His jaw hardened. "Don't you tell me what I can and can't do. I'm trying to save this country, this entire world, from the evil that the Clann's lines keep spitting out into it. Those Phillips boys are a prime example!"
"No, they're proof of what happens when you try to keep people in the dark. Educate the outcasts, but let them decide for themselves whether to keep their abilities or let them fade away."
"It's a curse, Hayden. A curse that they've got to be saved from!"
"You have no right!" Somehow we were inches away from each other, all but screaming into each other's faces. I didn't even know how or when I'd crossed the room over to him.
Breathing fast, I looked down and realized I'd grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. I forced my hands to drop down to my sides again as I took a step back.
"I'm doing this for you!" he cried out. "Can't you see that? This world's not safe with those abilities loose on it. They have to be destroyed."
I didn't want to do it, but I also made myself look my father in the eye again. And in his eyes I no longer saw the man I had once yearned to grow up to be like. All I saw was a man who was filled with fear and self loathing. "Just because you hate yourself doesn't mean every other descendant or outcast does. Some of them even manage to like who and what they are. You think you’re curing them. But all you’re doing is killing them.”
His eyes turned desperate and pleading, an expression I'd never seen on my father's face before. "Hayden, please. Just give us more time. We'll fix this, all of it. We'll fix you too."
I turned and headed for the foyer, unable to stand looking at or listening to him anymore.
"Hayden, wait! You can't leave! You don't know what's out there, why it's so important for us to become normal! There are enemies of the Clann that prey upon the power within us. But if we get rid of that power, we'll finally be truly safe!"
I continued on across the foyer and up the stairs.
"Hayden!" Dad shouted from the doorway of his study.
But I was done listening to him. I'd spent my whole life trusting him, believing in him, trying my hardest to make him proud of me, to earn his approval and love. To earn his forgiveness for Damon's death.
I was an idiot.
I went to my room, grabbed a duffel bag from my closet. I wouldn't be taking much, just some extra clothes, my MP3 player and laptop and their chargers.
I was leaving everything else behind. Maybe Mom could turn my room into another shrine like they had with Damon's. A shrine to help excuse my father’s bigotry and torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents all over this country.
I froze, staggering under the weight of the knowledge that I was the son of the new Hitler.
Footsteps in the hall paused at my doorway. Thinking it was Dad come up to stop me, I spun around, raising a hand, the energy orb already forming.
The door eased open, and Mom poked her head in. I fisted my hand to contain the orb just in time.
Like Dad, she wasn't surprised by the evidence of my abilities. “I take it your talk with your father didn't go too well. Did he tell you about the Clann and your uncle?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “Our own people are dying out there because of him. And he thinks he's actually helping them.”
She sighed, her teeth worrying her lower lip. I hadn't seen her do that in years. “So you're leaving.”
I nodded and went back to packing.
“To find others from the Clann? Because you won’t be able to. They’re either in hiding or in prison. None of them will risk revealing themselves now. Not to us.”
“Gee, I wonder why?” Instantly I felt a pain of guilt for the sarcasm. None of this was her fault, at least not directly.
“When will you be back?”
Never, I almost said. But when I looked at her, I noticed her eyes shown with tears. My throat choked up. “I don't know, Mom. Maybe I’ll get a chance to come see you when this whole situation blows over.”
Unless I got arrested. Then I’d probably never see her again for sure. Something told me internment camps didn’t allow their prisoners to have visitors and Dad wouldn’t be too quick to save me after that little father/son chat we’d just had.
I zipped the now bulging duffel bag shut and slung its canvas mesh strap over my shoulder. All packed up, time to go. At the doorway, I cleared my throat to get rid of the knot in it and tried to think of what Damon would say if he were me right now.
As usual, I had nothing.
She reached out for me, pulling me into a fierce hug I didn't even know her thin arms were capable of. “Promise me you'll take care of yourself,” she whispered, leaning back to search my face.
I nodded, unable to speak as my throat tightened up again.
“Here.” She pressed something stiff and sharp-edged into my hand. A credit card wrapped in paper with writing on it. “The card's in my catering business’s name, not mine. He never sees the bills, and it's got a $10,000 limit on it.”
Whoa. What was she doing with a card with that kind of limit?
It was a nice gesture, but I still wouldn’t be able to use it. If Dad decided to track me down someday, the first thing he’d do was look for a credit card trail, including from her cards. “Mom, I can't—”
“Take it. You'll need it.” It was both an order and a plea. “And that's the address of your Grandma Letty.”
“Dad's mother?”
She nodded, her face solemn as tears slid down her cheeks. “She's a descendant, and she'd love to help you any way she can. She'll get you out of the country. Promise me you'll go to her. She'll let me know you're safe.”
How could any grandma help like that, even one still active in the Clann? I couldn't even remember the last time we’d seen her.
“Promise, Hayden!” She gripped my shoulders.
“Okay. I promise.” A lie, but if it made her feel better...
She hugged me again.
I wished I didn’t have to make my mother cry, or could at least take the time to make this goodbye easier on her somehow. But Tarah, and all those descendants and outcasts at the camp, needed me. And Mike and his friend were probably waiting for me at the park by now too. I had to hurry.
As gently as I could, I eased her away from me. “I'm sorry, Ma. But I've—”