Hyde by Tara Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

upon the
room. It was lifted as quickly as was set, "Not exactly but
yes."
    “So you will take a bit of my blood and you will
work on the elixir my father was trying to perfect? It will cure
me?” She asked again watching his eyes intently.
    He nodded not flashing even a slight hesitation,
“Precisely.”
    “Your meal my dear girl.” Roland interrupted
carrying the tray to her lap.
    “I will see myself out Roland,” Marcus winked at
her walking from the room.
    She looked at the tray and then Roland, “How did
you know?”
    He chuckled, “Oh trust me, your father hasn’t
cooked a meal in the seventy-five years he and I have known one
another. I made this for you as a small girl.”
    She looked at the chocolate chip pancakes with
happy and angry faces and frowned, “Why don’t I remember you?”
    “We were never to meet you and I.”
    “Why?”
    He sighed, “Can't we just leave it at that?”
    She nodded, “For now.”
    She watched as he left as silently as he
entered, as always.
    She looked at the phone beside her bed and
called out to him, “Roland wait, I want to call that police
officer.”
    After a second he poked his aged face back in,
“The young officer from the hospital, his name was Andrew
Paulson?”
    She nodded, “Yes.”
    He nodded leaving again and shouted at her from
the hall, “I will find the number and arrange for him to come right
away.”
    "No I want to call. Please."
    She picked at her angry faced pancake,
remembering how she had always eaten it first. She always wanted
the anger gone first. It had always made her parents laugh. She
remembered the pancake but never her parents making them, they just
brought them in for her. She thought back at all the meals,
realizing every meal was that way. She wondered what Roland could
have done in his past that would warrant treatment such as he had
endured. He had never eaten with her family, she had never even
seen him until he found her in the forest.
    The pancake tasted perfect, she savored the
memory they brought. She remembered her parent's faces, together
they had seemed happy. She remembered her mother’s face. So
beautiful. Raven black hair, stark white skin with subtle freckles,
grey eyes and a bow mouth. She was a tiny woman, shorter than
Hanna. Her mother had looked plain upon first sight but when she
smiled it was as if her heart shaped face exploded beauty. Her
perfectly straight teeth glistened brightly, her eyes sparkled, her
lips remained full even in a smile. Her dark eyebrows framed her
expressive eyes, as if a painter had brushed them on to ensure
every face she made was enhanced.
    She looked at the huge mirror at her bureau
wishing she could see something of her mother in herself. Her thick
strawberry blond hair was her father's, her thin upper lip that
vanished when she smiled was her father's, her honey brown eyes
surrounded by thick black lashes were her father's and her thin
face was also her father's. She looked at herself seeing nothing
but her father.
    She closed her eyes trying to remember what her
mother had looked like right before the accident. She had promised
herself she would never forget her face. It had grown harder to
remember it exactly, as the features faded with the time.
    She remembered her father before he’d grown
sick, she remembered him standing tall and proud smiling at her
when she had graduated. He smiled and yet somehow his face was
still hollow and distant.
    Suddenly her memory of him had become altered,
she saw a something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, regret,
love, and fear. She could see it on his face as plain as the nose
on her face, which was also his.
    Tears welled in her eyes, realizing he had loved
her all along, he had wanted to be with her. He chose her aunt and
uncle to protect her and keep her out of harms way. He sacrificed
the relationship they might have had to ensure she would always be
safe and away from the dangers he possessed.
    Lastly she recalled Rebecca, she felt