**Chapter fourteen**

Hybrids

*Hailey*

Instead of calling Jace, I decided just to drive out to Casper Heights the next day to see him. The only reason I wanted to see my half-brother face-to-face is because I owed him a hard slap across the face.

I decided to stop at Slim's first. I managed to find the small bar easily. It was next to the alley where I told my brother about our fairy heritage and where I broke a refrigerator. It was ten in the morning, so the bar was closed. I didn't bother to knock. I just walked right in.

I looked around the bar, but it was empty. Beer bottles littered the tables along with used napkins and dirty plates. I heard a country song being played from the speakers and I wrinkled my nose. I hated country music. Drunken Hailey loved country, though.

"Dude, we're cl-" I looked up as Chuck came into the room, but he stopped when he saw me. I smirked at my brother's partner in crime. He was cute, just short. I always had a rule that any guy I dated had to be taller than me, especially since I was so short myself.

"

Oh, Jace's hot, taken half-sister. What are you doing here?" he asked pleasantly. My eyebrows furrowed and I suddenly wondered if Jace told Chuck the truth. About everything. About his "pyromania," about the supernatural. About him being a fairy and me being a fairy-vampire hybrid. They were best friends, after all. Though I hadn't told Elena the truth, so there was a chance that Jace hadn't told his best friend either.

Chuck didn't look at me like I was a freak, though. He didn't look at me like he was afraid of me. He just looked at me like I was his best friend's hot little sister. I blew my bangs out of my eyes. "It's Hailey," I told him. "And I'm looking for Jace. Is he here?"

Chuck shook his head. "I haven't seen him since last night. He skipped his shift to go talk to you," he explained.

I

bit my lip. "What'd he say to you?" I asked curiously.

"I think is exact words were 'I screwed up with my sister. I have to go talk to her. Work my shift for me?' I did, because I got the numbers of the hot, drunk girls that Jace usually gets." He smirked, smug.

"Yeah, well, we didn't talk. Not really. I slammed the door in his face before he could get more than three words out." I pushed a piece of hair behind my ear. "I guess I'll have to break into his apartment, then."

"There's a spare key under the mat," Chuck said cheerfully. "Your brother sucks at picking out secret hiding places."

"Good to know." I turned my back on him and walked towards the door.

"Hailey," Chuck said suddenly, and I stopped walking.

"Yeah?" I turned around and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you two really fighting because you two are fairies and you're some freaky fairy-vampire hybrid?" Chuck asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

I froze, my eyes widening.

So Jace did tell Chuck the truth.

I quickly focused my hearing on the bar to try to hear if there was anyone else that could overhear us. It was just Chuck and me in the bar, though. If worse came to worse, I could always compel him.

"Yep, basically," I said casually, hoping up on the bar and pushing my bangs out of my eyes. "Jace really told you?" I asked skeptically.

"Jace tells me everything. We've been Best friends since the womb. Our moms worked together, and they both got knocked up around the same time. I've known him my entire life. I know everything about him and he tells me everything- mostly because you can get the truth out of that guy with a shot of tequila and half a beer." Chuck shook his head, as if ashamed by my brother.

"He told me the truth about his pyromania when he was first diagnosed with it- though it's not really pyromania is it? He admitted to me when we were sixteen, over a bottle of bourbon that he thought there was more to his pyromania than the doctors thought. Then he set a pile of leaves on fire without any lighters or matches or anything. We never talked about it after that. He always insisted that he was the normal kind of crazy, not the supernatural kind.

"And then, a few days after you two showed up at the bar, he blurted out what you told him. Granted, he was drunk and had a half-naked Cara hanging off of him. But once he sobered up and sent Cara packing, he told me everything."

"And you believed him?" my eyebrows furrowed.

Chuck shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Why?" I asked.

"Is it true?" he shot back.

"Yes," I said simply. "But why were you so quick to think it's true?"

Chuck shrugged again. "I've always believed that there was something supernatural out there. Besides, Jace believed it. And Jace Andrews is a lot of things- alcoholic, manwhore, pyro, jackass, and a good friend just being a few- but he's not a liar. He's too impatient to lie. It just wastes time. So, yeah, I believed Jace because I knew he wasn't lying."

At that moment, no matter how pissed off I was at Jace, I was glad that he had a friend like Chuck. He truly was to Jace what Elena was to me, only more fun.

"So," Chuck said, suddenly looking at me curiously. "It's true? You're a fairy-vampire hybrid?"

I nodded, smirking. "Wanna see my fangs?"

I was surprised by Chuck's lack of fear. I had been afraid of Damon when I first found out about vampires. But I suppose that he had had time to sort through his thoughts about vampires. And he was just an easygoing guy in general. Still, he looked wary when I offered to show him my most lethal weapon.

"I think I'm good, Hailey," he said.

I shrugged. "Maybe next time," I said, hoping off the bar.

"Probably not."

I

grinned at Chuck as I walked towards the door. "See you later, Chuck."

He nodded. "Try not to kill Jace- he has to work tonight and I really don't want to cover his shift again."

"No promises," I told him. Then I walked out of the bar to go find my brother.

~EL~

I opened Jace's apartment with the key hid under his mat. I was surprised to find his apartment spotless. I supposed that Cara had cleaned it during their last hookup. Monster hissed at me from the couch.

"I hope you and Ellie never meet," I told him. "You'd eat her for a snack."

A groan came from the back of the apartment, then my brother stumbled out, his hair messy and sticking up, wearing nothing but boxers.

I covered my eyes and looked away. "Wanna cover up, brother?"

"Hailey?" Jace mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Chuck told me about the key under the mat. Really original hiding place, Jace," I said sarcastically.

"Freaking Chuck," he muttered, pulling a pair of wrinkled jeans that had been tossed over a La-Z-Boy. Then he ran a hand through his bed hair. "What are you doing here?" he asked quietly.

"We need to talk," I stated bluntly.

"I wanted to talk last night- then your vampire boyfriend threatened to kill me," Jace said pointedly, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

I rolled my eyes. "You hurt me- Damon gets protective. I wouldn't have let him do it."

His eyebrows furrowed. "I hurt you?" he seemed surprised.

I shifted uncomfortably. "No…"

Jace sighed and ran a hand over his face. "I'm sorry, okay? When I get in the heat of the moment, I say things I don't mean. I'm a jackass, having no filter comes with the territory."

I looked down at my boots. "You said you wish I wasn't your sister," I said quietly. Even thinking the words still stung. "Now I had one family member who didn't want anything to do with me. I'm not going to put up with another one."

"I didn't mean it, Hailey," Jace insisted. "Really. Despite being some fairy-vampire hybrid, you're not a terrible chick to have as a little sister."

I rolled my eyes. "I guess I could do worse than have you as a brother," I said finally.

Jace grinned. "Is this when we have a group hug?" he asked sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. You, me, and Monster."

"Monster's a pretty cuddly dude." He made to pick up his gigantic cat, nearly losing a finger.

"Now that we have our big, happy family moment out of the way, can we talk about what we really need to talk about?" I asked, sitting down on the couch.

Jace sighed. "All that supernatural shit?" he asked, deflating.

I nodded, a twisted grin on my lips. "Yeah, all that supernatural shit."

He was quiet for a few moments. "I'm really a fairy, aren't I?"

I nodded again. "You are."

"And you're a fairy and a vampire, aren't you?"

"I am."

He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "Can you explain everything? And take it slowly, please."

I nodded. "We're going to be here awhile. We have a lot to cover."

Jace offered me a sarcastic smile. "I can't wait."

~EL~

"Wait, so your momk illed you?"

I nodded, tossing back the shot Jace handed me. "Shot me because Katherine compelled her to think I was a vampire. A bit ironic, how I became a vampire because of that."

Jace shook his head. "And I thought my mom was bad," he muttered, drinking straight from the bottle he had in his grip. "This Katherine sounds like a major bitch. A hot bitch, but still a bitch. And she looks like Elena?"

I

nodded. "Like how I looked like Bella and Victoria and every fairy from Bella's line- except for you."

He frowned. "Why is that, exactly? How am I a fairy if I'm not a chick and I don't have telekinesis and visions?" he asked.

"That's the question. Maybe it was a kink in the spell or something. I don't know. But you're a fairy- a fire fairy." I grinned at him.

He shook his head. "Well, that makes me feel a little bit more masculine."

I laughed, getting tipsy from the alcohol. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Jace stood up and made his way to the door, stumbling and tripping every now and then. "What?" he said bluntly, before his whole face darkened.

"What do you want, Maggie?" he asked quietly.

"What happened to 'mom?'" the person on the other side of the door asked.

"You stopped acting like one," he retorted.

I

found myself standing up, stumbling and tripping my way over to Jace. I leaned against my brother for support as I stared up at his mother, Annie. "So, you're the woman my dad knocked up twenty one years ago," I said bluntly.

Maggie Andrews was tall and blonde and pretty, even for a middle aged woman. I bet that a young, drunk, newly married man couldn't have resisted her twenty-one years ago. She watched me through hazel eyes, seeming wary about my presence.

"You're Will's daughter?" she asked.

I nodded. "Hailey Ellis. A pleasure, I'm sure." I smirked up at my brother's mother.

Something clicked in Maggie's eyes. I saw it happen. Wariness turned to recognition. Her nose wrinkled slightly in what could have only been disgust.

At that moment, new something for certain. Maggie knew what I was. Whether she knew I was a fairy or a vampire or both, I didn't know. But she knew something.

Still, when I offered Maggie my hand, she took it. As her larger hand closed around mine, my eyes widened and we both gasped at the same time. She yanked her hand away from me, but I was already stumbling backwards.

"

Hailey?" Jace's eyebrows furrowed. "Maggie?"

My eyes were wide as I stared at my brother's mother. She stared back at me with a look of disgust and horror and even slight fear. When our hands touched, something went off inside my head. Like a warning, almost.

And I knew how Maggie Andrews knew what I was.

She was a witch. I felt it.

I didn't know much about witches. But what little I knew about genetics told me that if Maggie was a witch, which would make Jace a witch too.

I wasn't the only hybrid in the Ellis family.

~EL~

A/N:thank you to: SomebodyWhoCares, Samantha meyers, SageX13, and THE VOLTURI RULE for reviewing!

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