Among Demons : A Siren's Voice

Ch. 18 : Vile Truths

During lunch the next day, Devin and Nick sat me down on the sectional with new stacks of papers that had been delivered to them.

Apparently, Nick and Marcus had sent out small teams of scouts to the different addresses we had found, giving them specific instructions to follow. And it was one of these teams that had returned early this morning and hand-delivered this small stack of papers to Devin and Nick, along with a couple pictures too. And though my gut did clench when they showed me these papers, worried that my dreams surrounding my sister were actually coming true, I was more stunned to find that they were actually all about my mother instead.

‘Demi Herod-Nex’

Seeing her name multiple times in those pages had brought back memories of the woman that had acted as though I never existed to her. The woman that constantly compared me to my elder sister. Had nit-picked my every choice and deed. And deemed my every effort as mediocre, even when I had managed to best my sister.

It took me a few seconds to focus on the words around my mothers name, blinking away the shock that stung my eyes when I finally managed to read it clearly.

The first page detailed my mothers background, listing off how she was an only child born to a woman whose husband died the same year my mother was born. Her meeting and having a casual fling with my father came up after that, noting the timeline between my parents that followed. The few nights they’d spent together, the discovery of my mothers pregnancy, the court date where my parents became husband and wife, and the birth of my sister. Then, years later, my mothers timeline showed her meeting and befriending a Human man named only as ‘Mitch’. No last name or description was written, but my body retched as I read the name.

Disgust, revulsion, spine-chilling fear and so much shock collided within me, making it hard to regain control of myself.

“Lora?” Devin’s voice called to me as I shot to my feet, my hands crumpling the papers I had been reading.

I raised my hand up with my pointer finger out, signaling that I needed a second.

As the silence stretched on, I swallowed every single vile emotion that slithered over my body, my mind recalling the face of the damned Human man that had found it entertaining to Hunt me after I had escaped. The same man that had cut into my side in those woods and nearly shot me before Nick and the others appeared to help me.

Mitch, he had introduced himself to me the fourth day after I had been imprisoned. He had also been the one to open the door to my cell every time someone else walked in to deliver my meal. Taking up residence against the door frame as another Hunter waltzed in and slammed the tray of food onto the small table that sat in the corner. That man who constantly called me a pet, always leered at my body openly and mocked me. Telling me how he was going to enjoy breaking me. That he was going to be the first one to do anything to me, regardless of whether I picked any of the options his boss had offered me.

He had even told me, on multiple occasions, how much he ‘loved’ Sirens…

That my kind was his most favorite Race of Demon…

It took me some time to regain control over my breathing, but I slowly sat back down once I felt ok enough to continue. Then, with Nick’s help, I smoothed out the papers in my hands and searched the many lines of words until I found where I had left off.

My shock and horror climbed as I continued to read, my mothers unknown story continued on with the constant presence of that Human bastard.

It detailed how close they had gotten as the days turned into months, with the prick documenting their time together, as it showed in another page. The many times they’d gone out to eat together, hours spent at the gym, and the ever so obvious dates at the movies that ended at some cheap hotel on the other side of town. The Human man was five years younger than my mother when they’d met and had continued their affair right up until my mother died four years later at 34.

I felt my emotions calm just a little as I turned to another page, expecting all involvement between my family and that asshole to be cut off after my mothers death. But as I read on, the nausea returned, twice as strong as before.

Because right there, on the top of the next page, was another entry.

Bile climbed up my throat like slimy tendrils made my eyes sting with tears as I tried to keep my food down. But it was so damn hard to stamp out the utter revulsion that was spreading throughout my body as I read the same lines over and over.

That bastard Mitch, my mothers lover for four years, had apparently run into my sister Harmony when she was fifteen. Just two days after we had buried our mother, she had gone to visit her grave site when that filthy prick introduced himself to her. It was listed right there, in someone's plain handwriting, that my sister sought the man out after that first encounter. Leaning on him for comfort and completely ignoring the fact that he was 14 years older than her. And that absolute monster detailed their time together as my sister grew older, the years together nearing the same amount of time he’d spent with our mother before the first overnight stay at a hotel appeared…

On my sister's 19th birthday.

I had to look away from the paper and wiped at the tears that sprung onto the corners of my eyes, my stomach clenching violently. I gagged and struggled to breathe calmly, my hands once again crumpling the papers in my hands as my body locked up.

“Hey, hey.” Nick, I could feel, moved closer to me and started to gently rub my back as I tried to calm myself. “Take your time, Lora.” I nodded, listening to his soothing voice yet still unable to pull myself from the slimy feeling that was covering my body. “Don’t force it.”

A few long, heavy minutes passed before I could clear my eyes and breath in fully without gagging. My body slowly, reluctantly unclenched as I sat up straight again, having folded over and onto my own lap as I tried not to vomit everywhere. I roughly wiped at the tears staining my face, glaring at the nearly torn papers before I’d closed my eyes, sucking in a deep breath in a vain attempt to push the last of the horrendous feelings away.

Once I was sitting back against the cushions again, with Nick's hand resting on my shoulder now, I smoothed out the papers once again.

Finding my place again, I swallowed against the urge to gag and continued.

Just like his time with my mother, the time he’d spent with my sister was just as detailed, though it seemed to be a bit more volatile than it had been with my mother. From the timeline jotting down not only dates they’d gone on, and nights they’d spent together, it also listed the many fights they’d had. The multiple times that they’d ‘break-up’ for a day or two, meet up again and hook-up ‘one final time’ before becoming a couple once more. It was chaotic and gave me a headache as I continued to read on.

I had known that my sister was a pretty complicated and difficult person to be around. But the constant ‘off-again-on-again’ that was jotted down through the years was making me very uncomfortable. It wasn’t a healthy relationship by a long shot. Not to mention that it clearly showed how my sister knew nothing about this man's previous relationship with our mother. It had actually been listed that this ‘Mitch’ introduced himself as our mothers’ ‘casual friend’.

But it was the gap in their relationship that was written in bright red that caught my attention.

It stated that my sister had gotten angry at this prick once more over something listed as ‘pointless’, and she’d gone out to a party that same night with a bunch of young Hunters in the woods. They had apparently managed to invite a few Demons to join them, masking the party as nothing more than a bonfire, open to everyone. My sister, confiding in anyone who would listen, loudly complained that she was angry with her boyfriend. And one of those older Demons, a Vampire simply named ‘Blond Fucker’ sympathised with my sister.

Harmony, probably too drunk and upset to think things through, had apparently gone away with that man, spending the night with him.

The next morning's details stunned me more than I thought possible, with the bastard Mitch finding my sister in bed with that Vampire. He had somehow tracked her location, burst into the hotel room, and didn’t even hesitate to shoot the Vampire who lay mere inches away from my sister. The Vampire was listed as deceased, with my sister going away with Mitch for a few weeks before she was allowed to return home. And it was clear that after her stay with that man, during a time that Harmony spent begging for forgiveness, she had realized she was pregnant with Alder.

That had been where my sister had gone during all those times away from home. She had been with the same man that slept with our mother throughout her pregnancy after leaving our family home. Gave birth to her innocent little baby surrounded by Hunters, willingly returned to them after abandoning her child to her father and younger sister. And, to my utter horror, had been with him the entire time that I had been held captive.

‘No.’ I shook my head hard as the words began to yell at me, screaming at me a truth I didn’t want to know.

But it was written right there, in bold lettering, so clear for me to read.

My sister had told those men about me, about our little family and apparently claimed that I was a much stronger Siren than she was. She had helped them place surveillance on me as I helped my father raise her son. The pictures that were handed over with the papers were all of me, my father and nephew, just going about our life. But most of the pictures were centered on me, with those very images zooming in closer and closer to me as I grew older.

‘How could she!’ I could feel my body starting to shake, my hands no longer able to hold the documents without crushing and balling them up in my grip.

It was listed right there for me to read that Harmony had been watching the chaos unfold from right across the street. She had been right there as our father was shot and killed. Watched as those men chased after her son and sister, threatening us and then forcefully shove us into their vehicle.

She was right there the whole time… yet she did nothing.

Was she the reason why those Hunters were still after me? She had clearly told them that I was more powerful than her, but that wasn’t true at all. She knew this. She was always practicing and training her voice when she was living with us. Enhancing her Siren’s abilities almost to an obsessive degree, which is why she was always surrounded by adoring mobs at school. Yet she lied and placed a target on my back, claiming that I was stronger? Why? Why had she never gone to protect her own child? Why did it never matter to her that our dad was killed in cold blood over her words? Why was she still with that bastard that had chased me and nearly killed me? And why was that filthy prick so determined to recapture me?

My distress climbed impossibly higher and I could barely hear Nick and Devin trying to calm me, their voices sounding as if they were speaking at me through a tunnel. My eyes blurred badly, hot tears spilling from my eyes and my stomach once again clenched violently, flipping so hard that I stopped breathing completely as I gagged and retched over and over again. My skin felt like it was both itchy and on fire, yet I shivered as if I was freezing. And a loud buzzing sound rang in my head, growing louder while black spots appeared in my vision.

And then, there was darkness.