Chapter 79

      Aaron sat down on the park bench. He had just come from a doctor’s appointment which had confirmed his fears. He was pregnant again. He stared sightlessly into the distance. How had this happened? They had taken precautions to prevent such an occurrence and had been religious in their usage. He idly rubbed the spot on his arm where the doctor had removed his implant. He didn’t want another child but the thought of terminating made him nauseous.

      “How am I going to tell them? Who is the father?” he whispered to himself. He was one month along. How had the vampires missed it? He was so wrapped up in his misery, he failed to notice someone standing next to him until they spoke.

      “Aaron? Aaron Aaeng?” a woman’s voice asked.

      He started. It had been almost twenty years since someone had called him that. Aaron Aaeng had died beneath his father’s fists nineteen years ago. Who had the audacity to resurrect him now?

      He looked at the speaker. It was a purple woman that seemed vaguely familiar. Aaron had deliberately isolated himself from everyone he’d known before The Incident. The few people he socialized with now were vampires and mostly Greys and Pinks at that. The only Purple he saw with any sort of regularity was the head of the Amethyst bloodline.

      “I’m sorry. You must be mistaken,” he replied brusquely.

      “No, I don’t think so,” she answered. “You’re the spitting image of my father when he was younger. You have to be Aaron.”

      “And who are you?”

      “It’s Ariel, your sister.”

 

      “Ariel,” he breathed. After The Incident, he had repressed his memories of his former life. They had only caused him pain. He remembered his sister. Once she had looked up to him. Once they had played together. He studied the woman again. She could be his sister, maybe. The question was did he want her to be his sister. Did he want to reconnect with his past? The past that had rejected him thoroughly and painfully.

      “I have no sister.”

      “Liar.”

      He shrugged and stood up. “Believe what you like. I’m not the man you’re looking for.”

      “Why, Aaron? Why did you leave? I thought you were dead.”

      Aaron closed his eyes. He could hear the pain in her voice. It was the voice of a little girl wondering why her beloved older brother had just left without saying goodbye. “I left because I had to leave. I couldn’t stay there. There was no place for me.”

      “We had a funeral!” she cried. “Everyone came. I cried for a year afterwards.”

      He turned and looked at her. “I’m sorry you were hurt. Once I left there was no point in returning.”

      She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. Aaron stood there awkwardly while this stranger, his sister, cried. Eventually she pulled away from him.

      “I’m sorry, Aaron,” she apologized wiping the tears away. “It’s just I thought you were dead and now I find you hear alive and well.”

      She perked up suddenly. “I know! Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? You can meet my family. You don’t have any other plans do you?”

      “No, no really,” he said slowly.

      “Great! Let’s go! I should call my husband, but I want to surprise him.” She glanced at him mischievously.