13. Sebastian

13

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian was stunned. It was more likely he'd fallen asleep under the tree and this was a dream or nightmare than his mom had actually shown up. He'd never imagined he'd see her again.

But there Samantha Storm stood. Was she going to come over or just gawk from afar? Sebastian certainly wasn't going to her.

"That's your mom?" James asked in disbelief, stepping partially in front of Sebastian as if trying to shield him.

"The one and only," Sebastian said dryly.

Hazel came up beside them. "She better be here to help."

James snorted. "Don't count on it."

Now that three people were staring at her, Samantha seemed to decide it was time to approach. Sebastian didn't get off the ground. He wasn't sure if he could. He'd been half-ready to face his mom over the phone but after her not answering repeatedly, he'd begun to worry he'd never hear from her again.

He hadn't been prepared for this.

His mom walked toward him like she was trying to act casual, her face carefully neutral. However, the death grip on her handbag gave away her nerves. She didn't acknowledge James or Hazel as she looked down at Sebastian sitting in the dirt. "Sebastian."

What a greeting. Totally worthy of twelve years apart.

Sebastian stood. He was a full head taller than his mother now. He turned to James. "You might want to check if hell froze over."

James blinked at him, his grumpy expression cracking to show a hint of amusement.

Sebastian turned back to his mom. "Or maybe the world really is ending. I can't think why else you'd be here."

She took a breath like she was trying to calm herself. "Now's not the time for jokes, Sebastian."

"It's always the time for jokes," he insisted like the contrary child he'd always been.

His mom sighed, making a show of her exhaustion. She looked old. Then again, Sebastian supposed he did too, compared to the last time they'd been face to face. Samantha had always dyed her hair a dark auburn, so she didn't show her age through any grays. But she had more lines around her face and something about the way she was dressed didn't match with what Sebastian remembered.

There was a very long, awkward moment where no one spoke. Hazel turned away and went back to work. Sebastian didn't blame her. He wouldn't mind avoiding this too.

"I take it you're here to talk about the veins?" Sebastian asked.

His mom gasped, looking frantically between him and James. Right. She didn't know anyone else knew the family secret.

"He knows. It's fine." Sebastian waved a careless hand. "He saved me from Storm House, actually. Mom, meet James Gray, my boyfriend."

"James…Gray?" she muttered more to herself than anyone. "Boyfriend?"

Sebastian cocked his head. "Yeah. You knew I was bi, right? Or maybe not. I never came out to you. "

Samantha's expression turned scolding. "I don't care that you're bi. I care that he knows . What do you mean he saved you? What did you do, Sebastian?"

"What did he do?" James took a step forward. "What about what you did?"

Sebastian expected his mom to deny she'd done anything. Instead, she took a nervous step backward, giving Sebastian a guilty look.

She adjusted her grip on her handbag. "There's a lot to discuss. Why don't we go somewhere less public?"

Sebastian looped his arm through James's. "My house is right around the corner."

He led them to the duplex, James saying a hasty goodbye to Hazel, who offered a sympathetic frown.

Sebastian unlocked the front door and ushered his mom inside. She seemed shell-shocked, looking around the bare living room like she'd never seen the inside of a house before.

Her eyes landed on the box of old papers on the table. "This is from Storm House."

"Yep." Sebastian sat beside the box, James at his side.

His mom sat opposite them. "How are you here?" she asked, tone imploring.

Sebastian ignored her. He wasn't handing out information for free. "How's Kira?"

Samantha's hands tightened on her handbag. "Good. Far away from here."

"Oh well, as long as she's safe."

Samantha closed her eyes. "Sebastian, please."

"Please, what? Pretend you didn't sacrifice me for her? I know you were never planning on having to own up to it since I only found out what you'd been doing all my life once I was trapped and unable to reach you."

"You're right. I never wanted to face this. How could I? How could I ever look at you again after what I did? "

Sebastian swallowed a lump in his throat. "You're looking at me now."

"Yes." She set her bag aside and folded her hands in front of her.

"Why didn't you answer my letters?" Sebastian choked on the words. Fuck, this hurt. He hadn't planned to ask that. It just came out. He didn't want to relive her rejection, but now that he was sitting across from his mother, he had to know.

"I couldn't face my own guilt." Samantha made a pained sound, looking away from him. "You have to understand. I didn't do this because I wanted to. What would you have done if you found out your child was damned to live a cursed life?"

"Not curse another child, that's for sure," James cut in, stern and unforgiving.

Samantha fixed a hollow gaze on James. "I know it wasn't right, but I couldn't see past protecting my kid."

"And I wasn't your kid?"

Samantha looked at the table.

"Fine, don't answer." Sebastian sat up straighter. "You've already made it perfectly clear you didn't want me. Whatever, it's in the past. But it doesn't explain why you ignored me after the deed was done and I was trapped. Why not tell me where you last saw Selma's spell? Why not help me at all? You knew I was alone. For years."

A tear fell down Samantha's cheek, but Sebastian refused to care. "What I did was horrible. I know. I couldn't live with the reality of it after Stephen died. I was sorry I did what I did, but there was no taking it back."

"But you made it worse," James said. "You could have visited Sebastian. Helped him. You could have changed his imprisonment and made it bearable. Hell, you could have done that for your brother like your mother did for your father. You didn't have to abandon either of them. "

"I know," Samantha pleaded, even as she glared at James for voicing truths she clearly didn't like looking at. "I did the wrong thing at every turn. But the only way I could act like it was worth it was if I forgot about Storm House."

"You're selfish," Sebastian said.

"I am." She nodded grimly like this was something she had no control over but accepted. "I chose my own comfort and my daughter's life over everything else. You're entitled to hate me for it."

Sebastian rubbed his eyes, the beginning of a headache pulsing uncomfortably. "That doesn't actually make me feel any better."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it? I'll never make it up to you. I'll never put this right. Not after nearly three decades of choosing to let others suffer so my daughter and I didn't have to."

There was a heavy pause. Sebastian didn't know what to say. The past couldn't be changed. It would always hurt.

James took Sebastian's hand, lacing their fingers together and stroking his thumb lightly over Sebastian's skin. "You can't make things up to Sebastian, but you owe him everything you know about the curse and the veins. You may have come here to find out what was going on to see if the curse would come for your daughter, but you can choose to help. For once."

"You seem to have a lot of opinions on something that has nothing to do with you," Samantha snapped.

"Nothing to do with me?" James's voice turned cold. He ran his free hand through his hair, his gaze cutting to Sebastian. He seemed to reconsider his next words. "We can get to that later. We're not telling you anything until you share everything you know."

Samantha eyed Sebastian like she wasn't taking James's word for anything .

Sebastian tried to ignore the growing ache in his head. Fuck he was tired. Of this and everything he had to deal with. "If you want to find out what's happening with the curse, it's the only way."

"I don't see how telling you about the veins will help." Frustration leaked into Samantha's tone. "Who's out at Storm House now? I assume you found Selma's spell and trapped someone."

"Not all of us will damn innocent people to save ourselves, Mom. You don't need to understand how talking to me will help. You just have to do it. Or would you rather keep secrets on the off chance that revealing them will hurt you and Kira? Are you going to make the same choice you supposedly regret? Or will you do the right thing this time?"

After a long pause, she said, "What do you want to know exactly? I assume Stephen told you everything."

"Why don't we compare notes and check? He might have missed some things, seeing as he was dying." Sebastian had a lot of anger for Stephen after he died, but he'd loved his uncle too. His mom's flinch at the blunt reminder of Stephen's death gave him a stab of guilt for using it as a weapon. He shook it off. "Tell me everything your dad told you about how the imbalance started and what his father and Nelson did."

Samantha ran a hand through her hair. "He was only little when it all happened and didn't tell Stephen or me anything until he was dying. I don't know?—"

"Mom, please."

She gave Sebastian a barely-there nod. "Okay. Apparently, Sullivan and Selma weren't as secretive about things as my father was when Stephen and I were growing up. We didn't know about the curse, but everyone in the generations before us did. The whole family knew the secret back then. My father knew what was coming for him well ahead of time. My mother knew too. But they decided not to tell my brother and me. We weren't there for the initial disaster, so we might not understand and therefore try to escape our duty, or so their justification went."

"And learning the secret never trapped anyone?" Sebastian asked.

Samantha gave him a confused look. "No. Selma told who she wanted, and they were prevented from telling anyone else by the secret-binding. She died not long after my father and mother were married." She turned to James, her gaze sharpening. "How did you find out? Did you break the secret-binding and get trapped?"

James didn't respond.

"Right. You two aren't telling me anything." Samantha turned back to Sebastian. "Sullivan and Nelson were scientists. They bought the property to study the veins. Nelson was always confident veins could be used as an energy source. He wanted to power the house with them as some sort of experiment. The brothers filled my father's young mind with all their ideas, and even decades later, he spoke highly of their intellect."

Sebastian leaned forward, feeling like the explanation he needed was just out of reach. "If they were scientists, why was there no information on the veins at Storm House? Wouldn't they have kept records? I never found anything technical."

"Nelson took a lot of it when he left. The rest Sullivan burned, according to my father." Samantha shrugged as if the burned records didn't matter. "Sullivan—my grandfather—was never secret-bound, so he could have told my brother and me everything just as Selma had done before him, but when Dad decided we shouldn't know in case we tried to escape our duty, Grandpa Sullivan got rid of anything that might hint at the problem so there would be no stumbling across the truth."

"What were they doing to the veins when they created the imbalance?" Sebastian fixed his mom with a hard stare. "Was it an experiment trying to extract power? Did they take energy out?"

Samantha looked surprised. "It was an experiment, yes. Dad said he'd been excited and wanted to watch, but they wouldn't let him. He was only six."

Sebastian didn't really care about the young Simon Storm right now. "What did they do?"

"They didn't take energy," Samantha said. "They weren't able to harness the raw power at all. They took a piece of the vein itself."