Bitch, where have you been? It's been a minute, and a whole lot has happened since we last spoke.
Never mind the mess, I've been packing all day and have accomplished nothing. Rain and wind are battering my window, and I'm fighting the urge to crawl back into bed. Maybe I'd be motivated if I weren't on the fence about where I'm heading.
I have a decision to make, and I'm hoping you'll help me decide what to do. It's probably smarter to stay where I know the rules than jump into a world I might not survive.
Yes, it really is that serious.
Anyway, get comfortable. This one is a doozy, and I don't have much time to tell it.
What are you drinking? I've got me a fine table red. Mhm, maybe a bottle of B would be better. Now that's a bold vintage. You know what—let's go for something sweet. Yeah, a bottle of A feels just right for the occasion.
Picked it up on my run this morning. It's good. Nice and oxygenated, iron-heavy and deliciously smooth. You can't go wrong with an athletic Type A.
But I suppose none of this is making sense, huh? Yeah, I've gone through some changes friend.
So, let me catch you up on the last couple of months since you weren't around for this bit. First thing, mum died. Don't be sad. I knew it was coming and braced for impact, like I was in a runaway train nose-diving over a cliff.
Fucking hell, losing her was the single worst thing that had happened to me. It had always been us two against the world, and now the world has taken her too.
In her last days I was barely functioning, swinging from a state of numbness to jumping out of my mind into nightmarish panic attacks. Worse there was no one to blame but the disease itself, and it's not like I could run it through with my blade.
Watching the one you love more than your own life die was lonely as fuck. Anyone I could have called in the past I'd long since pushed away. Besides, what do you say to someone losing their only parent? "Sorry?" Fuck that!
Was 'sorry' going to pay the mortgage, feed us, or cover her medical bills? The prayer warriors came in droves but after a while their visits trickled from weekly to once a month. The mantra became "keep your head up" and "God will see you through" as if their empty words held power, and I just needed to believe.
Not one of those assholes was there to wipe the sick from her chin when she could barely lift her head. All the prayers in the world did not stop the bills from pilling up, but those same vultures trampled through our home at her wake and ate up the last of our food, crying she'll be missed. I can't tell you how many times I caught one eyeing and cataloguing her things before her cold body was in the ground.
Shit. Forgive me. I get worked up over the fuckery of it all. Mum was the kindest, sweetest person you could know. She'd go without just to make sure a stranger had enough to eat. While those righteous fucks, who called themselves her 'sisters in Christ' could only muster the strength to pray in her time of need.
Some days, I talk myself out of hunting the fuckers down. She wouldn't have wanted that though. She'd say their words were kind, and it was enough to have been in their hearts and prayers.
Damn I miss her. She was the better of the two of us, calm where I was a hothead itching for any excuse to cut a motherfucker. Her passing mellowed me a little, gave me perspective. A good thing too, because while I was prepared for her untimely death, I was sure as hell not prepared for Him.
Who, you're wondering?
Bear with me, I'm sorting this shit out as we speak, trying to give you the right information in the right order. Remember, I've got a decision to make.
For hours I did nothing. I was in my living room, sitting in the dark. On the coffee table lay a one-way ticket to a place I'd never been. I hadn't touched it since I set it down. The chime of the doorbell cut through the quiet of my home, dragging me from the bottomless pit I'd crawled into.
At first, I didn't move, couldn't think of a damn soul I wanted to see, much less why anyone would be ringing my door at seven in the evening.
A lot of shit was on my mind, mainly the dread of leaving the only home I'd known. I didn't know what I wanted. But it sure as hell wasn't to live at the mercy of mum's cousin—a woman I'd probably spoken to once as a child. The fact she couldn't be bothered to spend more than five minutes on the phone when she offered me a room said enough about the kind of environment I was heading into.
I'd zoned out and forgotten about the doorbell, content to do as I'd been doing all day. Nothing. The shadow on the other side of the frosted glass apparently had nothing better to do either. Determined bastard switched between ringing the bell and knocking, straight fucking with my one good nerve.
I pushed to my feet and shuffled down the entry hall, with every intention of turning whoever it was away. Unlocking the door, I cracked it open enough to level a scowl at the well-dressed stranger staring back at me with drowsy brown eyes.
We stared at each other for far too long to go unnoticed. The man blinked, the corners of his mouth tugged up into a smile as if there was a puppeteer at his back pulling his strings.
The white of his teeth gleamed against his dark skin under the dull light casting its warm glow over my front porch.
Have you ever looked at a person and every inch of them screamed money? My unannounced friend wore the hell out of a two-piece chocolate brown suit, tailored to fit his trim frame. Compared to him I looked like a beggar in the ratty grey sweats I'd been moping around the house in for days.
If I had any bit of shame, I might have felt a way about it. Instead, I turned my face into the soft spring breeze wafting through the door, carrying the smell of someone's burnt dinner. It was the first fresh air I'd smelled in a good while. The sky had begun its transition from day to night, swatches of deep grey, punctured by brilliant orange and weak yellow, stretched across the horizon. Mum would've said it was a nice evening for a walk.
"Hollis? Hollis Emery?" he didn't wait for a reply. "I'm Anthony Barat, an associate of your father, Hollis Knight."
Silence continued to fill the space between us. Don't misunderstand. I wasn't trying to be rude. But I'd been functioning on autopilot and barely had the bandwidth to process anything beyond the basic will to live.
So, imagine my fucking surprise; days after mum passed, a stranger shows up at my door claiming he was there on behalf of my daddy who had been dead my whole damned life.
And did you hear the name he causally dropped at my feet? Yeah, the Hollis Knight. The rich motherfucker who owns half the city.
Did you laugh? Me too. I roared, because honestly, it was either laugh or cry.
I'd cried. Been crying. I didn't have any more tears left. After I'd finished laughing, forcing the man to step back and eye me warily, one thought struck. Why the hell not? Might as well go along with the lunacy and let the man in. My whole world had been tossed upside down. What did I have to lose? By the end of the week, I'd be forced to leave my home forever, everything I owned condensed to a carry-on and one suitcase.
I didn't have an earthly clue what to do next with my life. Ever felt stuck, so deep in the trenches, you stop moving, stop talking? You're just there, breathing.
Bleak as things were, I hadn't lost hope. But for the moment, my plans went no further than putting one foot in front of the other.
"I tried reaching out to you by phone," the man said, settling into the armchair across from the loveseat where I sat.
He'd spent the entire walk back to my front room disclosing his credentials as an attorney retained by Hollis Knight but also the nature of their decades-long friendship.
"Mr. Barat." I hadn't spoken to a single person in days, and my voice was as coarse as sandpaper. "My father passed before I was born."
"I know what you were led to believe, Ms. Hollis. But I can assure you, Hollis Knight is very much alive. He believes it's time you and he had an official introduction."
You know, up until then I never questioned why mum named me after my 'father' yet chose not to give me his last name. And of course, I never would have guessed or equated my name to the tycoon who owned Hakon Industries.
Barat's words were a hammer striking a blow, creating fissures of doubt in my foundation.
I didn't like the feeling.
For the first time in weeks, I had a purpose.
Oh, don't get too excited. This isn't some feel-good story of a girl reuniting with a long-lost parent. I was an angry, grief-stricken bitch out for blood.
Weeks later, with a brand-new pair of fangs, I'm still wondering if I'd been luckier for letting Barat in or worse off.