“One man was. I saw it. The guards shot him in the back while he was trying to escape the camp. I saw a baby overdose on tranquilizers there too. They're treating them like animals. You've got to put a stop to—”
“There's no stopping this train, Hayden. It's what the public wants. It's what the government wants.”
“You mean it's what you want.”
He didn't answer, didn't even have the decency to look away or pretend to be ashamed as he took a slow sip of his scotch. “So, you want to tell me what else you've been up to tonight?”
“A bunch of Clann outcasts and I just got into a fight with some soldiers in the woods out back.”
Dad slammed his glass down onto his desk, splashing scotch all over the once perfect oak. “You've been hanging out with outcasts? How many times have I told you to stay away from those types, to fit in with the right crowd? You could ruin everything we’ve worked so hard to build here!” He shoved a hand through his hair.
“What we’re building here is a pile of dead bodies!” I held out my red stained hands as evidence. “Those soldiers shot a kid in the woods tonight. With real bullets, not tranquilizers. He died, Dad, right in my hands. Just because of some abilities he was born with.”
His mouth twisted. “That is a tragedy. It really is. But I’m sure it never would have happened if he'd just come quietly.” He turned to face the fireplace. “Why can't they see that the government's just trying to—”
“Trying to what? Exterminate them?”
His face darkened. “No, of course not! We've got the best scientists available working round the clock, trying to find ways to suppress their abilities.”
“Why do they have to be suppressed? And how do you know they even can be?”
“Of course they have to be suppressed. They're dangerous genetical defects!”
“Am I a dangerous defect, Dad? Are you afraid of me too?” The words came out quietly, unplanned. Necessary. A secret kept far too long. “Because I'm starting to think I'm one of them.”
I threw a ball of fire at the fireplace. The flames became a bonfire barely contained behind the heavily carved oak mantel.
“Jesus, Hayden, you're going to set the house on fire!” Dad reached out towards the fireplace. And the fire went out, snuffed as completely as if it had never been there at all.
I couldn't speak, could barely breathe. Could hardly think at all.
I'd assumed, if I were a Clann outcast, that it must have been through Mom's side of the family. Maybe she'd turned her back on her abilities, or maybe her ancestors further back had been the ones who had left the Clann and left us all in the dark in the process.
I'd never once considered the possibility that my ultra conservative father could be the one to have passed on these abilities. Much less that he had some abilities of his own.
Long seconds passed, maybe minutes, and still I couldn't think of a single thing to say. All this time, all these months since Damon’s death, I'd hidden what I was, what I could do. And Dad had known all along.
He sighed. “Yes, I already knew about your abilities. Your mother and I have always known, ever since before your birth. How could you not have them? You’re a Shepherd, and Shepherds are one of the founding Clann families. Founding family descendants are all but guaranteed to have powers.”
I had to fight to get the words out past the tightness in my chest. "Who kicked us out?"
"We weren't kicked out," Dad sneered. "I left. I did what was right for this entire family. I tried to take us away from that unnatural world, tried to give us a decent, normal life. And what did you and your brother do? You nearly screwed it all up!"
So that explained where the memory had come from of him telling me not to talk about the Clann. I must have heard him discussing it with Mom.
“The Clann and its descendants are evil, Hayden. They're like a poisonous vine that strangles everything within their reach. They've been using their spells and their money and power to wheedle into government positions of control to help keep the Clann a secret from the world. My brother, your Uncle Jim, tried to change them from the inside. He had all these foolishly naive ideas that he would reveal the truth about the Clann to the world, and the world would accept the descendants and maybe even revere them as demi gods. And what did the Clann do? They killed him for it."
Dad knocked back half his drink. "But I got my revenge. I had to wait years for a chance, but that Simon Phillips and his loose cannon boys finally gave me the perfect opening. Before, the Clann was much too powerful to take head on. But now the Clann has fallen. It's only a matter of time before every single descendant and outcast has been accounted for. And once we have the cure perfected, the treatments will begin, and everything will be safe again."
He actually smiled at me, as if I should feel comforted now.
All I felt was sick.
Now I understood why Dad never let Damon and me spend any time alone with my cousin Dylan or Uncle Jim. He must have worried that they would tell us all about the Clann that our father had cast our family out of, and then shown us what we could do with our growing abilities.
I also understood now why we never went to Uncle Jim's funeral, and why Dad would never talk about his brother's death. Because then he would have had to tell us about the Clann and its role in Uncle Jim's death.
Then I realized...if Dad had only told us the truth years ago, Damon and I never would have been practicing magic with others in the woods the night of Damon's death. And he would probably still be alive right now. “You should have told us the truth."
"I was trying to protect you, to keep you safe from that world."
"Yeah, well, that plan sure backfired, didn't it?"
He turned to me with a stony expression. "What are you talking about?"
"Damon would still be alive if you'd just told us who and what we are."
"Don't you try and lay the blame for his death on me. I was trying to save you two idiots! How was I supposed to know you'd go out into those woods and blow yourselves up!"
He would never see the part he'd played in Damon's death. But surely he could be made to see how wrong he was now about the outcasts. "Dad, listen to me. You might not want your Clann abilities. But you can't go around trying to strip the abilities from the others. It's their choice to make, not yours."