Jaz waited silently, her chest heaving.
“It was all for your benefit.”
Jaz breathed out a sardonic laugh, then frowned in disbelief.
“There are a lot of things you don't know, and I don't want to just burden you with everything all at once,” Erica explained. Her cheeks were tinged red and her forehead furrowed.
“Unbelievable,” Jaz mumbled, gnawing on the peeling skin of her lower lip as she scowled at the ceiling. She shook her head and looked back down at her aunt as she grunted, “Seriously? You have a psycho babysit me,” she glared fleetingly at Driver, “and do all this to me, no worries.... but you're afraid to 'burden me' with some shit that you've probably made up anyway? Just like everything else this past year. Which says to me that you appeared out of the blue, clearly with only this ulterior motive in mind, so please spare me my sanity and tell me you're not my real aunt.” Jaz was begging whatever god was listening up there that this evil witch wasn't in anyway related to her.
The offended look on Erica's face quashed Jaz's hopes. She gasped, her shoulders sagged. She shook her head as if that would make it not true. “No,” she whispered breathlessly.
“I am your real aunt. But, John... is not my brother.”
Jaz looked up at Erica in a confused daze. “Wh-how-what?”
There was a moment of cramping, strained silence. The air was thick and heavy; Jaz could barely breathe under the weight of whatever the next clearly significant and possibly life-changing words were about to fire out of her aunt's mouth.
“I'm the sister of your father. Your real father.”
Horror exploded out of Jaz's face. “What?” She nearly choked on the word. “You're lying,” she wheezed. She couldn't even convince herself she believed that, let alone the others. For some reason, she knew it was true the moment her aunt had said it. Though the fact Erica was a deceitful liar gave Jaz an inkling of hope that this was a lie too.
“No. I'm not. You were... adopted.”
The complete conviction in Erica's voice cut Jaz's last hope dead. She was sure she felt two invisible strings in her heart snap. The sudden pressure on her chest made her fall back against her old wall for support. Her shallow breaths filled the silence.
Erica gazed at Jaz with aggrieved, watery eyes. “You belong here, with us,” she urged.
That did it.
Jaz's last hold of control severed and she lunged for the broad shoulders of her startled victim. Erica nearly toppled over but Jaz's vice hold -her fingers digging into the bones- kept Erica on her feet.
Maria gaped at them, about to intervene, but one look from Driver made her stop. 'Wait,' he mouthed. Maria obeyed, ogling Jaz as she glared at Erica like a rabid animal.
Jaz shook Erica snarling, “Don't talk to me like you're doing me a favour! I had a life before you came into it and tore it apart! If you ever think that I would pick you over my family -adopted or not- because you're blood, think again! I will never, ever trust you, love you, even like you! John and Rachel have been and will always be my parents and nothing you or anyone else in this godforsaken hellhole can say or do will change that! GOT IT?!”
Erica stared at her in shock.
Jaz became Jaz again and slowly let go of Erica's shoulders. She could see how her raving verbal attack had upset her aunt. She'd feel sorry about it later, right now though, she was glad.
“Er, should I come back?” came a high, whippy voice by the doorway.
Everyone had been so caught up in the moment that they hadn't heard the tall, slender, strawberry-blonde walking down the hallway. Their heads cocked up towards the doorway where the pretty girl stood waiting.
The girl glanced Jaz's way, even smiled a little despite Jaz's reproachful look, before focusing on Maria.
“No, Skye, please come in,” the old woman said.
The strawberry-blonde sundae sidled in as elegantly as if she was on Rollerblades. It was then that Jaz noticed the green first-aid pack tucked under the girl's toned, golden arm. She stared at the kit as if it were a snake.
She also realized Driver had moved away to the other end of the room to sit at the edge of a king-sized bed she'd only now observed for the first time. He was perched on the edge of the fur throw with his elbows on his thighs, open hands pressed together, his index fingertips touching in between his black brows, and his thumbs supporting his chin like flesh brackets. He was staring at the floor; his dark, deep set eyes nearly disappearing within the shadows of his eyebrows and forehead.
She felt strange now he wasn't near her. She recoiled at the feeling because she knew what it was saying: it wanted him to come back. She didn't. She could still distinguish between the two.
A head of rose-gold shoulder-length hair and a lime-green chest blocked her view of him, making Jaz nearly jump out of her skin. Skye was about to touch Jaz's arm to see her hand but Jaz dodged her.