by B D Grant
Dad nods, “Yeah, and the council has a bunch of Seraphim staying in town for the time being so it’s not like it’s just us.”
Sidney pushes her bed sheet farther away from her stomach, resting both hands over the bandage bulging under her robe. “And you,” she says, looking at my uncle. “How is your trial going?”
Uncle Will’s back is to me on the couch, but the enthusiasm in his voice tells me he’s smiling. “It’s over. They determined that my actions were founded, but,” his head wobbles side to side slightly as his voice loses its enthusiasm, “I’m no longer dean of The Southern Academy.” Sidney gives him a sympathetic frown. “It’s just the title I’ve lost for now. I’ll still be doing the same stuff until a suitable replacement is found. After that, I’ll just be a regular old administrator.” Uncle Will shrugs. “That’s all I wanted in the first place.”
“Well,” Sidney says, lightly rubbing her hands over her bandage, “they never should have put you on trial if you ask me, but it could have turned out worse. I haven’t been told anything about the tests they ran on me besides that the EKG was normal, but I’ll see the doctor in the morning.”
We leave Sidney with candy bars and snack-sized chips stashed in the top drawer of her nightstand.
The three star hotel is as well guarded as the hospital was. As I fold up on a hard lobby sofa and wait for Mom and Dad to check all of us in, I glance around. Attached to the lobby is a small restaurant. The sounds of glass clinking and people chatting and laughing flowing into the lobby from the restaurant could put me to sleep. Uncle Will accompanies Jake to scout out the ground floor, which doesn’t seem to contain all that much beyond an outdoor pool and a small counter with a sign displaying the early-morning hours for continental breakfast. Not wanting to pass out, I decide to follow after them, making sure that Mom sees me head off with them.
“John’s meeting them between here and New Orleans,” Uncle Will is saying to Jake as I walk up. They both turn to see who’s walking up behind them. Seeing me, their pace slows so that I can catch up. “I was just letting Jake know that John is picking up your clothes from…” a door opens ahead of us and a man walks out holding the door open for a woman who steps out a moment later. The woman stops just outside of the door. She watches us as we walk up. The man double-checks his pockets before allowing the hotel room door to shut. To a normal person, this probably would probably seem normal, but their chiseled physiques that even their relaxed attire doesn’t totally camouflage tells me who they really are. Uncle Will confirms my suspicions. “Council security,” he mumbles to us after we’ve passed them, the man and woman heading in the opposite direction down the hall.
Jake leans in toward me. “John’s getting our stuff from Clairabelle since we weren’t prepared to stay overnight, nor did we guess that you’d magically show up with Aunt Catherine.”
I smirk at him. “Awesome. Does that mean you’re going to put on fresh underwear for the council tomorrow?”
Uncle Will snaps his head in Jake’s direction. “You don’t change your underwear?”
My smirk deepens as Jake frowns at me. When we were kids Aunt Beth would complain to my mom about having to sneak into the bathroom while Jake was bathing so that she could exchange his dirty underwear for a clean pair. If not, he had no problem going weeks wearing the same boxers.
“That was a phase I grew out of a long time ago, Taylor.” My name comes out of his mouth like it’s a dirty word. Uncle Will and I can’t help but to chuckle at his expense.
After a good a twenty minutes of sitting around the pool, Uncle Will gets the call from my dad. “They’re in room 355.”
We head to the elevators, but a pleasant-looking woman sits in front of the control panel. “Sorry, folks, out of order,” she says. She’s dressed in the same shirt and pants as the check-in staff, but I can feel from the familiar Sensaa tug inside me that she’s a Seraphim. “If you’ll just head to the lobby entrance, you’ll we have a functional set over there.”
We head off in the direction she’s pointing, back towards where we came.
“Did you get the feeling—” I start.
“Council only uses Seraphim for their security, that’s my bet,” says Uncle Will.
Sure enough, Dad hands us the apology letter as soon as we step inside room 355 that he and Mom received while checking in. The paper states that the hotel is expecting the elevator to be out of service for the duration of our stay. Uncle Will gives Jake and I, standing on either side of him, ample time to read the letter before he hands it back saying, “The council must be utilizing the hotel elevators the same way they’ve taken possession of the top floors of the building the detectives and them are working out of.”
Mom has had her back to us, leaning over the double bed farthest from the door. “Is that our bags?” I ask, moving around the guys to better see what she’s unzipping.
Dad smiles. “Sure is,” he says, stepping out of the way. Mom turns around with my beat-up bag in her hands.
Uncle Will and Jake split off to unpack and relax once Dad gives them their room keys. I unzip my bag. The smell of Clairabelle’s fresh cotton detergent greets me. “You want to try the restaurant downstairs?” Mom asks as I pull out the folded clothes Clairabelle must have been nice enough to not only wash but also sort and fold for me. “Sure.”
Dad pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “Here,” he says, handing Mom some cash. “I’m gonna jump in the shower.” He doesn’t say it, but I can tell by the darkening under his eyes that he must be exhausted.
With most of the Seraphim in the area staying at the hotel, it isn’t a surprise when one of the female lawyers I’ve seen bustling around the council building enters the lobby of the hotel as we are heading for the restaurant. It does catch us off guard when we hear her ask the front desk, “Has Catherine McBride checked in?”
The lady behind the counter checks her computer. “Yes, she…” she stops midsentence when she notices my mom and me. “That’s her,” she says, pointing the lawyer in our direction winning her a death-ray glare from my mom.
The attorney walks over to us. “Are you Catherine McBride?” Mom nods. The lawyer sticks an envelope in Mom’s face. Mom takes it and then with no explanation the woman turns and trots out of the hotel.
The envelope, addressed to Mom, has a single sheet inside of it. I can see the Supreme Council letterhead as she opens it and reads it silently; not able to wait any longer, I crane my neck to read over her shoulder, and she obligingly tilts the paper. It’s requesting, in a demanding sort of way, that she be present tomorrow morning for an amendment to Uncle Will’s sentencing.
We don’t discuss the letter as we order. “The chicken marsala sounds good,” I say, scanning the menu. I have no idea if it’s even technically legal to amend the sentencing. Mom stays quiet; she must be worried too. I nudge Mom’s arm with my elbow when I see Dad coming. “Look who made it.”
“You look nice,” Mom says as he walks up.
“Thanks,” he says, rubbing his hands over his chest. “Jake should be down soon. He said he was changing when I called his room.” I snicker thinking of Jake changing his clothes because of me picking on him. Dad looks at me and I fake cough to cover my amusement.
“Did you tell Will we were down here?” Mom asks.
Dad takes a step back. “No, but I can —,”
I hop up from my seat. “I’ll go. I’ll get the front desk to call him for me.” I leave without them agreeing. Mom needs to show him the letter from the council and having Dad call Uncle Will’s hotel room will just prolong that.
Uncle Will joins us shortly after I’ve sat back down at the table. The waitress is a step behind him with drinks. Uncle Will looks at the drink placed in front of him. “I ordered you a tea with no lemon,” Mom says, taking a packet of sugar from the container full of sweeteners sitting on the table. A sprite is placed in front of Jake’s empty seat.
“You remembered what I drink,” he says, tipping hi
s head in approval.
“Of course,” Mom grins. She doesn’t taste it before dumping the sugar into her already sweet tea, she rarely does. “We’re waiting on one more,” she tells the waitress. We only have three menus, but Mom doesn’t point that out. She slides Uncle Will the letter once the waitress has moved on to her other tables. He reads over it slowly—it seems like he takes it in more than once.
“There’s no telling,” he says as we both watch him expectantly. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he adds, looking at my mom.
I’m impressed by how unaffected he seems from the news. “Can I look at the menu when someone’s through?” he asks. Silently, Mom passes hers over. Jake arrives, looking tired. I give him my menu.
When our food arrives, Mom picks at her steak salad, drinking more of her tea than actually eating anything. Dad lays his hand on Mom’s arm. “How do you do it?” he asks when she looks up at him from her salad.
She isn’t following. “Do what?”
“How are you always the most beautiful woman in the room?” Everyone at the table lights up a little as Mom rolls her eyes at him. He’s the only one who can ever really help when she gets like this.
As Jake starts asking Uncle Will about The Southern Academy, I can’t help but notice Mom glancing as Dad when she thinks he isn’t looking. I was shocked too when I first saw him after he’d been kidnapped. I had thought he was a corpse when I saw him laid out on that metal table in the basement. The last my mom saw of him, he was muscular, bright-eyed, and had a little bit of a belly that he would suck in anytime she joked about it. He’s gaunt now resembling Sidney more than the strong, unbeatable Dynamar he’s been his whole life.
There are no complaints about the food, but no one entertains the idea of dessert when the waitress asks.
Mom jumps in the shower as soon as we get to our room. Dad goes to the top drawer of the dresser as I kick my shoes off and lay across the double size bed near the bathroom. He takes out the folder with black writing on the tab that Uncle Will gave him. “What’s that?” I ask as he walks past the bed I’m laying on.
He looks down at the folder. “It’s something for Jake,” he mumbles, going to the bathroom door. He cracks the door open and sticks his head in. “I’m going to Jake’s room,” he tells her. I hear the curtain to the shower pull back. “Alright. You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” I grab the television remote from the nightstand between the beds. He steps farther into the bathroom. “I think the fewer the better, don’t you?”
I flip on the tv, find entertainment tonight, and then toss the remote back on the nightstand. Dad reemerges from the bathroom. “Love you,” he says to me over his shoulder. He’s out the door quick. “Love you too,” I reply as the door latches shut.
When I finish my shower afterwards, Mom is sitting in the middle of her bed silently waiting for me, the television is turned off. When I join her, she smiles at me reaching behind herself and retrieves one of the unwrapped presents I never got to open from my birthday.
It’s wrapping paper is badly battered, and all of its corners are torn. She must’ve gotten it from my bag. It makes me feel good, seeing Mom look so happy to give me my birthday present like she has every year since I can remember.
“I opened the other book,” I tell her, feeling a bit guilty to admit it. “I haven’t read a lot of it yet.”
“I’m not worried about the book. This is the one I wanted to watch you open.”
“This one?”
“Well, I was pretty heartbroken when I noticed that your father had taken your birthday presents with him on the hunting trip.”
She had been sick that last weekend of deer season. It ended up being only Dad, Jake, and I for the weekend trip. We had returned a day early, on my birthday, and it had been the day that Rogues decided to show up at Jake’s house.
“When you didn’t say anything about them to me in the car after your father had been…” she trails off. She pinches her eyes shut for a second and then opens them. “I knew you must not have gotten to open them before ya’ll left the lease. Now,” she says, inching closer to me, “I can watch you open it.”
I tear open the paper along one seam, forcing myself to act excited. Beneath the wrapping paper is a thin box. I turn it in my hands, popping the tape sealing the sides. There could still be a book inside of the box, but it would have to be much smaller than I had pictured.
It’s a picture of an ultrasound.
I don’t know what to say at first. I’m shocked. I’m a complete idiot for not having figured it out. She had started getting sick months ago at the time of our last hunting trip, she’s wearing oversized shirts that are perfect to hide a growing belly, and crying at the drop of a hat. On the back of the frame is a hand-written note: “Congratulations on no longer being an only child! Love Mom and Dad.
I let out a squeal as I pull Mom into a bear hug. We squeeze each other as I bounce against the hotel bed. When we pull apart, my hands go straight to her belly.
“How far along are you?” I ask, moving my hands all around her stomach. It’s not very noticeable, but if she wore clothes that clung to her midsection, it would be obvious.
“About 6 months.”
My hand stops when I think I’ve felt movement. “You’re not very big,” I tell her.
“It’ll come,” she assures me, taking my hand and pressing it harder into the side of her belly.
“Are you sure you’re eating enough—” the baby pushes back, hard, and I gasp. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“We were thinking about letting it be a surprise.”
I move in front of her for better access to her baby belly. “Yeah, like they did in the old days.” Mom laughs, and her entire belly bounces. “We should have waited for Dad.”
“He knew that I was giving it to you once we got up here.” Mom takes my hands from her belly, looking me in the eye. “He got some information today from your uncle…” she trails off. She must be talking about the folder Dad took with him. She clears her throat. “We found out what happened to the Angelos,” she says, no longer meeting my gaze.
“Jake knew that the odds weren’t good,” I say, trying to sound strong. Mom rubs my arm to comfort me, but it’s more aggravating than anything. She needs to spit it out. I brush her hand away. “Just tell me.”
“They didn’t make it,” she says softly, but her words still pack a punch.
Today has been far too much. I don’t even know where to begin. Jake’s parents were as much a part of my family as Jake is.
“What happened to them?” I ask.
I know that she doesn’t want to tell me, but I don’t care. I have to know how much to hate the Rogues who took my Aunt Beth and Uncle Chuck. “Tell me what you know,” I insist.
“Not a lot,” she admits. “Someone working in the underground complex was keeping records of Seraphim who were brought down there.” I already know all of this. I watched Lena wildly grabbing everything she could out of filing cabinets in one of the basement’s offices once she was freed. I thought she was crazy to grab for papers when we were fighting for our lives; I’m still pretty sure she was. “What William’s people found was that Charles died shortly after he was brought to the basement. The Rogue organization had a vendetta against him. Before he and Beth left, Aurora he had been a leader of sorts within the movement.” That’s what Rogues called themselves: the movement. “When Charles left, he turned some damning information over to Aurora’s remaining council members.”
“How did he die?”
Mom’s voice is almost a whisper. “They beat him. They took a picture of him after.” Probably to show other members of what happens if you go against their cause. “William said that he was unrecognizable.”
“When?” I ask. “When did he tell you this?”
“He pulled me to the side at the council building after visiting Sidney.”
I shake my head angrily. Jake already blames himself for so much that happened after
he was taken. This is going to break him. “What about Aunt Beth? Did she work for the movement?”
“They actually met at a gathering put together by the movement, but Beth was too much of a pacifist to become a member. It’s probably because of that they granted her some mercy. They needed Jake to cooperate too; if Jake had given them any trouble than I’m sure she would have been what they used to keep him in line.”
“So what happened?”
“They listed her death as an overdose of pain medication. I don’t know if that’s true…but it’s the gentlest way that an enemy of the Rogue organization could ever hope to go.”
I don’t know what to say. I want someone to argue with. “Why would they even give her pain meds?”
“Your father believes that once Beth was deemed no longer useful she was given the choice to starve, or…” Mom waves her hand in the air. I understand.
I’m falling asleep, curled up to Mom, when Dad makes it back to the room. Mom gets up quietly. She’s careful not to move me too much as she pulls the sheets back. She goes to the bathroom, where Dad has turned the sink on. When he turns the water off, I can hear her ask him how it went.
I open my eyes just a bit, listening to their hushed conversation. “He took it as well as I could have hoped. I was planning on sleeping on the spare bed in his room so he wouldn’t be by himself, but Jake told me that he wanted to be left alone.” Dad pauses. I imagine him shaking his head in sorrow for both the loss of his close friends and for Jake. “He kept the picture of Beth,” Dad says softly. “At least she looked peaceful.”
Dad’s heavy footsteps walk out of the bathroom. I shut my eyes before they can make it to the bed. I sneak a peek when I hear the dresser open. He grabs something from the second drawer and then returns to the bathroom. His electric toothbrush clicks on.
I don’t hear Mom when she leaves the bathroom. Her hand falls on my shoulder, and I jump.
“Sorry to wake you,” she whispers. “Dad’s back.”
“Mhm,” I say sleepily.
