I start to shake my head again, but Forest cuts in. “You said your mother was unstable, right? Spending time in and out of mental institutions?”
I nod.
“Were any of them in Prodigy?”
I frown. “Yeah. All of them. I grew up there.”
He folds his hands together. “Half-bloods are sometimes on medication because they struggle to control their animal. Sometimes, they evenrelyon medication just to stay stable. Was she ever off them and did she seem worse then?”
My mind spins, and I grip the camera, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “Yeah. She could barely afford to clothe me because she had to pay for the meds. And sometimes…” I trail off. Sometimes, she had to go without.
She was always at her worst then. Not just unstable, but screaming out in fear. Throwing things. It always made the police show up at our house.
“What kind of meds?” Rowen asks Red.
“Suppressants or stabilizers, depending on how in control of their animal they are. Not all half-bloods need them, but some do.” He scoots forward. “I think it’s safe to say she gave you a suppressant too, when you were born. To keep your animal dormant. She wanted to raise you as a human.”
His words hit like a punch to the gut. I blink wildly. “You’re saying—no. No! I’m not a shifter. I can’t be!”
“There are some suppressants that only work as long as no other DNA enters your system. Which means, if you get bit, or if you have unprotected sex with a shifter, those fluids can trigger the awakening. I think that’s why you got sick.”
I grip my thigh where the wolf bit me. Could this really be possible? Could I really be part-shifter?
“What was your mother’s name?” Red asks.
“Selene Hossell.”
He makes a note of it in his phone. “I have access to medical databases, so I’ll look into it.”
The room blurs around me, and my heart hammers.
It’s impossible. Me? A shifter?
But if it’s true…
God, if it’s true. It means everything I thought I knew about my mother was wrong. Possibly even her death.
“My mother,” I whisper. “I thought she’d committed suicide when I was 19. But she wasn’t on her meds then. You’re saying it could’ve been her animal? Driving her mad or something?”
Red and Forest both nod. “It’s very possible. To go without medication would essentially pull her animal to the surface, and if she can’t shift, or if she refused it, then her mind and body would have felt like they were at war with themselves.”
My stomach turns to ice. I’d used that exact phrase to describe what I went through before the hospital.
“But I haven’t been sick since,” I say.
He nods patiently. “Because the process is over. As I said, not all half-bloods have symptoms or need medication. You might not feel anything at all.”
His pause is heavy, and what he doesn’t say next is still as loud as ever:Or you might turn into your mother.
I feel sick. All those moments where she went without meds. Her screams. The way she beat her head against the wall and talked to an empty room. She’d carried on entire conversations with no one around. Was that really because she was a half-blood?
I’d feared her for most of my life. Often hid in my room when she was in one of her “moods.”
What if that happens to me?
I barely notice when Rowen curls his arms around me, or when he carries me up to my room. I barely notice him pulling the sheets up and lying next to me. Holding me.
I barely notice anything except my own frantic heartbeat.
