30 Days of Drabbles::Day 5
Character(s)::Dawn and Stone Word Count::1,301
He had heard that she was in the campground, that she had stolen a little fae child and bolted. She had always been his favorite cousin, the only one he could stand to be around and now he understood why.
Dawn had always been a softer heart and, truthfully, Stone was surprised she had lasted in the hunting world as long as she had. But he understood it. Her parents were, if possible, worse than his own. At least he had known that his mother had loved him. He couldn’t say the same for his aunt and uncle.
Stone wandered down into the campground and to the trailer he had been told he’d find his cousin and knocked on the door, wondering she would even recognize him.
The knock on the door had her jumping, panic flooding her until she remembered where she was and that it was probably just Clay or one of the triplets checking in on her and Ria.
Nothing could have prepared her for opening the door to a face that felt familiar but wasn’t.
“Can I help you?” she asked, keeping herself in the doorway and shielding any sight of the interior from his eyes. It was bothering her that he looked like someone she should know but she couldn’t put a finger on where or why.
“I’m looking for Dawn?” The woman in front of him had to be her. She smelled like family but not quite. It was like some key element was missing but he knew it was probably the sense of shared scent that was rubbing him wrong. He got the same feeling any time Riley took a shower without him.
“Who’s asking?”
The response had him cracking a smile and holding his hands up where she could see them, showing he was unarmed. He had been since he had gotten to the grounds in general, the gun he had locked up in Riley’s room. He hadn’t felt the need to touch it since he had gotten there despite knowing how many non humans there were around the place.
“Is that how we greet people we thought were dead in this family?” he asked, knowing it was a shitty joke but, well, if anyone would find the humor in it, it would be Dawn. She had always had the more warped sense of it than anyone else he knew.
For a moment she stood there, stunned into silence. The only person knew of that could...but, not, it couldn’t possibly be him, could it?
“Stone?”
The grin broadened on his face and that was all the answer Dawn needed before she was letting out a high pitched squeal and throwing herself at him, hugging him as tightly as she could.
It was lucky that he was a lot stronger now than he was when last they had seen one another or he might have dropped her, but he held on for dear life. Getting his family back, any parts of his family, was almost surreal and yet, here he was, his older sister accepting what he was and promising to keep his secret and his barely older cousin having completely defected and changed sides.
“What the fuck, I thought you were dead! We all did,” she screamed through her joy before pressing her face into the crook of his neck, trying to hide the fact that she was crying on top of it all.
The rush of emotion was overwhelming and she could only imagine he felt the same way. All these years without anyone he knew and suddenly finding himself on even ground.
“Del Rogers faked my death. I got bit on that last hunt. The one dad sent me on as a punishment,” he explained stepping back just enough to let her see his eyes go gold before returning to their human hues. “Tracked Riley down recently, been up at his place since. Heard you stole a fae kid and booked it out this way, thought I should come down and let you know I’m not, well, dead.”
It made a lot of sense and she didn’t know why she was so shocked. Peri had always said there had been something off about the entire thing, pointing out on more than one occasion that they had never found a body and that, non human or not, werewolves couldn’t dispose of an entire human body like that.
“Where the hell have you been? Does Peri know? She never believed you were really dead. Started a lot of fights about that for a few years before keeping quiet. What about Ryland?” she asked in quick succession, not giving him a chance to anything before moving to the next.
“Chase Holden, yes, doesn’t surprise me, and no,” he answered when she paused to take a breath, shaking his head a bit. “Did you know Chase Holden is married to a goddamn werecat?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Yeah, why do you think he mostly got out of the game? He married some cat and they adopted a fuck ton of different kids. Think you’d like a couple of them,” he mused, wondering how they would react if he showed up with his cousin and her new kid.
“No, I didn’t know any of that. Makes sense though. Is this just A Thing with hunters? Meet some nonhuman that changes everything and run?”
“Uh no, some of us get bit.”
Dawn nodded, having to concede on that point. “I mean, fair. Kiana Dayler got bit too, that’s why she dropped off the map. Has three teenagers with her.”
“Dayler’s a shifter?”
He had known she had vanished pretty suddenly, but he had never stopped to think about it too much. He hadn’t heard of any hits being put out on her and he knew how her mother ran things, so he was a little surprised by that.
“Hyena. I know she went back out for a run, but the kids are still here. Clay’s been helping keep an eye on them since I guess the one asked if he could talk Kiana into letting them stay here full time.”
“What about this kid I hear you got with you?” he asked, realizing she hadn’t responded when he asked about the kid earlier.
“Down for a nap right now, but she’s a nymph. My parents had her in a cage and she’s just a kid, Stone. I couldn’t let them hurt her, you know?” She knew she was ultimately preaching to the choir if Stone had been living with other nonhumans this entire time, but she still felt the need to justify herself whenever it was brought up. “Her name is Ria.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a very you thing,” he agreed, pulling her into another hug. “I’m glad you found something worth the risk on getting out for.”
“I’m glad you got out too,” she mumbled, hugging him tightly again. “I really missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“Are you sticking around for a bit? I’d love for you to meet Ria when she wakes up.”
There was a thread of hope in her voice when she asked, but she knew not to put any expectation on it. Stone had only survived this long because most everyone in their old life thought he was dead and she knew he wouldn’t want to risk Riley. She remembered how close the two of them had been when they were all kids.
“Yeah. Not going anywhere without Riley and this is his home, so I’m going to be around for a while at least.”
She beamed at that and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him inside so they could sit and catch up properly. In her mind, it was another sign she had made the right choice in running.