I gasped. In holographic detail, I watched a woman with braided white hair gently rock a bundled infant in her arms. Humming softly—I could actually hear her—she faced the baby. Her profile was the image of mine. Slightly sloped nose, high cheekbones. Full lips.
“Mia,” she said to the infant, her voice lyrical and soothing. “You are my perfect angel.”
I’d seen her before. In my dreams…at the parking lot shootout.
“That woman is Atlanna,” Kyrin told me, “and she is holding you.”
My fingers tightened around the locket, blocking the image. That didn’t keep the woman’s voice from fading from my ears. You are my perfect angel. With my free hand, I covered my mouth.
Atlanna.
My mother.
Color drained from my face, and a rush of dizziness swept inside my head.
Kyrin sat down and wrapped his arms around me. He drew me close, and I willingly burrowed my face into the hollow of his neck. “Accept what you are, Mia. For your sake. For mine. And for the innocent.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” Kyrin said. His warm breath fanned the top of my head. “An Arcadian can do anything.”
When he said that, my origins seemed so…affirmed, and my desperation grew. Of their own accord, my fingers curled around his shirt collar. “Everything I know is crumbling,” I said. “Help me understand.”
He caressed his hands down my spine, massaged my lower back, then traced his fingers up to my shoulders. He continued the comforting motions as he spoke. “Your father was married to Kane and Dare’s mother when he and Atlanna had an affair. It lasted over a year. Then something happened between them, and your father disappeared, taking you with him. For a while, she abandoned her research in her quest to find you.”
I allowed his words to flow through me. “If I accept what you say,” I said, “I will have to accept that my entire life is a lie.”
“You can now live a life of truth,” he said, tightening his hold.
Could I, though? If A.I.R. heard any of this, I’d be out a job. Aliens were not accepted in that line of work. I might lose the only friends I had. And just what would I do if I lost my job and my friends? They were all I had.
“I need to call my dad, Kyrin. I need to talk to him.”
He released me immediately and strode to his desk. Expression resigned, he unearthed a phone and placed the small unit in my hand.
I spoke my dad’s name, hating the way my voice shook.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Yeah?”
“Dad, it’s me, Mia.”
“Yeah,” he said again. “What do you want?”
“Is Atlanna en Arr my mother?” The words emerged as nothing more than a ragged whisper. I squared my shoulders, forced my throat to obey, and repeated my question. “Is Atlanna en Arr my mother?”
His breath crackled over the line. I pictured him casually smoking a cigar. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Is she?”
“This is not a subject up for discussion, little girl.”
“Is she?” I screamed.
Another crackling breath. “Yes. She is,” he stated. “Happy now?”
I pressed my lips together as the truth hit me. Fully hit me. I was a halfling. Atlanna was my mother. “Is that why you stopped loving me?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, not even trying to deny it. “You began to look just like her.”
“I’m half yours, Dad. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“Maybe once.” His tone remained indifferent. “Not anymore.”
“I’ve done everything you ever wanted. I’ve killed aliens. I’ve hated aliens. I could have destroyed them all, and that wouldn’t have made a difference to you, would it?”
He said nothing. He didn’t have to.
“Why did you take me from Atlanna? Why didn’t you just leave me with her?”
“She seduced Kane,” he growled, showing his first emotion. “I found them together, and she laughed. Laughed!” Now he laughed, a cruel sound. “I killed Kane and managed to injure her. And you know what? That wasn’t enough. She wanted you so badly, I took you from her.” He chuckled again. “I made you hate your own kind. I—”
I didn’t let him finish. I said, “End,” and let the earpiece drop into Kyrin’s waiting hand.
My shoulders squared, I pushed to my feet and consciously placed one foot in front of the other until I stood beside the bookshelf. I am a halfling, and Atlanna en Arr is my mother. The knowledge tore me apart inside, slicing deep, leaving raw, open wounds.
Obviously top brass hadn’t wanted us to know halflings could, indeed, be created. That explained why they’d removed all mention of fertility from the A.I.R. files.
My eyelids squeezed firmly shut, and a painful knot grew in my throat. The future I’d imagined for myself was now shrouded in uncertainty.
“Atlanna is more powerful than I have ever been,” Kyrin said, and I knew he hoped to distract me from my inner turmoil. “But you…you have the greatest of her strengths coursing through your veins. Once you tap into that power, you can kill her.”
“Kill my own mother?” I screamed. He actually wanted me to execute my own mother—the woman who sang so sweetly and had called me her greatest treasure?
Kyrin cursed under his breath. “I feared this would happen. I feared you would do this. Bad people are bad people, Mia, and it is your job to kill them.”
“Shut up.” My voice cracked. I was quickly reaching my breaking point, and I suddenly wanted to be alone. I hooked the necklace around my neck. What I was going to do with it, I didn’t know. “Give me some time,” I said, shoving past him.
I know he saw my shattered spirit in my eyes, but he pushed to his feet with every intention of stopping me. “Two other men were found dead last night. Raymond Palmer and Anton Stokenberg. If we do not act, the others will soon follow.”
I halted mid-step, then spun, glaring up at him. Through clenched teeth, I said, “How do you know that?”
“I am a hunter, just as you are, though I seek a different kind of prey. You stalk aliens. I stalk Atlanna. I followed her, and watched her dispose of them.”
Fury conquered all of my other emotions. While I had been here sleeping and eating like a queen, two more men had been found dead. Perhaps I could have saved them, perhaps not. Either way, I hadn’t been on the streets, searching for them. No, I’d practically embraced this mini-vacation.