Page 16 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

Autumn didn’t necessarily want to think about why a person would rent a room for an hour, but that was what the sign in the window advertised.

But it also offered longer-term stays apparently, because the woman she was looking for lived here.

She stepped into the dank lobby, the smell of cigarettes and mildew hitting her nose, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low lighting.

An old man sat, hunched over at a desk against the far wall, reading a magazine, a cigarette hanging from his lip.

“Hi,” she said as she approached. She waited a moment, but he didn’t look up. “Um, I’m here to see a…resident.”

“Name?” His voice was hoarse, and he reached up, removing the cigarette and stubbing it out in an ashtray in front of him that was already full of old butts.

His fingers were dry and yellowed, and though she didn’t know the man, it pained her to see a human being who was so obviously unhealthy and probably unhappy if the way he’d barked the singular “greeting” at her was any indication.

She smiled, trying to catch his eye and, at the very least, offer some kindness. “Deborah Dunne.”

He used his yellowed finger to travel down a list of names written in handwriting that was indecipherable to Autumn’s eyes, landing on one and picking up the phone.

He pressed a couple of buttons and, a moment later, told the feminine voice on the other end that there was a girl there to see her.

Autumn’s heart pumped harder. The man hung up the phone and pointed toward the singular elevator at the back of the lobby.

“Room four twelve,” he said, picking up the pack of cigarettes next to him and tapping one out.

Autumn took the elevator that smelled like urine and disinfectant to the fourth floor, careful not to touch anything inside the small, dingy car.

For a moment, the scent reminded her of being back in the hospital, only unlike there, here the urine odor was far and away winning the war over whatever cleaner had been used at some point.

The hallway leading to room 412 was dim, the lights buzzing and lowering intermittently. Autumn pulled her purse closer to her body, drawing comfort from the pepper spray she kept inside, mindful that defective wiring was probably the least of any danger she’d confront in this sketchy hall.

She rapped on the door when she came to it, not allowing herself time to back out. She was here, and she was going to see this through, come what may.

The door was pulled open by a bony woman with sharp cheekbones and lank brown hair.

Autumn pulled in a breath, immediately overwhelmed by emotion.

Deborah Dunne. She’d never shared her mother’s name.

The hospital had assigned Autumn a surname when she’d become their ward, and she’d been a Sterling before she was a Clancy.

But although this woman’s eyes were dull and lackluster, Autumn recognized them immediately: she stared at the same ones in the mirror each day.

Autumn’s heart simultaneously rejoiced and grieved.

This human shell of a person was her mother.

She was certain of it. “You’re Deborah Dunne. ”

The woman gave Autumn a suspicious once-over. “I am. What do you want?”

Autumn mustered what she hoped was a disarming smile. The woman’s eyes narrowed with even deeper suspicion. Fail. Well, she was already off to a crummy start, might as well dive right in. “Hi, I’m Autumn Clancy. I believe I’m your daughter.”

Deborah’s face did a number of things, none of which gave Autumn the impression the news delighted her, but then she leaned forward, peering more closely at Autumn.

“What do you want?” The news, apparently, made that moment no different from the previous one, given she repeated the exact same question.

“To ask you a few questions,” Autumn said.

“That’s all.” She might have given an alternate answer had the question been asked differently, but it wasn’t.

To know you. She gave herself a heartbeat, two, of disappointment, not delving into the depth of it right then.

That was for later, perhaps to process with Bill or maybe alone.

But she acknowledged it so she could temporarily tuck it away.

The woman gave one long-suffering sigh but stepped back, opening the door wider and allowing Autumn entrance.

The room was just as neat and tidy as she’d expected it to be based on the woman’s appearance, which was to say it was an abysmal wreck.

Autumn gingerly picked up some form of undergarment on the back of the wooden chair near the bed, started to wipe at the crustiness on the seat, thought better of touching it with her bare skin, and sat down.

Deborah sat on the bed, drawing one leg beneath her and peering at Autumn again for several long moments as Autumn peered back.

Upon closer inspection, she recognized her own cheekbones and the shape of her top lip.

Perhaps Deborah did too, because her next comment was, “Huh. Yeah. I see it. Hold on.” She stood, walking to a dresser and opening the top drawer.

She took a pile of papers out, riffling through them, all the while mumbling what sounded like, “Thought it was in here.” After searching deeply in another drawer, she paused and looked at whatever was in her hand.

She walked back toward Autumn, holding out what looked like an old, weathered picture. “That’s me.”

Autumn took it from her and stared at it as Deborah sat back on the bed.

It was Deborah, only much younger, a brightness in her eyes that definitely wasn’t there now, her skin smooth and flawless, hair half up and half down, coincidentally the same way Autumn was wearing her hair now.

She looked even more like Autumn in this picture, and a part of her wanted to ask if she could keep it, but some deeper part knew instinctively that it meant more to this person than Autumn herself did.

The tangible reminder, perhaps, that she hadn’t always been an emotionally void old shrew.

She handed it back. Deborah stared at it with a wistful look, reinforcing Autumn’s assumption from a moment before.

“I spent my first fourteen years at Mercy Hospital with all the other ADHM babies,” Autumn said, though Deborah hadn’t asked and likely wasn’t all too interested. She wasn’t sure of another way to start the conversation though, so she started there.

Deborah bit at her nail for a moment but then shook her head.

“No. I didn’t take any Lucy in the Sky. I almost did, but he slapped me right before I was about to inject it.

” She shrugged. “It was his stash, the dude I was with at the time, and he flipped when he saw me about to use it. He smacked me good and hard, and I was seeing stars for the next few days. I went to the free clinic about it. They told me I had a concussion, and I was pregnant too.”

Confusion overtook Autumn. “Wait…you didn’t take it. Ever?”

“Not the hard stuff. Not while I was pregnant.” Deborah looked away as though considering.

“Just the thought of it made me feel like pukin’.

It was the damnedest thing. Maybe I should have kept on getting pregnant.

Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here.” She waved her arm around the sad, dingy room with stains on the exposed bedding Autumn refused to consider.

“How is that possible though? I was diagnosed as an ADHM baby.” I was sick for the first fourteen years of my life.

“Couldn’t tell you. Maybe the hospital staff looked at me and assumed.”

Autumn’s gaze flitted over her. The sores on her pallid skin, the old track marks on her arms. The way she kept itching and twitching. If she looked even remotely like this twenty-four years before, Autumn might have assumed the same thing. “The man who slapped you, he was…my father?”

Deborah shrugged. “Who knows.” She tilted her head, studying her again. “You look a little like him in the chin. Pointy little thing. Stubborn.” She paused, her shoulders dropping. “Mean. But suppose he woulda been that with any kinda chin, because you don’t seem mean.”

They were both quiet for a minute. Deborah’s eyes kept flickering toward the dresser as she scratched at her arms, making Autumn think there was something in it beckoning to her. Autumn waited for the woman to ask her something. Anything. But she remained distracted by the drawer.

She stood shakily, giving Deborah the only smile she could muster. “Do you, um, need some food? I could—”

“Money would be good.”

“For food?”

“Mm-hmm.” More scratching. A twitch and then another.

Autumn dug in her purse, taking out two twenties and placing them on the table. She knew this money wouldn’t be used for food, but maybe even a small amount of generosity—kindness—would change…something. Deborah just stared.

“I appreciate the time. I…ah, I’ll check in from time to time?” Autumn offered awkwardly.

Deborah waved her hand in the air, dismissive. “Don’t bother. But if you want to drop some money in the mail now and again, I won’t say no.”

“Oh. Ah, well, I’ll see what I can do,” Autumn mumbled.

The last thing she wanted was to support this woman’s bad habits, but she was also her mother.

A mother who doesn’t give a damn that you exist and never did.

She wanted to lecture the woman. She wanted to spit at least a few ugly words at her, but as she stood there looking at the sad shell of a human, she had a feeling more than anything, the woman needed…

a hug. Whether she realized it or not. And though she had hurt her, Autumn stepped around the side of the bed, bending down and taking Deborah in her arms.

Her birth mother tensed and then went kind of slack but didn’t move as Autumn held the embrace. When she stepped back, Deborah was looking up at her, blinking with surprise.