AN: This ends chapter 31. For the next 4-5 days I need to focus on Origin ARS as it is a bit behind and I need to get it to move ahead a bit. I will get back to this story either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Chapter 31.3: Blackthorne Enterprises

There are certain expectations that a person might have when it comes to other people. Normally, one might expect a wife-beating, child-raping, meth dealer to live in the cliché trailer park. However, the truth was that such people tend to be opportunistic.

Good old harry did not take his new bride to his courtly single-wide trailer when they were married. No, he moved into the house that Scott’s father built.

It was that humble one story log cabin home on the outskirts of town that had drawn Scott from his gated community. Before he went to see the sheriff, he had to determine the whereabouts and current living conditions of his mother.

The little log cabin house had once been a lovely little home near the forest. There was a small pond not far away where Scott, his sister, and Shara had spent their days playing and occasionally catching frogs among other things.

Scott was no fool, however. He knew that the police had probably staked the place out. Even if they were busy with random monster spawns, they would still try to do their job.

The little dragon poked his head around the corner of the tree he had chosen to hide behind and used his senses to search out the area. If he moved slowly enough, he could usually sense the life of anything, even something that might be trying to hide by normal means. He was not certain whether that was a separate skill or merely a side-effect of his capacity to sense vital essence and convert it into useable mana.

Either way, he had practiced it during his hunts in the deep grass, and it seemed like it might be quite useful here as well. Out in the open world, there were no walls to confuse things.

Scott crawled through the brush, his sense alert, while he made his way around to the back of the house. He never left the wood-line, and he would have been hard to see by normal means.

After he was satisfied that no one was watching from outside, he transformed into his shadow cloud form then drifted down into the dirt. He slipped toward the house, completely unseen by anyone he might have not have noticed during his search.

Once he reached the boundary to his mother’s house he felt a slight pressure. There was some sort of sanctuary field here, a weak one. Scott guessed that she, or perhaps even the asshole she had married, had erected a barrier against random monsters spawning in the area.

Scott slipped into the cellar of the house then drifted up into the walls. Slowly, he worked his way throughout the house. Eventually, he discovered the prey that he sought.

She sat at the kitchen table, her face gaunt, and her eyes haunted. She had an old photo album in hand and it was obvious that she had been crying.

The dark cloud of terror felt distinctly uncomfortable upon witnessing that sight. He had not thought highly of the woman since she had married Harry, much less stuck with him after what he did.

The brown haired woman sighed deeply then pulled a photo out of the album. She held up a lighter and set in on fire before tossing it into a metal bowl at the center of the table. After a moment, she slammed her hands down and closed her eyes hard. Hot tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and she shook her head.

“He had me so fooled… Scott went to jail, and I still believed it when that bastard told me that someone had broken in to the house.”

The terror cloud slipped slowly down into the floor then flowed up behind her. Scott took human form, but said nothing. He merely stared at her, like a cliché horror movie villain, while she continued her monologue.

She took a photo out of the front of her album, it was a picture hidden behind another one. Scott immediately recognized it as a photo of his father and mother, along with Sheriff Ansen and his late wife. They were at the beach. They had big idiot grins on their faces, and his father held up the smallest trout anyone could have possible have ever seen.

“Oh Jericho…” whispered the distraught woman.

“He always did think highly of that stupid little fish, huh?” asked Scott lightly.

She whirled around then stared slack jawed at the black haired apparition behind her. “Wha…?”

“Hello, mother.” said Scott.

“Scott… how?” she asked.

“Did I get in here, do you mean? Does it matter?” he asked her in a slightly cold tone.

“No! No, but… why did you come?”

“There’s an apocalypse outside. Shouldn’t a son check on his mother?” he asked.

“Some mother…” she said before she closed her eyes tightly once more.

“You were once.” said Scott in as much of a comforting tone of voice as he could muster for the woman.

She sighed loudly then shook her head. “I was never much of one… If I was I would have seen what he was doing.”

“I didn’t see either till it was too late. You know what happened afterward.”

“Yeah, yeah I do… I wish I had believed you at the time. It just…”

“You believed what you wanted to because it was easier.” said Scott.

She winced then drew back from him a little. “Have you come to do to me what you did to that bastard?”

“What am I, the ghost of Christmas future? Am I supposed to show you the error of your ways so you can repent?” he asked her in a flat tone.

She snorted. “Like there is anything that I can do to make up for what’s happened.”

“No, you can’t.” he said.

She sighed softly then looked down at her photo album. So much of her life had been a horrible nightmare and she had not even know the truth. Deep down she had suspected, but to be faced with the fact that she had lain beside a man who did such things, and did them to her own daughter. It was too much to bear.

Scott slowly, but confidently, reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You were lied to and manipulated. You believed him. That was a terrible thing, and terrible things happened because of it. Still…”

She looked up to him. “Yes?”

“You can’t make up for the past, but you can try to make things right in the present.”

“How? How can I do that?”

Scott smiled at her. “A change of scenery might help.”

She blinked then tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“The offer to come stay with me still stands. I can’t promise that you’ll be safer there than here, but you probably would be. We could also use a little motherly love around the place.”

“We? You’re living with someone? Is it a girl?” she asked in growing excitement.

Scott laughed. “It’s… something. You’ll have to see it to believe it.”

“I suppose I will. It’d be nice to meet a girlfriend if you have one.” She said with a tentative half-smile.

“You don’t know about the people I’m living with?” he asked her curiously. She should be able to guess. Their faces were plastered all over the news that first day. There were other matters of interest currently, however.

“No, how would I?” she asked.

“No TV?” he asked.

“Been out for about a week. I can’t remember Harry’s pin number and the light bill came due.” she said.

“No one came to ask you about anything?” asked Scott.

“Huh? Well no. Why would they?” she asked.

Scott stared at her for a moment. He was framed for a meth lab explosion and an armed raid on his home, but his own mother had not been contacted for an interview? Did the news casters not even try to contact his next of kin to browbeat her into telling them whatever she might know?

“You never heard about the raid on my house?” he asked her incredulously?

“Oh, that? Sure, Ansen came by to ask if I had seen you and told me about what had happened.”

“What did he say?” Scott asked curiously.

“He told me that you had scared the living hell out of Harry and his no-account brother, and that a bunch of people were trying to claim you were some sort of meth dealer.”

“You sound like he didn’t believe that?” asked Scott.

“According to him none of that story made sense since the wreckage looked wrong. I’ve been worried since then, but I never thought you would do anything like that either.” She said.

Scott nodded. That was good to know. If Ansen had his doubts then maybe the plan that he had concocted might have a higher chance of working out. “That’s good to know.”

“I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.” she said.

“Sorry, I was dead for a while.”

“Say what? Oh, you mean your service was out.” she asked, her eyes wide in surprise.

“No.” he said seriously.

She blinked at him then shook her head from one side to the other. She had thought that he was joking, but he had been so serious when he had said it! Sure, she had heard stories before the lights went out, but she had just thought people were making things up. “You… died?”

“I got over it.” said Scott.

She stared at him hard for a moment. He smiled in return. She was going to have to make a few adjustments in her world view soon, it seemed.