Covet (Clann)

it…serious?”
    “Serious enough that he asked me to marry him at the beginning of our senior year.”
    “But you didn’t because…you met my dad?”
    She shook her head. “I told Sam I couldn’t marry him months before I ever met your father. I didn’t even want to be in the Clann, much less married to its future leader, no matter how much I cared for Sam. So we broke up.”
    “And then you met Dad and ran off with him.”
    She nodded.
    “Did you really love Dad? Or was it just because he was a vampire?”
    She looked at me then. “Oh Savannah. Not everything’s so cut and dried. I think, looking back now, that it was probably a little of everything. Michael was so handsome, and dangerous, and yet so polite and protective of me. It was easy to fall for him. The fact that loving him finally gave me the perfect way out of the Clann just added to my feelings for him.”
    “I thought anyone who wanted out of the Clann could leave anytime.” She made it sound like some kind of gang or something.
    “They can…if they don’t have a mother like mine. Mom was determined to keep me in the Clann as long as she could. She always thought I’d change my feelings about our abilities, that I’d come around eventually and take up my training again.”
    “But then the Clann found out about you and Dad and kicked you out.”
    “Yes. Unfortunately my plan backfired a little. I never thought they’d blame Mom for my choices and kick her out, too.”
    I was starting to get why she’d run away from Jacksonville with Dad for years and come back only because of me. And why she’d chosen a sales rep job that kept her on the road so much of the year.
    She wasn’t just running away from Jacksonville or the Clann here, or avoiding causing me to feel the bloodlust around her. She was trying to run away from Sam Coleman and her past, too.
    I couldn’t blame her for that. If I thought leaving Jacksonville would really help me forget all my mistakes, I would run away from home so far and so fast and to heck with what the vamp council wanted.
    Unfortunately I wasn’t as good at living in denial as Mom was. No matter how far away from this town I ever managed to get, I would never escape the reflection in my mirror or the memories of the choices I had made.
    But if running away made Mom happy, then that was what she should do. At the very least, she’d be safer away from the Clann headquarters. And from me and Dad.
    It was a relief to arrive at the RV dealership. Normally Mom was a real pain to shop with because she tended to fall in love with everything in sight and become unable to choose. But this time Mom had done her research ahead of time and was surprisingly decisive about what she wanted in her new home on wheels. She test drove only two before she settled on a sleek travel trailer that could be pulled behind her truck so she could leave the trailer at campgrounds while she went into the fields and woods delivering chemicals and safety equipment to forestry clients.
    She wore a triumphant smile as she signed the paperwork then towed it home. As she showed off the long-awaited trailer’s updated interior features to Dad, her voice glowing with pride and excitement, I realized I was just the tiniest bit jealous of her.
    At least one of us had her freedom.
    The funeral on Saturday was even harder to endure than I’d expected. I couldn’t look at Nanna’s body, lying in the open casket at the church where she’d played the piano every Sunday, couldn’t let myself think about her death or its possible causes, couldn’t look at my mother who, despite all her excitement over her new home, was sobbing and clearly brokenhearted at having to say a final goodbye to her mother. When the new pianist played Nanna’s favorite, “In the Garden,” it was all I could do not to join my mother in sobbing.
    The preacher’s words were a blur both at the church and at the burial site in the Larissa Cemetery outside town, where all our family were buried. Even though it was only April, it was already hot enough to make everyone sweat under the glaring sun. The heat baked the mounds of carnations covering the casket, pushing their sweet perfume out into the air. I tried not to breathe deeply, but the stench of those flowers of death seeped inside me, clinging to the lining of my throat and lungs.
    I knew I would hate the smell of those flowers for the rest of my life, however long that turned out to be.
    After the preacher’s