“He can’t know about you,” she said.
“You said he didn’t know you were pregnant. How would he even find me?” I asked.
“He’d find you,” she said.
Rage bubbled inside me. I clenched my fists in frustration. We were getting nowhere with this and I was wasting my time. “Are you going to give me any actual information I can use?”
“About your father? No.”
“Then we’re done here. If you care about me at all, I need whatever you have about the toxin. Then I’m gone for good,” I said.
She reached for her box of cigarettes and pulled one out. Her hands were shaking as she lit it.
I wanted to feel sorry for her, and there was a tiny part that did. She was my mother after all, but she hadn’t protected me the way a mother should.
She took a long drag, then blew out the smoke slowly. I winced and turned away from the cloud. She knew I hated it but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was getting to me.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked. “That information is worth millions.”
“Then why didn’t you sell it?” I asked.
“I know you think little of me, but even I have standards,” she said. “That toxin is the most dangerous thing ever created for wolf shifters. In the wrong hands, it’s been used to wipe out entire packs.”
“Funny how you worry about other shifters when you couldn’t give a damn about the one shifter you gave birth to,” I snapped.
She stood. “It’s okay if you hate me. I made my choice and I can live with it. Now, it’s time for you to decide if you can live with yours.”
She walked over to the ratty couch that nobody ever sat on and started pulling cushions up and tossed them on the floor. There was a bed inside, folded up. She tugged on the handle and opened up the mattress.
I expected to see something on the bed, but other than a mattress covered in questionable stains it was empty. This was just a wild goose chase. “Are you stalling for some reason?”
“You think I’d turn you in to those assholes who call themselves leaders? I’m not a traitor, Lola,” she said.
I wasn’t so sure about that. She’d kept the fact that I could shift from me my whole life.
She held the cigarette between her lips and walked to the kitchen, returning back to the couch with a large knife.
“Do you need help?” I asked.
She glared at me, then shoved the knife into the side of the mattress. Dragging the knife through the fabric, she tore a huge hole in the side.
After tossing the knife on the ground, she shoved her hand inside the destroyed bed. A moment later, she emerged with a leather-bound journal.
She took another drag on her cigarette as she walked over to me, the book held out.
“This is it?” I asked as I took the book from her.
“That’s all I got. Whatever you’re doing with it, I hope it’s worth it,” she said. “You should go. Whole town’s been warned to keep an eye out for you. Something about you being a traitor to the pack.” She looked down at the book. “They catch you with that, they’ll have all the evidence they need to kill you on sight.”
I slid the journal in the waistband of my shorts, then covered it with the back of my shirt. “Thank you.”
“Good luck, Lola,” she said.
There were a million things I wanted to say to my mom, but none of them would come out right. I ended up nodding, then made my way to the door. I wasn’t willing to spend another second here. The sooner I broke that mating bond, the sooner I could get on with my life.