were inside, they slid close behind us, trapping us in a room that seemed to be made of nothing but bricks. When I turned around to see if the doors would open again, I realized they looked like brick walls now. Surely it was some kind of spell.
"Welcome to the Kansas City Holding Facility," a pleasant female voice said, her voice coming from a small speaker on the ceiling. "Names and reason for you visit, please."
"Ellen Hollow and Dylan Lennon," Ellen replied. "We're here to see my..." She hesitated a moment, like she wasn't sure what to call Jack. "...my husband, Jack Hollow."
"Please wait while I verify your request." The silence only lasted a few seconds. "Please refrain from touching the walls while I let you through. Take a seat while you wait. Feel free to use the facilities. We will proceed to prepare Jack Hollow for your visit. This may take up to twenty minutes. Thank you for your patience."
Only a moment later, one of the walls seemed to shimmer before revealing their true form: another set of sliding doors made of frosted glass. They opened and allowed us to step into a much larger hallway, this one much more pleasant. There was art on the walls, plants in the corners and comfortable-looking chairs placed around a large wooden table. The 'facilities' the voice had told us to use turned out to be a coffee machine, a vending machine with an assortment of sweets and chocolate bars and a door that led to the toilets.
"Well, I guess we should make ourselves comfortable." Ellen's voice sounded strained, as if she was forcing herself to not fall apart. She sounded the way my dad used to the months after my mom's death. I shivered at the memory.
I got us both some coffee, but we never got a chance to drink it, since she door's we'd come through slid open one minutes later, revealing a tall, slender man with a pair of black-rimmed glasses balancing awkwardly on his small nose.
"Miss Hollow, Mr. Lennon," he called out.
It was like being in the waiting room of the doctor, getting called in by an assistant. Since we were the only ones waiting in there, I didn't get why he'd feel the need to say our names so loudly. I guess it was just procedure.
"Mr. Hollow is ready to see you now." He gestured for us to follow him. Back into the small hall we went, not surprised in the least to see that yet another brick wall turned into a pair of sliding doors this time. We went through and walked after the tall man, who led us through dark corridor after dark corridor.
"Mr. Hollow's room is behind this door," he told us. "He's behind a glass wall, so you need not worry about him brining you any harm. There are spell in place to ensure your safety. For privacy reason's, I feel the need to inform you that all conversations are recorded. It's a necessary safety measure, I'm afraid. Would you like a guard to accompany you inside?"
"No, thanks," Ellen told him.
He nodded. "Very well. I will be right here when your visit is over, ready to take you back. The maximum time you can spend with Mr. Hollow is one hour. He is not in the state of mind to be able to deal with more than one hour of conversation. I apologize for the inconvenience."
Inconvenience? Ellen and I exchanged a curious glance. A weird word to describe this whole situation. If Demona had been her, she might have laughed out loud.
Ellen pushed open the heavy door in front of her and held it open for me to enter behind her. As the door swung shut, I had to blink a few times for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room. There were two simple wooded chairs, both facing a glass pane that cut through the room, dividing it into a visitor's area and a room that looked like it doubled as a bedroom and sitting room. It was furnished simply: a bed, a desk, a chair, a wardrobe. In the corner was a door that most likely led to the bathroom. The only person items were an old guitar, a few books on the night stand and a picture frame that showed a young Ellen holding a small baby girl. Demona.
In the middle of it all was a man. His dark jeans and leather jacket reminded me of Eros, but his blonde messy hair that needed a haircut and his piercing blue eyes were unmistakable Dem's. His eyes were wide, taking in Ellen like she was a mirage, a dream he wasn't sure he could believe was real.
"Ellen?" he asked, his head reaching out to touch the glass in a soft caress.
She mimicked his gesture and touched her fingers to his, only the glass separating them. "Yes, Jack, it's me."
His face lit up, making him look more like Demona than he already did. They had the same smile that seemed to touch everything around them. The way he looked at Ellen was the same enraptured expression Demona had always worn when she gazed into Eros' eyes. It was evident that Demona wasn't the only Hollow that loved deeply, without holding back.
This love-struck, smiling man with wild blonde hair wasn't what I had expected Jack Hollow to look like. I'd seen pictures and heard stories, but seeing him now still surprised me. He seemed so... normal. Not at all like a crazy, blood-sucking criminal who had made Ellen run like the wind, afraid for her baby girl.
"You look beautiful as always," Jack said, still looking at Ellen and Ellen alone. He didn't seem to have noticed me. "And you're wearing your wedding ring. My ring. Our promise to love and cherish each other always."
Ellen's expression changed slightly, but she managed to keep a smile on her face. I wondered how Jack would react if he knew that his wife was dating my father. That she as sharing her bed with another man, falling for someone who wasn't him. I had seem my dad and Ellen together and there was no denying the fact that she was as in love with him as he was with her. No matter what had been between her and Jack once, no matter what might still be her, no matter the fact that they had a child together, Ellen's heart no longer belonged to Jack.
She took a step back from the glass, her arm dropping to her side. "Jack, we need to talk," she said, not responding to his words about their wedding, their marriage, their love. "Demona is in trouble."
Jack shook his head. He was still touching the place where Ellen's fingers had rested. "She can't be. I took care of her. I made sure the Hollow's curse would never touch her the way it did me."
"How?" I asked, no longer able to contain my curiosity and need to answers. "What did you do?"
Jack's gaze swept over me and he stepped back as well, his hands fluttering though the air as he tried to understand who I was.
"Ben?" he decided after a moment. "Ben! I looked for you, but I couldn't get to you in time. Are you okay? You look okay..."
I glanced at Ellen, who motioned for me just play along. To pretend I was Benjamin Foul, his long lose relative. The vicious vampire who was the reason Demona was now in a coma.
"Yes, I'm fine," I assured him. "Demona found me. And she needs your help."
***
When Ellen and I got back into the car and sped to the hospital to see Demona, I couldn't help but wonder how she managed to keep herself together. She had accepted my offer to drive, but she didn't fall apart as I'd expected she would. After about twenty minutes with Jack, I had finally seen the crazy in him. He'd cursed, thrown himself at the glass, begged, cried and hissed. I almost felt glad that my mother was dead. It was a faith I preferred over Jack's for sure.
We hadn't gotten much from Jack, but we were certain now that he had indeed used a fragment of one of Demona's bones to transfer her powers to someone else. He had sought out a child, a boy, a human. And he had placed the bone in his ankle to make sure that he was tethered to Demona in a way that he would never now, since he had been unconscious when the bone was placed inside of him.
He didn't know who the boy was, only that he had a vampire for a father. He had made sure of that, because only a vampire would be able to use the power of compulsion that Demona might inherit from her father one day. In the unlikely case that Demona would become a vampire, she would be protected, because the older boy would have turned before her, taking control of her powers before she could.
Even though Jack hadn't been able to confirm that the boy had been Eros, I knew my gut feeling was right. It explained everything that had happened the past few years. This was the reason why Eros seemed to have to little control over his own powers. They weren't his own. Not truly. It might even be the reason why Demona had two bondmates. She had been bound to Eros because he had a piece of her inside of him – literally. That might mean that Simon had been the one meant for her after all, the boy that she had been meant to fall in love with. Eros was only connected to her because of her father's crazy actions.
Maybe we shouldn't tell Eros, I thought dismally. He might fall apart if we did. He would see this as proof that he was no good for Demona. That he was the reason she was no trapped in a hospital bed. Someone else might have resented Jack or even Demona for cursing Eros, for making him suffer because of the Hollow's powers, the curse, but I knew Eros wouldn't see it that way. He loved Demona more than he loved himself. It had been that way from the moment they had met. He would never blame her for anything. He wouldn't even blame Jack. Not if he could blame himself.
"Your father wants to marry me," Ellen said suddenly, breaking through the silence.
It took a moment to react. "H-he... did he...?" I couldn't believe my dad had gotten down on one knee without talking to me about it first.
"No, no," Ellen said quickly. "He didn't propose. But he's been asking questions, talking about commitment. I just know. I think he's planning something."
"Oh." What did she want me to say to her. Was she asked my permission? "Do you want to marry him?"
She shook her head. I had expected to be relieved, but I only felt sorry for my dad. He'd be crushed.
"I love him, but I can't make a decision like that with my daughter in a coma. I'm technically still married to her father, to Jack. I've been wanting to file for divorce. The papers are all drawn up, I don't even need Jack's signature, since he's been in a holding facility for years now and in no state to make a reasonable decision about this. It's just... I won't file them before talking to Demona about it. Noah will be her stepfather, even though Demona is eighteen already, it still feels wrong to get engaged without her knowing."
I nodded. "That sounds reasonable. I'm sure my dad will understand."
Ellen sighed and rubbed her eyes. "You saw Jack, you saw how he is, what he's like, that he's not... I mean, I loved him, once. I guess I even sort of love him now, but he's..."
"I'm sure Demona will understand," I told her. I realized it wasn't my approval she was looking for. She wanted someone to tell her that her own daughter wouldn't hate her for wanting to marry another man, to divorce Jack in order to do so. "She might not have been all that excited when you started dating my dad, but she wants you to be happy. She quite likes my dad, I think."
"And you?"
I laughed. "I like my dad just fine."
Ellen smiled, but her heart wasn't in it. "You know what I mean, Dylan. Would you be okay with me marrying your dad one day?"
"I can't think of a woman better suited for him." I took a deep breath, my voice wavering. "There is no one who could ever replace my mother, but I would love you for a stepmother."
I felt Ellen's hand on my knee, squeezing it. "You've felt like family from the first time we met," she told me quietly. "Your father did a great job raising you. You're a wonderful, loving young man."
Not many people could bring tears to my eyes, but Ellen sure could. I didn't know how to respond to her kind words, so I just remained silent. As we covered the last miles to the hospital parking lot, Ellen's hand never left my leg. I truly hoped my father would propose to her and that she would tell him yes. I think that I might be as happy with gaining her as a stepmother as my dad would be making him his wife.