Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan. And so, accordingly, I do not own any works credited to that name. (Or to related names. i.e. Uncle Rick.)
Previously on More Than A Mortal:
At that moment, I made a decision. I needed to be away from everyone for the moment, so I decided to go drive out to where Mom was staying at her brother's farm. It was about a two hour drive. I packed a backpack with two outfits, Kiernan's shirt, a hairbrush, and my phone charger. I changed into a pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and my leather jacket. I braided my hair so that it'd stay up under my helmet, and went down to the garage. I unpacked the things from the backpack into the two side compartments on my bike, and rolled up the bag and put it in as well. I kept my phone in an inside pocket of my jacket. I knew the address, Mom had told us, so I put it into my GPS and set off.
Two hours of driving through the pouring rain that followed me later, I found the winding dirt road that led to the farm, Blackmeadow Range. When I finally reached the farm house, I parked under the shelter of a large weeping willow. I could see Mom's car and another car nearby. The farmhouse wasn't the only building, either. There was a red barn a little ways away, and a silo. There were also stables. Mom's brother owned the place, including a lot of the surrounding land. A couple fields held crops, but there was also a lot of open space, as well as forest and trails. There was an apple orchard, too. The place was beautiful.
I took out my backpack and unrolled it, shoving everything inside. I barely noticed the tears that dropped alongside the rain from my clothes. My hair wasn't wet, it had all been under the helmet. Once everything was in the bag and I zipped it up, I ran to the porch of the farm house. I rang the bell and waited.
"Hello?" A little girl's voice said as the door opened. A girl that looked to be seven was standing behind the screen door.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" I asked her.
"I'm not apposed to talk to strangers." She said.
"You're Liam's daughter, right?" I asked. She nodded. "Then I'm not a stranger. I'm your cousin. Could you go get your Aunt Whitney for me? She's my mom."
The girl ran off, yelling "Aunt Whitney!" She soon came back to the door, leading my mom by the hand. When Mom saw me with my bag slung over my arm, my helmet under the other, and tears running down my face, her hands flew to her mouth in shock.
"Lyric?" She asked, opening the screen door and letting me in. I gave her a one armed hug, careful not to hit her with my helmet.
"Hey, mom." I said.
My mom looked to the girl. "Why don't you go play for now, Orianne?" The little girl ran out of the kitchen. "Lyric, what are you doing here?"
"I needed to get away, mom. They all keep asking questions I really don't want to answer." I said, tears streaming even faster down my face.
"Oh, baby..." Mom said. "Why don't we get you a hot shower. You must've been driving in the pouring rain the entire two hours. Follow me." She took my bag and helmet and led me out of the kitchen and through a living room, to a door that led to a small hallway with a sitting room to one side and stairs to the other. We got odd looks from a couple people, except Orianne, who waved. We went up the stairs and mom showed me to a bathroom with a shower.
"Just come down once you're showered, and we can talk, okay? I'll see where we can have you sleep for the night. And I'll call Jay-" Mom told me, handing me my bag.
"Please don't call Jay." I said quietly. She only nodded and went back downstairs, bringing my helmet with her. She'd probably put it somewhere near the door.
I locked the bathroom door and set down my bag. I started the shower and let it warm. I was cold, to say the least. But driving two hours in a storm that's following you because you're creating it is something that will make a person cold.
After I showered and dried off as much as I could, I out on a pair of boy shorts underwear and a sports bra. I took Kiernan's shirt from my bag and put it on, buttoning it up to just above my bra. That left a couple buttons undone. The sleeves hung past my wrists, and I gripped the ends. I stared at myself in the mirror. I was a complete mess.
There was a knock on the door. "One minute." I called. I quickly brushed out my hair and dried it as much as I could with the towel. I put the towel in a hamper, my hairbrush in my bag. I slung it over my shoulder, grabbed my boots, and unlocked the door, pulling it open. The boy who stood there looked very confused upon seeing me.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"Lyric Tucker." I said, ducking under his arm and going down the stairs. He still looked a little confused, but went in the bathroom and closed the door. When I got to the little hallway at the bottom of the stairs, I hesitated. I wanted to talk to my mom, but I also didn't, and there were other people in the living room. I took a deep breath and opened the door.
My mom was sitting on a couch, and she gestured for me to sit next to her. A man sat in a reclining chair watching the TV, a woman over at the dining table reading a book, and Orianne was playing with little matchbox cars on the carpeted floor. I went and sat next to my mom, setting my bag on the floor in front of the couch. My mom took my boots and set them in the kitchen before seating herself next to me again.
"So this your daughter?" The man asked.
"Yes," Mom said, "this is Lyric."
"Well, hello, Lyric. I'm your mother's brother Liam. That over there is my wife, Mika. That's my daughter, Orianne. And my son Ben is upstairs in his room with his friend. His friend's staying over for the next couple days while his parents are out of town." The man told me. So the boy I met upstairs was either my cousin or my cousin's friend.
I pulled my phone out of my bag. More texts and missed calls. I sighed and started to look through the text messages first. Jay kept asking where I was, if I was okay. Lydia and Maddie were asking what had happened and if I was okay. And Kiernan was asking if I was okay. I noticed that I had a voicemail. I put my phone to my ear and listened to it.
"Lyric, please, stop hiding." It was from Kiernan. His voice sounded desperate. "We're all so worried about you. None of us can find you, and your brother is seriously freaking out." He didn't speak for a few moments.
"I'm sorry, Lyric. I'm sorry that I upset you." He said quietly. Tears started streaming down my face, and Mom looked at me in concern. "I didn't tell them, even though you told them to ask me, I figured you should decide how much they know. It's your brother, after all, and I'm not as close to Lydia as you are your brother. But please Lyric, we need to talk about this. I'm so sorry, I really am, but I really think we do need to talk." At that point, I dropped my phone, accidentally hitting the speaker button in the process. My phone landed in my lap, and everyone in the room could hear the last thing he said before he ended the voicemail.
"Please come home." It wasn't what he said, it was the way he said it. His voice sounded broken and desperate, and it sounded like he may have been crying, too. I started crying even harder, and Mom held me, picking up my phone and turning it off, setting it in my bag.
"That was Kiernan?" Mom asked. I nodded. "And whatever happened has something to do with him?" I nodded again.
A few minutes later, she asked "Do you want to talk about it?" I shook my head violently. "Alright, baby." She hadn't called me that in years. She used to call me baby whenever I got hurt, or I was crying after a nightmare.
After crying for who knows how long, I sat up straight and wiped away the last of the tears. "Do you feel a little better now?" Mom asked me.
"A little." I said. My voice was hoarse from crying.
"Why don't we go upstairs and talk?" Mom asked. I nodded and she grabbed my bag. "I'll see you guys in the morning." She told her brother and his family.
"Night!" Orianne called.
"Good night, Orianne." Mom said warmly.
We went back upstairs and into a room. By the looks of it, it was a spare room. There was a small bed in the center of the back wall, a dresser to one side, an acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner, and a window looking out over the long dirt road that led to the farm.
Mom set down my bag and laid down next to me against the pillows. "It's his shirt." She said. It was a statement, not a question. I didn't look at her. "Oh, baby." She put an arm around me and I laid my head on her shoulder.
"Talk to me, Lyric. Why does this upset you so much? Don't you like him?" Mom asked.
"I... I don't know. Jay said he thought I did last night when I was dancing with him. I denied it, of course, but... And then he was just being so nice. Offered to get me an air mattress, let me stay in his room so no one bothered me after I left the party, gave me a shirt to wear when I forgot my pajamas." I said. I pulled at a button on the shirt and dropped it. My voice dropped to a whisper. "We were just talking, he asked if I was going to try and sleep so he wouldn't make much noise if I was going to go to sleep. I told him I wasn't very tired, and then he started to do my hair. We were only talking." I looked up at mom, desperately wanting her to believe me.
"Lyric, I trust you, baby." She told me. I looked back down at the shirt and continued.
"He took down my hair after he did it, and he put it to the side. I started to ask what he was doing this time," I said, playing with a button on the shirt, "when he kissed my neck. He kissed my neck a couple more times, and then he turned my head and kissed me. And... And I kissed him back. He turned me to face him and pulled me into his lap. He told me I looked goddamn sexy in his shirt, and then he kissed me again."
"And you slept with him." Mom said. A tear rolled down my cheek.
"I woke up in the middle of the night. Threw on clothes, grabbed my dance bag, keys, phone, helmet, and went out the window." I said.
"Window?" Mom asked.
"I never locked my window after I opened it the other door. I went out Kiernan's window, climbed across the oak, and went in my window. I ended sitting on the floor and just kinda staring until my alarm went off. I wasn't going to miss dance, so I got ready, and went in an hour early. Maddie told them when she saw me, so when dance ended, they were in the lobby. I kinda hightailed it outta there and back home. I went up to my room and fell asleep for awhile, and then I came here." I explained.
"Lyric, I have a question." Mom said.
"Shoot." I told her.
"Are you upset that you slept with Kiernan? Or are you afraid of your feelings for him?" She asked. I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest. Mom sat up next to me. I wouldn't look at her. "That's what I thought." I buried my face in my knees.
"Lyric, baby, it's okay to feel the way you do. It's okay to like him. Hell, it's okay to love him. You don't need to be afraid of that. Love is a wonderful thing. But you shouldn't lock away all your feelings and hope they go away. They won't." She told me.
"I can't love." I said.
"Yes, you can, Lyric." She told me gently. I lifted my head and looked at her.
"No, you don't get it. I can't love. How can I? How can I love when love can break someone so completely that they're nothing but a bitter shell full of hate that despises the world around them?" I asked.
"Lyric, you are not your father, and you never will be." She told me.
"That's not what I'm afraid of. I know I don't have it in me to ever be like that." I said.
"Then what are you afraid of?" She asked.
"Mom, I'm afraid of doing that to someone." I said, a tear rolling down my face.
"Oh, Lyric, you are not your mother, either. You are your own person, and if I do say so myself, you are much different than either of them ever were." Mom told me. "And I know you. You would never just leave someone like that with no explanation." She hugged me and I hugged her back.
"Auntie! There's more people for you at the door!" Orianne called up the stairs. I got up and looked out the window. Jay's car sat in the driveway. I couldn't tell if he had brought anyone because I couldn't see onto the porch.
"Mom, you called him?" I asked. I felt betrayed. I had told her not to. She got up and looked out the window. She had a very confused look on her face.
"I swear to the gods that I did not call your brother. But I better go downstairs and see him." She said. The feeling of betrayal went away. She wouldn't lie to me about something like that. I followed her downstairs, but stayed in the living room when she went in the kitchen. Orianne was back to her cars, Mika was looking curiously into the kitchen, and Liam was looking out the window at Jay's car.
"Jay, what are you doing here?" I heard Mom ask.
"We looked all over town, everywhere. And her bike was gone, too. The only other logical choice was here." Jay answered.
"Well, take off your shoes, all of you, and leave them by the door." Mom said.
"Dammit." I swore. Jay wasn't alone.
"That's a bad word." Orianne told me accusingly.
"Sorry." I said, sitting down beside her. Moments later, Mom entered the living room, Jay and my friends following her. He brought all three of them.
Noting my discomfort, Liam stood and spoke. "I suppose introductions are in order. I'm Liam Tucker, owner of this fine farm. That's my wife Mika, my daughter Orianne, and my son Ben is upstairs with his friend Kyle, who happens to be staying for a couple of days. Nice to see you again, Jay, I haven't seen you in a couple years. And the rest of you are?"
"I'm Maddie Landon, and they're Lydia and Kiernan Ashton." Maddie said quickly.
At that moment, Jay seemed to finally realize what I was wearing. I could tell something clicked in his mind. "Oh. My. God." He said.
"Did you just say 'God' in another language?" Maddie asked. Jay didn't answer. He was staring at me.
"You... You…" His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
"Jay, if I wanted to talk, I would've talked at the studio. Hell, I would've picked up the phone the moment I saw all those missed calls from the middle of the night." I said.
"Lee, we were worried sick about you. Do you know how worried I was that you could've gotten into an accident and gotten seriously hurt? Not to mention how upset you are in the first place?" Jay asked.
I stood up. "I really don't want to talk, Jay." I turned and walked out of the room, into the little hallway. I went upstairs and towards the room I had been in previously. Jay followed and caught up to me at the top of the stairs, grabbing my wrist.
"Lee, you can't just run away from your problems. Talk to me. Please." Jay said.
"I can't do this right now, okay? I just had a nice long heart to heart with Mom and I really need some alone time." I told Jay.
"Lyric, we came all this way just to make sure that you were okay. The least you can do is talk to us, tell us what's going on!" Jay shouted.
"Like I said before, if you want to know so bad, go ask Kiernan! I am not in the mood to talk!" I shouted back.
"He won't say a thing, Lyric! He said it's not his place, and you have to tell us if we want to know!" Jay yelled. Our voices were loud enough that everyone in the house could probably hear us. Though none of them could speak Ancient Greek, thank god.
"You want to know so bad?" I screamed. "Fine! I slept with Kiernan last night after the party and I've been hiding because I can't deal with it! I can't deal with these feelings and I'm afraid! You want to know what I'm afraid of, Jay? I'm afraid of turning into my mother, so damn afraid of hurting the people I love! My own parents were so damn screwed over by love that I'm afraid of it! I'm afraid, Jay!"
I started crying. A door opened down the hall, and someone came out, but my back was to them. "What's with all the yelling?" A voice asked. Jay and I both ignored the guy.
"Lee, you shouldn't be afraid. You shouldn't have had to deal with the aftermath of what happened to your parents, and you shouldn't have to be afraid the way you are. You aren't either of them, and that's not going to happen to you. You are a completely different person than that." Jay told me softly.
"Don't tell them, Jay. They can guess, they might even have already figured it out, probably, but just don't tell them, okay?" I asked. "And don't send anyone up here to talk. I don't want to talk."
"Alright. I won't. I can't promise they won't come up here on their own, though." Jay said.
"Thank you." I said quietly. I went into the bedroom and locked the doors behind me. I laid down on the bed, and closed my eyes, listening to the patter of rain against the window.
Chapter Nine is up!
So, who knows where I got some of the names for Lyric's family members from? It is absolutely one of my most favorite novels. Here's a hint: I actually got the names for Kiernan (he's not a family member, but I really liked that name for a main-ish character), Orianne, and Mika from the same novel.
Thank you to anyone who has reviewed, followed, or favorited! You are not inclined to do any of those things if you do not wish, but it would be much appreciated! I send my love to all of you!