Afterglow

sting

"And you need us to try and track this guy down, why exactly?"

We hadn't exactly been too forthcoming on our reasonings for trying to pinpoint my biological father's location when it came to Lincoln and Taylor, mainly because I didn't know either of them well enough to divulge my deepest secrets with them, but I figured it was time to let them know at least something if I wanted their full cooperation.

"He's my biological father."

Taylor and Lincoln pinned me with an identical surprised stare from their position on the large couch in Lachlan's cabin, the small home seemingly filled to the brim with people as our entire group minus Jenna was in attendance.

Holden, Sloane, Taylor, Lincoln, Blythe and Vera were all sat on the couch while I stood and Lachlan held his position sprawled out on his bed, Evan sitting on the wingback chair in front of the always roaring fireplace.

It had only been a few hours since learning of Ian's death and I realized that I just needed to stay busy, keep my mind occupied. That would keep me from anguishing over it, I was positive of it.

"Holy shit, you're trying to track down your real dad? I mean, we all knew you wanted to do that for the longest time because Sloane was talking about how it upset your mom, but we didn't think you'd actually find your birth parents."

My eyes flicked to Sloane at Lincoln's words.

"She was upset that I was trying to find my birth parents? After the way she treated me, she honestly didn't understand why I wanted to find them?"

She rolled her eyes and shoved Holden's arm off of her lap as she stood to face me.

"Maybe that's why she started acting so bitchy towards you to begin with. It was all you would ever talk about, and every time they'd shut you down. I honestly think they knew this whole time that he was bad news and what he did to your birth mom-"

"Sloane!"

Sloane cut off her tirade after realizing just how much she'd let slip and I just sighed and looked to everyone else and decided that since Sloane had pretty much let the entire cat out of the bag, it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to tell Lincoln and Taylor the entire story.

"Wait, so you already know who your birth parents are? And they're not good people? And you want to find them...why? I'm lost here."

I started off with the first thing I could think of to answer Taylor's question.

"I went looking for my birth family using the DNA website. My birth father found me, then started harassing me..."

I continued on telling them about the car wreck and Ian's subsequent death which I still hadn't processed properly, and ended up at the present, where we needed their computer skills to track the man down.

Their dark brown eyes were wide with surprise and concern, and then Lincoln jumped up to give me a quick hug which surprised me more than anything he could have said in response to my story.

"I'm really sorry about your friend, Kate. What can we do?"

I faced Taylor and Lincoln and posed the question that terrified me more than confronting my birth father on my own.

"I need your help to find him, and then I guess I'm going to California for Ian's funeral."

Lachlan cleared his throat and I looked to where he sat on the bed.

"Correction. We're going to California. We're not going to let you do this alone, Kat. You're not alone."

Lachlan stood as he spoke, striding to me in the middle of the cabin as the room fell under a hush as they watched the two of us in rapture.