Delia Joy was a model patient. She never missed a mealtime. She played games with the other patients and would even make friends with them. She would greet each of her orderlies respectfully in the morning and wish them goodnight before she went to bed. She never stayed awake past the lights out curfew. She would fall asleep soundly every night-
And wake up the next morning and remember nothing of her children and husband she'd had before her time in the hospital.
The doctors, once we'd explained that Delia was Tucker's mother, stated that they believed the mix of her retrograde and anterograde amnesia to be due to some kind of head trauma that damaged the part of her brain that created and stored memories. Tucker and I both knew that wasn't true.
I knew my father was responsible. I just didn't know how he was capable of something so huge. I couldn't undo his work alone, so how had he done it?
Delia sat across from me and she was calmer than the last time I'd seen her with her sons. Tucker sat beside me, stiff as a board and barely breathing. Neither of us tried to tell her about her old life. Instead, we tried to get her to tell us anything and everything she remembered or thought about. Of course, I did most of the talking- all of the talking actually.
"I'm quite good at chess, you know," she said with a proud smile. Behind her smile, I recognized bits of Owein's haughtiness. It seemed the pompous nature of the Heigl's was a family trait.
"They have a board here. We can play if you like?"
I glanced at Tucker out of the corner of my eye. She was looking at him- not me. His fist tightened but fixed his face into a polite smile. He nodded. She grinned widely and stood from the couch to retrieve the chess set in the recreation room. While she was gone, Tucker looked at me and reached out for my hand.
"How are you doing?" I asked.
"It's weird," he began, "she's so different now. You should've seen her before, Lou. You would've liked her. She didn't take anybody's shit- sort of like somebody else I know."
I rolled my eyes. "I don't take any shit, because I've got enough of my own."
He laughed a little, leaning back in his chair. By now, I knew him better than to be fooled by his relaxed posture. The set of his shoulders, the clench in his jaw, and the tapping of his thumb on his jeans they all told a different story.
"You're doing wonderfully," I reassured him, squeezing his hand in response.
Delia returned with the board and I watched Tucker interact with the woman in front of him. I was mesmerized at the game that they were playing. I'd never learned how to play chess and it seemed that both Delia and Tucker were evenly matched for each other in both strategy and viciousness of gameplay. Her gray eyes flicked up to meet his with a challenging smile on her face.
"You're better than I expected."
Tucker, who had finally started to actually relax, seemed to be enjoying himself.
"My mother taught me."
Delia moved a piece forward, contemplating for a moment before taking one of his pawns. Tucker's cheek twitched and I knew that she'd done something he'd expected- maybe even something he'd wanted.
"Well, Tommy, she did a very good job."
The only sound in the entire room was Tucker's sharp intake of breath. His brown eyes shot up to look at his mother. Delia didn't seem to notice that she'd said anything of consequence. I could hear Tucker's heart race from where I sat.
"M-my name's Tucker."
She glanced up, confused. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I don't know why I thought Tommy. Tucker was my father's name, you know?"
He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. This was the first time she'd mentioned anything from her life before the hospital. She was in the middle of a lucid moment- something the doctors said happened rarely for her, but when it did she had increased amounts of clarity. Sensing an opportunity, I pulled the photograph of her out of my backpack.
"Delia," I prodded gently, as Tucker struggled to focus on the next move of their game. "Do you know who took this photo?"
She took the photograph from me and inspected it for only a moment. Tucker moved a piece forward and captured one of her knights. She glared playfully at him and handed the photograph back to me before turning to the board.
"Yes," she stated, "he visits often. He even filled out a form. He likes to play chess too."
I swallowed. "D-do you know where he is? When does he usually come to visit you?"
Her and Tucker continued to play and she didn't seem to note the tone of urgency that was laced in my voice. He, however, was barely breathing.
"He hasn't been by in a long time. Said he had some family matters to take care of."
Tucker's eyes widened as he seemed to realize some importance in her words that I hadn't noticed or missed. He turned to face me as her words hit him.
"Lou, the forms."
I narrowed my eyebrows at his emphasis. We had to fill out forms for regular visitation in order to protect the safety of the patients. Regular stuff like our contact information, phone numbers, place of residence-
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, jumping out of the chair as his realization became mine.
Delia raised an eyebrow. "Watch your language, young lady."
I flushed and sat back down as Tucker tried to hide a smile behind his hand. The irony of being scolded by my boyfriend's mother was not lost on me. She turned her eyes back to Tucker and I watched her face fall as she looked at the board.
"Zugzwang," she muttered.
I made a face. "Uh, bless you?"
"It's a chess term," Tucker explained, "it means an obligation to move. One that puts you in a weaker position."
Tucker smiled at his mother triumphantly and with a big sigh she tipped her king on it's side, signifying Tucker's victory. I, however, did not feel like smiling. The work sparked something within me, sending sharp spikes of energy up my spine. If I'd learned anything about my abilities, it was that that was not a good thing.
"We should be going now, M- Delia," he quickly corrected, "thank you for playing."
She reached out a cordial hand to him and he shook it, swallowing hard. As she reached her hand out to me to say goodbye, I hesitated. Tucker's eyes flashed as he watched me reach back out to her. Regardless of my control over my abilities, I knew what was coming before it happened. I knew the creeping sensation on my back, the flooding stream of visions from her consciousness to mine was coming- and they were coming hard.
Delia and I were in the hospital looking down at chess pieces in front of us. We were concentrating hard. We moved our rook forward to take a pawn and when we looked up, my stomach sank.
"Not a bad move, Delia," Johnathan admonished, "but you know by now that making premature attacks in chess is a sure-fire way to lose-"
"Unless you have assurances that your attack will be successful."
Johnathan's face twisted into a sick smile. "Right you are. Patience is the best weapon we have."
Delia nodded politely and returned her focus to the game. Johnathan continued to watch her but she didn't notice the hate in his eyes. I felt it. It was like sandpaper against my skin, rubbing against it and making it raw.
"I wish you knew," he whispered, "times like these I wish you could watch me take everything away from you. I wish you knew the things you've made me do."
***
We weren't in the hospital anymore. Instead, we were in the center of a large clearing, the same one where Tucker had challenged Owein in what felt like a lifetime ago. Delia and I were standing proudly in front of a woman who was on her knees in front of us. Pack members in their wolf and human states formed the circle around us.
The image was familiar, I realized with a growing sickness in my stomach. The woman raised her face to look up at us.
The woman- I'd seen her before. Sam, my father's tether.
I scanned the circle for him, sensing his presence- knowing that he was watching whatever was happening to the love of his life. Distantly, I heard his screams but Delia paid them no mind, so I couldn't either.
Instead, we lifted our head to speak to the rest of the pack.
"This woman- this witch," I didn't miss the venom in Delia's voice as she spoke the word 'witch,' "has killed members of this pack. The pack that she claimed to help serve. She has violated the laws that are for our protection. For humanity's protection."
The woman looked up at us, pleading with her eyes. "P-please, I didn't know what would happen. I was- I was trying to help him."
We held up our hand to silence the woman. The entire clearing was quiet except for the shouts coming from my father. This time, we did look at him. He was struggling against two unfamiliar wolves who had locked his hands behind his back.
"You can't do this!" he yelled, "Punish me! Beat me, instead! Please!"
Our fist clenched at our side. Delia didn't want to go through with whatever she was planning, but something weighed down on her heart. A loss that she couldn't shake. Members of her pack were dead because of the woman in front of her. Justice was needed.
He seemed to understand what she was thinking and his eyes turned wild. He was frantically trying to rip himself free of the wolves, but he was young here. He wasn't the powerful man I knew now.
"You will regret this, Delia," he spat, "I swear it. Please. Please, don't do this. Take me. Beat me."
"I'm sorry, Johnathan," she began slowly, violence in her eyes, "but there will not be a beating today."
***
My heart was beating loudly in my ears as I released Delia's hand. Tucker's hands steadied me as I stumbled away from the blonde woman. She was still smiling, looking polite as always. But seconds ago, I witnessed her in the moments before she was going to kill someone. A witch. My father's tether.
Tucker pulled me out into the hallway, knowing that whatever I'd seen from his mother had shaken me. Truthfully, I was surprised that things still had the capability to rattle me. But that certainly had.
"She-" the words got caught in my throat.
The eyes looking back at me were soft and familiar. Eyes that I trusted. Eyes that balanced me. Eyes that tore me out of whatever Hell I could drag myself into. And right now, after I'd watched my father's tether about to die, the Hell I'd submitted myself began to creep into my consciousness. The familiar abyss was crawling its way behind my eyelids, trying to make itself my reality.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was pulling him to me. Connecting our lips furiously so I could feel him with every synapse, every nerve ending in my body.
His response was hesitant at first, due to our location in the hospital hallway. But like always, neither of us could resist the other for very long. His hands went to my sides, his thumbs finding the bare skin under my shirt. My hands pushed him against the hospital wall as he felt my anger and let it consume him too. It was a clashing of mouths, of hands, of teeth, and of power. My hands pulled at his hair, trying to remind myself that he was here. He was real.
I met him with fire and he met me back with the ice. Power ripped through me, darkness surrounded me, but he met them both with something that could shine through it. Something that made my eyes burst open. Light.
Slowly, I felt the sick feeling fade away from me as if it were injured for the first time. It slinked back from the top of my skin, back to where I could feel my control over the power again.
Daemon's, I'd been told, toed the line between light and dark- life and death. The tether was the one who helped ground the daemon, disallowing it from tipping to either side. I had tipped my scale one way to save the person who could help me tip it back.
Johnathan had lost his.
"My father," I paused, "wants revenge against your mother."
Tucker blinked, just as surprised as I was. Both of us had assumed that Johnathan's hand in Delia's disappearance and her amnesia was in an effort to get Owein to do what he wanted. Now I knew that while maybe that had been a benefit of taking Delia, Johnathan had a much more personal agenda against her. Neither of us had ever guessed that they'd known each other when they were young.
"For what?"
"For taking away what you are to me and what your mother was to your father."
His eyes widened as my words sank in. Like he always did, Tucker seemed to understand what I meant without me having to say the words. But I said it anyway, so I could hear it aloud. So I could understand what my father was missing. What he'd lost.
"Balance."
___________
I don't have much to say here lol....but who guessed it? Anybody?
Anyone feel sympathy for our boy Johnny?
Vote and Comment, my friends! You guys are the greatest!
Stay safe. Be kind.