Origins: Katy pt 7

November 3, 2008 on 5:31 pm | In Dead End Streets Chapters |

No one spoke.  Patrick sat at the foot of the bed, all three werewolves crowded together, and they didn’t speak.  He sat there for hours but eventually rose.  “Anything you need from me, ever, and I’m here for you both,” he told them.

“Thank you Patrick,” Susan said, not looking at him.

He left, his head down and heavy as he walked towards the exit.  “Watch where you’re going,” a portly man in a suit said as he almost walked into him on his way to the elevator.  His voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Patrick didn’t bother turning back.  Don was dead.

Patrick had met the family a few years before at the support groups.  Everyone was in awe at their son—many werewolves married other wolves, but the idea of having children was so impossible.  One couldn’t help being friends with the little family.  Now Don was gone, and Susan was getting weaker, and Lex…he had time.  But not much.

Patrick went home and sat alone in his living room.  Another friend dead, another family torn apart.  How could he justify letting sweet, naïve Joel into such a situation?  He just couldn’t.  A boy like that, he deserved someone healthy and young.   Not Patrick.  Old, broken down and dying much faster than he should be.  He couldnt let the kid suffer like that.

But he was so alone.  Everyone around him was dying, he came home to an empty house every night.  Other people had husbands, boyfriends, children.  He had been denied all of that when he became a werewolf.  If he was ever going to be selfish and get what he wanted, now was the time.

Patrick picked up the phone, his hand shaking as he dialed.  “Hi, Joel?  It’s Patrick.  I was wondering if you would like to go to the movies with me sometime….”

*****

Katy was alone.  No one had visited her except for more police and her family.  Her father spent most of those visits on the phone, and her mother cried a lot.  Alex was supportive, for an eight year old, but still, Katy could see that the strain was starting to get to her sister.  On Monday she had gone back to school, and her father back to work.  Only her mother stayed behind.

They were talking about releasing her the next day, and there was a lot of things that needed done.  She wasn’t allowed to leave the premises without all of her paperwork in order.  They had to file her new status with the state and she would be issued a color-coded ID card that she had to keep with her at all times.  The school was willing to take her back under the condition that she wear the orange werewolf badge on her uniform, but her mother didn’t like the idea.

“There isn’t a person in that school who doesn’t know what happened to you!” her mother fumed, pacing the hospital room.  Katy was up, wearing her own pajamas and sitting in a chair, feeling much better.  She was getting dizzy watching her mother move  back and forth across the room.  “They’ll stare at you enough as it is.  You don’t need labels plastered all over you!  And did you know the neighborhood association wants to put a sign in our yard?”

“I’m sorry,” Katy said.  “If I had known I’d cause so much trouble…”

“It’s not your fault,” her mother snapped, but Katy didnt believe her.  “We’re taking you out of that horrible school, and well, we will just have to move…and god knows how we’re going to find a new housekeeper!”

“Housekeeper!”  Katy jumped up, ignoring the pull of her stitches.  “Did Rachel quit because of me?”

“Of course not.  I had to fire her, didn’t I?  She should never have let you go off like that, and then not to call me the moment you didn’t get off the bus!  And she had such good references too.”

“It wasn’t Rachel’s fault,” Katy shot back.  “She wanted me to come home and I ignored her.  You can’t fire her.”

“Already done.  She’s not coming back, Katy.”

“She has to–she’s my only friend.”  Her mother tried to ease her back into her chair, but Katy was tired of sitting or laying, tired of being an invalid.  “Hire her back!”

“No.  Stop being unreasonable, dear.  You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care.  It doesn’t matter.  I’m just a inconvenience now, aren’t I?  Who cares if I hurt myself?  I’m just going to die in thirty years anyway.  Who cares if I’m happy?  You don’t.  You never did.”

Her mother looked as though she’d been slapped in the face.  “Well of course I care, baby.  You just make things so damn difficult for yourself, and they didn’t have to be.  And now you’ve gone and–”  Her mother burst into tears, sitting down on the bed.  Katy didn’t know what to do, only staring at her mother as she sobbed.

“Don’t mom.  I’m sorry.”

“No, no.  You’re right.  It’s just so hard.  I try to do what I think is best, but it isn’t, is it?  I’m a terrible mother!”

“No you’re not,” Katy said.  “You want to move so I don’t have to wear orange.”

“Well, it just goes terrible with your sallow complexion dear.”  Katy had to smile.  She just had to give up and deal with it.  Her mother was never going to change.  They would just have to get used to disagreeing with each other.

“It will be okay mom.  I’ll be okay.”

Katy felt better for the first time all weekend.  It would be okay.  Her father and sister would be there for dinner in a little bit, and then she was going to go home.  She didn’t have to go back to school ever again, and her mother had finally admitted that she was wrong.

*****

Patrick was back at the hospital late Monday afternoon.  He had slept far too long, as he always did right after a full moon.  Susan was ready to be released, even though her doctors disagreed.  She was still on oxygen.  “I’m going home,” she told Patrick as Lex helped her ease her slim, shaking arms into a blouse.  “I’m not coming back here ever again.  If I’m going to die, it’s going to be at home, not in this sterile, soulless place.”

“Sue, I think you should stay until your doctors say you can go.”

“My husband is dead, Patrick.  What’s left?”

Lex looked at Patrick from behind his mother.  “What about your son?”

He didn’t stay much longer after he helped Lex ease his mother back into bed.  Self-preservation forced him to leave.  In the hallway a man was talking on the phone, rather perturbed as whoever was on the other line disagreed with him.  “We’ll sue for relocation expenses too, Bill.  I don’t want that bastard or that school to have one penny left by the time we’re done with them. ”

Patrick walked by him, but froze mid-step.  It couldn’t be.  It was impossible.  He turned back to stare at his brother.  The man in front of him looked nothing like the little brother he had left behind when he left home.  His brother had been a muscular, taunt, football machine in high school and college.  This man was…not.  Patrick had left home at sixteen and had only seen his brother periodically over the following years.  The last time had been his grandmother’s funeral when it was announced that Patrick had been written out of her will, and out of their fathers’ life for his refusal to give up his ‘filthy lifestyle.’

That was over twenty years ago.  The years had changed him, but it was his little brother.  He could hear it in his voice.  And from the sound of his conversation, his kid was the one who had been attacked by Phillip Becker.

*****

A/N:
Chapters are probably going to be on the short side (1,200-1,400 words) for November, thanks to Nano.  I have started a project, and it is on track (barely).  I’m hoping that I wont have to add my DES word count to it to win, but I’m not too proud to say no to the possibility.

My Nano is a spin-off of DES currently entitled ‘Invincible’.  It takes place a year in the future and none of our current main characters are going to be playing large roles in the story, though I expect there will be cameos.  If I manage to sustain it for another week I will start posting it online for you guys.  It’s very different from DES even though it is in the same ‘verse, and will be adult themed in nature.  ‘Cause hey, sex scenes add to word counts.

Half breeds–
Are not possible.  The demons are naturally attracted to humans and both feed and reproduce through them.  They have natural defenses against other demons.  The cubi’s wiles do not affect vampires or werewolves, vampires would get sick if they fed off of cubi or wolves, and should a wolf encounter a vampire or cubi, they would not smell like something meant for eating.  For this reason demons are used in many fields to control other demons.  Werewolves work in the vampire wards of hospitals, for example, and when the police are forced to approach a demon (they’d rather not), they try to have another demon cop around just in case.

11/4:
Bad writing fixed–thanks for the heads up.  Az, why didnt you catch that too?  It would have saved me a lot of embarassment.  I hope everyone went out and voted for Obama today.