Amber shrugged, then sighed and raked her hand through her hair. “Lots of fighting. Mom keeps taking hunts, and Dad’s still recovering. You know he took a piece of rebar to the stomach, right?”
“Yeah,” Zack said softly. “Cal mentioned it. But since no one’s been answering my texts or calls, I couldn’t find out if he was okay.”
“You could’ve comehome,” Amber replied.
“Mom and Dad made it pretty clear that they wanted nothing to do with me anymore when they fucked with my social media and cut off my phone.”
“That was just Mom. Dad has been super pissed since that happened. It’s what like half their fights have been about,” Amber said.
His parents were fighting? Zack couldn’t remember the last time they’d had an argument. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah.”
“Amber, sweetie, who’re you talking to?” Dad said off camera.
“Oh, shit. Glad you’re alive, Zack. I miss you.”
Before Zack could say anything, she ended the video call, and he was left to stare at the wallpaper on his phone. He’d picked a picture that he’d managed to snag of him and Roger in the early nights of their relationship. Roger had barely known anything about modern smartphones, and Zack had been showing him the ins and outs of taking a semi-decent selfie.
His family thought about him. Amber had actually been worried about him. A nagging sense of guilt kicked in when he realized he was happy that they weren’t happy without him, buthis heart felt a million times lighter. Mom was upset with him, and that wasn’t a surprise. She’d been the one that saw him let a vampire go in Detroit, and she’d been the one that refused to let him go on another hunt. She’d always acted like he had a thing for vampires.
Because you do, the Cal voice said.
Maybe because everyone’s a monster, deep down, and vampires at least don’t hide it.
As Zack started to stand, his phone rang with another FaceTime. He answered it, expecting Amber.
But his father appeared on-screen instead.
“Dad?” Zack said.
The strain in Dad’s face flooded into relief upon seeing Zack’s face. Thomas Wright was an experienced hunter. He’d been doing the job since his teens like most Wrights, and yet Zack had never seen him look that worried before. And had he gotten more gray hair in the last four months?
“Hey buddy,” Dad said slowly. “Good to see your face. You holding up okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Reflexively, Zack rubbed his shoulder. “Cal said you got hurt. How’re you doing?”
“Too long sitting on my ass, but I’m fine.” Dad had stubble, which was unusual for him, and he scratched at his jaw. “I got a million things to ask and no easy way to do it.”
And Zack could practically hear the questions now.Is the vampire controlling you? Is it feeding from you too much? What did you tell him about the family? Are you sure you’re not brainwashed?Zack let out a breath through his nostrils, trying to keep his temper in check. “I got a few myself. Like why’d you let Mom cut me off?”
Dad winced. “It’s not like that, Zack.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“What’s happening between your mother and I should stay between her and I. We don’t have a lot of time before they get home, so we need to keep this short.”
“Before they … you don’t want to be caught talking to me, huh?” Zack snapped.
“Zack, buddy, you have every right to be angry with me.”
“I know I do!”
“Zackery,” Dad said with a blend of authority unique to parental units. “The situation at home is complicated. I don’t want to waste time dragging you into it when you’re clear from it for the time being.”
“Amber said you and Mom are arguing because of me,” Zack said.
“We’re arguing for a lot of reasons. What you did … it kicked a hornet’s nest into an angry bear and then set the bear on fire, all right?”
