Chapter Twenty-Four: A Daughter’s Anger

Chapter Twenty-Four: A Daughter’s Anger

It had been four weeks since Carin’s fallout with his brother and four weeks since the search for their sister’s killer became another chore that seemed to pull Carin under. It was like everywhere he turned, he just met another dead end.

He had been in Wyoming for all of two weeks now and yet, he still had no leads on where to find his sister’s murderer. Werewolves really knew how to cover up their tracks. He expected that the place would be swarming with Lycans and he could capture one of them, and maybe torture them until he uncovered the killer.

It was a really bad strategy that so far was not  working out so well for him. He lay on his king size bed in his hotel room, trying to gather all the thoughts that were flickering around in his head. He was almost at the verge of giving up when the idea hit him.

Lycan packs often gathered during a full moon. How had he not thought about that before? Of course, werewolves would be scarce because it was not yet a full moon.

The next full moon was in two nights. Somehow, he knew that on that night, the woods in Wyoming would be teeming with Lycans, and he was going to be there for it.

      .   

Ember's Sitting Room...

Meanwhile, Ember was still reeling from her little squabble with Pete. It still beat her to think that she was the reason why Pete had become this person who he was now, and all for something that she couldn’t even remember doing.

Where the hell was she supposed to find the vampire who had taken her memories? How was she expected to retrieve those memories? All these questions and more flooded her head.

“Hi, Em” Her father’s voice interrupted her stream of thoughts. Ember’s breath hitched in her throat and the blood in her face ran dry. She had been actively avoiding her father since her return. She didn’t want to look at him and be forced to remember one of the darkest periods of her lycan life.

“Um… hi… dad” she sputtered, avoiding any form of contact with him. She fixed her gaze on other things in the sitting room: the flower vase filled with hydrangeas and rose flowers, the stack of books which lay idly in the corner and finally, the only picture of her as a child.

Mr Doyle cleared his throat, seemingly aware of how awkward the whole interaction was. “It’s so good to finally see you”, he stated.

Ember slowly raised her eyes to meet his. “Yeah, sure,” she replied. She really wanted to sound excited or at least, enthusiastic about seeing her dad, but one couldn’t just fake that kind of joy.

Mr Doyle nodded awkwardly, eyeing Ember wistfully. “I know you’re still mad at me, Em”

“I’m not mad at you,” she replied quickly. It was a lie, but one she was happy to tell if it meant her dad getting off her back. The last thing she needed was another sparring session, especially not with him.

Mr Doyle closed the distance between him and his daughter. He watched with a rising sense of unease as Ember took a step backwards. “What else do you want from me, Em?”. His eyes were soft and his voice heavy with emotions. 

She shrugged and replied plainly. “Nothing”. Mr Doyle noticed that she was giving him the shoulder and yet pretending that they were cool.

“You know this makes no sense, Ember” he said, growing impatient with Ember’s attitude. All he had been trying to do was make Ember see from his point of view. He thought she was being so shallow minded in that instant.

Ember tried to put a lid on the anger that was bubbling softly inside her chest. “What makes no sense?”, she asked him.

Mr Doyle pointed in her general direction. “You know, this cold shoulder thing. Maybe you can stop pretending that you don’t care and let’s talk”

“There is nothing to talk about dad, don’t you get it? You did what you did and I served my punishment for what I did”, she told Mr Doyle.

He sighed, a long and deep breath. He asked. “Is that why you have been avoiding me? Because I did what I did?”. Ember shrugged, she kept her hands busy by rubbing her palms against each other. “I haven’t been avoiding you”

The lies rolled out one after the other in smooth successions. In the past, she couldn’t dare lie to her father but then, he had not been a jerk in the past.

Mr Doyle’s head throbbed loudly in his skull. Teenage daughters were a pain in the ass, Lycan teenage daughters were an even bigger pain in the ass. “Do you need me to apologize for doing my job?”he asked and when Ember gave no reply, he added. “Because that was what I was doing! My job!”

Ember scoffed. For a while there, she had actually wanted to make peace with her father. She had hoped that they could grow to forget all that had happened, but boy was she wrong! It pained her to admit that her dad was a stuck up piece of shit.

“I didn’t need you to do your job, dad,” she said, her voice breaking. “All I needed was my father”. Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them off quickly, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

The sight of his crying daughter tugged at Mr Doyle’s heartstrings. He rushed over to Ember and grabbed her hands. “Stop… stop it, Em. Just quit crying”

Mr Doyle’s touch stung Ember like a vicious scorpion, she withdrew her hands from his with such a great force that the action knocked down the flower vase from the tabletop.  The vase clattered to the floor with pieces of it flying around.

“Shit” Ember exclaimed as she bent down to pick up the pieces of the broken vase. “Are you okay, Ember?” Mr Doyle asked with concern. “Just… just go away, dad” she cried. With doleful eyes, Mr Doyle nodded and walked away.

Ember hurriedly picked up the pieces and tried to fix them up. She knew it was a stupid thing to do, but maybe if she could manage to fix up the broken pieces of the case, then she could also fix up her scattered life. A loud yelp escaped from her throat as a piece of the vase cut open her palm.

“Ouch… shit! Shit!” Ember muttered repeatedly as a trickle of blood left her palm and splattered on the floor. She rushed to grab a piece of clothing and dabbed it on the wound until the blood dried up.

Just then, her eyes caught the old scar that was on her palm. How had that gotten there? She had no memory of that injury. As she pondered on the strange injury, a sharp pain shot up her head, she clutched her head tightly in her hands and groaned loudly.

In her head, she saw flashes of images and then, a memory came up.