Chapter 4 Bad Blood...

A strange fear is beginning to grow inside Anna as she looked at her son.

"The auntie is fine, Ma. Now let go." Steven slapped her hands away from him.

She looked at her son and regretted the moment she asked him for a helping hand. In her heart of hearts, she knows he was lying to her. He couldn't even look her in the eyes. Acting shifty, he goes and sits in a corner table.

It is the clock radio and the instant news flash that waken Shamane, fast and ruthless.

"... The body of a woman in her early fifties found beside the road en route to Springbok. The driver of the truck is still missing."

She is out of her chair. A couple of strides and she was in the bathroom.

Twenty minutes and an attempted attitude of positive thinking that didn't last; she was fully dressed as she leaves the house. Her father is still snoring away on the living room floor. She runs directly to the police station.

"Captain Lewis," she asked at reception.

"Do you have an appointment?" the constable queries.

"No," Shamane snapped.

"I am sorry, miss. The captain is extremely busy. We had a murder last night and that takes..."

Not waiting for him to finish his sentence, she passed him going down the long hall.

"Stop that woman," he yelled loud and angry. Giving chase, the constable run her into the floor. Forcefully grabbing her arm behind her back, he restrained and handcuffed her.

"Get up," he ordered.

Shamane is shaken and pale when pulled onto her feet. The young constable dragged her back to reception. He pushed her into a chair.

"Don't move," he ordered. He looked into her changeable eyes, surprise at the violence that emanated from her body. The hair in the back of neck rise, he was further shaken when he heard his superior behind him. He also realized for the life of him he couldn't looked away from her changing eyes which hold him trapped in limbo.

"Shamane"

Detective Peter Lewis, only son of Captain Harry Lewis, look at the situation before him, and then he moved to uncuffed her. He seems puzzled.

"What is going on, Shamane?"

"I need to see your father."

"Why? What happened?"

"The news...the woman beside the road, I think she is my mother." Her voice grows hoarse with suppressed tension.

Peter look into her eyes. He can never get used to the various reflections in her eyes.

"Wait here, Shamane. I will go and find my father." He is a police officer on duty now.

She watches him disappeared down the hall. Her shoulder and wrists still hurting that discomfort is nothing compare to the tense worry she has for her mother.

As the minute's past, a seed of guilt is taking route inside her heavy chest. She stands and circled around in reception from time to time, she noticed the constable watching her nervously.

The office door closed behind them. The imposing law officer stands beside her. For a moment, she is puzzled as to what she was doing there. It seemed somehow wrong to ask him for help. The thought is fleeting.

"Sit down, Shamane."

"I am sorry for the commotion I created. The news freaked me out, sir."

"Talk to me about yesterday. What made you assume the woman on the news is your mother?"

She looks completely blanked for a moment. She stands and prowls the office. At last, she stops in front of the window.

"I was out jogging as usual. When I came back, mom told me she was leaving father."

"Why?" Captain Lewis watched her intently.

"I don't know. They argued about something."

"You must have an idea why they argued. It's well known how close you and your mother are. That's why it is a natural assumption for me to deduct that you know your mother best, Shamane."

She rubs her temples but the tension only seemed to increase.

"I don't know, sir. She just said she was leaving. I encourage her to go. In addition, she did. Now she is dead."

"With whom did she leave?"

"Steven van Dyke."

"Why him"

"Mom arranged it. I didn't feel comfortable with him. Nevertheless, she said she would be okay. I need to know, the woman beside the road, was she my mother?"

Captain Harry Lewis comes to stand beside her. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

"The woman was badly burned but all indications showed her to be your mother. I am sorry, my dear."

"No," she said sharply. There is a sudden wildness in her eyes. "It's my fault," she whispered in a hallowed voice.

"Shamane," Harry pulled her into his arms. He feels the shudders going through her body.

"One touch, one whisper...one kiss, for eternity."

She speaks the words so softly it barely registers in her mind.

"What did you say?" Harry asked.

"I have to tell my father." She pulls away from him. She turns and leaves. Both men watched her go.

Peter dialled a couple of numbers to track down her brothers. He told them to go home. The file his father left; he takes it to begin to work.

Eric has a nasty hangover his hands shaking badly when he tries to make a cup of coffee. Eugene entered the kitchen through the back door. He looked tired from his long trip.

"What is going on, father?"

"I want to know too." Edmund entered via the living room.

Eric shivers with last night's withdrawals. He badly needed a drink.

"What are you talking about?"

"Captain Lewis ordered us home," Edmund says, looking out the kitchen window. "Here he is now and Shamane is with him. Where is mom?"

The three men sit around the table, watching and waiting. Eric discovered his mind is numbed. He can't form a coherent thought.

Eugene watches his sister with the usual look of anger, knowing in his heart he can't stand the sight of her. She always managed to make him feel inferior.

Edmund is seriously worried. He knows his sister never willingly mixed with the police, to her means outsiders. Something must have happened.

Where was his mother?

Shamane enter than goes directly to her bedroom. She locks the door behind her, circling the bedroom. She feels extremely cold inside her heart the darkness in her mind about to consume her when the knock on the door startled her back into reality.

"Sis, it's me. Open up."

"Go away, Edmund. I want to be alone."

"Find me later, please."

"I promise."

Shamane stand in front of her mirror. Her changeable eyes neither amber nor green. They have darkness within its depths that shocked her.

The sense of loss and anger fuel her body, her mind, her very essence, with strength, sending her on a mental path to searched for answers she know is out there somewhere. She just has to get behind the wall in her mind.

She allows herself to be pulled into the depths of her mind's darkness. She feels herself falling before she balanced herself. Everything is quiet within her.

Her mind was black before she very slowly realized she has a glimmer of hope within the darkness. The thoughts circling her mind so tangible, she lost the meaning but not the knowledge.

She blinked, looking deeply into the mirror, searching her own eyes, knowing the truth about her mother beyond any doubt. She smiled.

"You are not dead, Joyce Markovich Hoffman. You have started the game without me. I will find you and myself. That's a promise, mom."

Benjamin Heyman stops his car in front of the heavy gates.

For the longest time, he looks at the house, the place where he had grown-up. In this house, he had known abusiveness from his father and love from his mother.

Two important people in his life, who's death robbed him of a future and caused him to be sentenced to prison.

He is a hard man now and still undecided whether he wants to know the truth about his family. There were much-unanswered questions. Still troubled about earlier, for he has gambled and won someone he has no right to owned. Shamane Hoffman is no one's prize; but he will keep his end of the agreement for the simple reason of protecting her from her father. Maybe by helping her he might understand his own past.

Looking at the house, the old place cast in shadows the trees heavy with untamed branches. Getting out, he walks towards the gates the place is lock securely. Without thinking twice, he jumped the fence. The whole yards were a weed forest.

Just walking around, he spotted the old cottage hidden completely in a dense weed forest his troubled eyes land on the old tree house the ladder hanging. On impulse, he climbed into the tree. Midway he froze when he hears the cork of a shotgun being ready.

"Move any further and you will fall from that tree, dead," said a gravel serious voice.

Benjamin climbs down on the ground; he turns and stands his full height, glaring at the stranger.

"Who are you?" the man asked with the shotgun still pointed.

"Benjamin Heyman," come the short response.

"I am Derek." The older man dropped his shotgun. " You hired me via your lawyers to look after this place and keep intruders out."

Benjamin nod put his hands in his pocket he turns and walk away. He goes around the house and out the back gates.

Derek watches him from the tree house, walking towards the graveyard. Never one to judge a man at first sight, but the owner of this house is clearly different. He is one cold and apparently dangerous man. Those eyes were the iciest he has seen in a long time.

Benjamin sits against the old tree in the graveyard. He looks at the double graves of his parents this was the man and woman that brought him into the world the two people who also destroyed whatever goodness left inside of him.

He allowed no one to touch his heart in the last twenty years. He allowed coldness to enter his soul sometimes the very iciness frightened him.

Grim faced, he set the memories free allowing the past to wander through his mind. Bitterness settled in the lines around his mouth and eyes. His first memory of his parents' secret lies; he was just five years old. He still remembered clearly waking during the night. Curious, he went to investigate the strange noises.

Puzzled at first, then afraid when he realized his father was beating his mother. Frightened but unable to move, he stood in the door and watched what happened.

That very scene grew a familiar picture over the years. When he was older, he tried to resist his father. His show of courage enraged the older man and made him vicious, especially when he turned on him.

The beatings he managed, the days in the attic torture, with no food and barely enough water. He didn't mind as long as his mother was safe. Her safety was an illusion.

Still very much troubled by his past, he wiped his hand over his face the memories won't vanish as usual. They were too powerful tonight. He winced liked so many times in the past, about how long it took him before he discovered the much more dangerous truth. It was that discovery that drove him mad on his seventeenth's birthday. Having to find out your father was prostituting your mother and when she didn't comply with his orders, she had to be disciplined severely.

Coming home from school and discovering the worse about his parents, really shocked him to the core. He instantly realized he had to handle the consequences on behalf of his mother. She could barely move when he entered the bedroom.

When she realized he was in her room, she called him closer and for the first time spoken about the trap that held her captive. He gently helped her onto the bed. She was in much pain, it was obvious.