Masquerade (Heven and Hell #1)(60)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“You deserve to know.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair, “I do. We can’t really be together with this between us.”

“So tell me.”

“I didn’t know what a hellhound was either until I turned into one when I was thirteen.”

I wanted to gasp at the young age, at the innocence that must have been stolen away in that moment, but I didn’t. Telling me was clearly hard enough for him and I didn’t want to make it worse.

“I was sitting in the kitchen doing my homework one minute, and the next I was off running into the yard…I didn’t understand what was happening to me. My skin, it burned. It felt like it was on fire – like it was just going to melt right off my bones. Every bone in my body started shaking and making these sounds…this groaning and crunching.” He shook his head as if to clear the vivid memory and looked up at me. I nodded and reached out to lace my fingers in his.

“I thought the pain would never stop. I fell onto the ground, onto my hands and knees. I remember thinking that I was dying, and then everything just sort of snapped. And the next time I looked down I was standing on four paws covered in midnight black fur. My torn clothes were lying on the ground at my feet. I could still think – I was still me on the inside, but on the outside I was something completely different.

I thought that maybe I was just dreaming, that I fell asleep at the table doing my homework. But then I heard my mom crying. She was crying and calling my name. I looked behind me where she stood; the phone was clutched, forgotten, in her hand. I wanted to tell her that I was okay, and when I opened my mouth, this growl ripped from my throat. My mother jumped, and the phone fell out of her hand onto the ground. I moved to pick it up, and I stumbled. Walking on four legs instead of two was much harder than you might think. Before I could fall, though, my reflexes took over, and I sprang up and forward. My mother screamed and ran. She ran into the house and locked the door.” His voice had grown quiet and hollow. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how frightened he must have been, and then his mother ran away, she turned her back when he needed her most.

“Sam,” I said, gently. “You don’t have to tell me anymore.”

“I want to.” He said quietly as he moved across the room to stare at the row of saddles hanging from the wall. “She wouldn’t let me in at first. I didn’t stay as a hound for very long but changed back about ten minutes later. I stood there shaking, trying to conceal my naked body. I couldn’t cry because I was so shocked. Shocked from what was happening to me, but also shocked because she wouldn’t let me in the door. She just stood there and stared at me like I was a monster, like she was afraid. I heard her talking on her cell phone to my dad. He was at work, and she was hysterical. He came home early. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he came into the kitchen and looked at me. I was sitting at the table, my whole body hurt, and I was so confused. He was mad, I could tell by the way the vein in his forehead stood out and by the way he clenched his jaw. I apologized for what I’d done, and I swore I wouldn’t do it again. My mother was crying, but he just stood there, staring at me, like there was no hope. Then he turned to my mother and told her to get rid of me.”

I gasped, my hand flying up to cover my mouth.

He smiled a sad kind of smile and shook his head. “It’s okay, don’t be upset. It was a long time ago.”

It hadn’t been that long ago…but it was brand new to me. The things that Sam had lived through were things that he wouldn’t ever forget – neither would I.

“Mom sent me to my room, and they got into a huge fight. I could hear it all, even after they started whispering. Apparently, Dad had a few skeletons hiding in the family tree. He carried the gene mutation for hellhounds, something that was passed down through the members in his family. He said he never told her because they thought the gene had died out because a hound hadn’t been produced in three generations. Usually it’s every other one. Guess I got lucky.” He laughed, but it was a bitter sound.

“What happened?”

“My mom was scared of me. She was furious that my Dad wouldn’t tell her something like that, but to her, I was still her son. My dad didn’t want me around, I heard him say it, loud and clear. He thought I was a disgrace. He thought I was weak. How come all the other generation could manage to overcome the gene when I couldn’t? I think that deep down he was scared of me. He was afraid that I would hurt him, my mother and my little brother. But I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that.” He said the last like he was trying to convince me, like he was trying to make me believe.

“I know that, Sam. Of course you wouldn’t hurt them. They are your family.” I said the words because I believed them, but more importantly because he needed to hear them.

The tension in his body seemed to ease, and he turned back, able to look at me once more.

“My mom convinced my dad to let me stay. He didn’t have a choice really. He lied to her for years and allowing me to stay was the only thing that would even come close to making up for it. For a while we lived like nothing happened. They ignored when I impulsively went out into the night, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop from changing. They pretended that my quick growth spurts were because I was a boy, and that it wasn’t unnatural. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it or ask any questions about what was happening to me. But even though they pretended that nothing was wrong, there was. My mother was terrified of me. She didn’t understand how my body could transform, to twist myself into something else. She used to pray constantly asking for me to be spared. She couldn’t accept that I was a freak. My dad just kind of ignored me, tried to pretend I wasn’t there. He would take my brother out into the yard and play football, but I was never allowed to play. My mother was terrified that I would hurt him – the only normal son they had left. Right before I turned sixteen, Dad brought some paperwork home and handed it to me. Emancipation papers. They wanted me to file for emancipation and move out, so I did. They bought me my truck and paid the rent for six months in advance for a crappy studio apartment on the other side of town. When they dropped me off there, Dad handed me an envelope with some cash in it and told me that from there on out I was on my own. I haven’t seen them since.”

“They let you go? Just like that?” My words were an echo of the time I tried to walk away and he’d asked me the same.