Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series

by Virginia McClain

  It was Rhelia’s voice that brought me back to the very thoughts I’d run away from.

  “I am your family now, Vic, but I ssssensssse that I am not the persssson you wissssh to sssspeak with.”

  I chuckled.

  “I like people I can just kick back and enjoy a view with.”

  Rhelia smiled, her yellow eyes glinting in the sunlight.

  “I alsssso apprecssssiate comfortable sssssilencssssessss with my companionssss.”

  Then she sighed.

  “But I am concsssserned that ssssilencsssse issss not what you need, at the moment.”

  I sighed and lay back, my legs still dangling over the cliff ledge and my eyes gazing straight up at the sky.

  “I don’t want to yell anymore, Rhelia. I don’t want to be this angry. It’s… painful.”

  “Yessss, but will keeping it insssside you feel any better?”

  I groaned.

  “I take it back, you’re no fun. I was really enjoying this bit of literal escapism. It’s more direct than just reading a book at people, you know.”

  “Can you read a book at ssssomeone?”

  “I don’t know if you can, but I definitely can. It’s a developed skill, really. Passive aggressively delicious.”

  Rhelia laughed, and hearing her laughter loosened a bit of the knot in my chest.

  “Wanna call Trev over?” I asked, after a moment.

  She nodded, but didn’t move.

  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t just call Trev myself. I could still feel him there, on the other side of our bond… but talking to him through it didn’t feel right yet, somehow.

  Maybe because I was actually furious with him.

  Which was something I didn’t realize until I sat up and saw him winging his way across the valley in phoenix form. He was beautiful, a giant, flaming bird of doom flying with the grace and ease of a lifelong predator. He may as well have been a bald eagle or a falcon. And yet, while part of me appreciated that beauty, and another part of me was relieved to see my brother on his way to my side, still a third part—currently a larger part than either of the other two—was filled with an almost incandescent rage at the sight of him.

  He hovered in front of us for a moment, before swooping down to my left side and dropping into his human form exactly at the same time as he sat down beside me.

  “Neat trick,” I said, trying to find a smile for the twin I’d missed for more than half our lives.

  “You don’t look happy to see me,” Trev said.

  I guess my smile hadn’t covered up the rage.

  “I am. I’m happy that you’re alive, and I’m happy that you’re willing to talk to me again. I just… I’m really angry, Trev.”

  “And part of that is my fault.”

  It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t say anything.

  The three of us stared into the distance for a while, as I searched for the right words for what I was feeling. It was particularly difficult because I was barely clear on why I was angry. For perhaps the first time, though, I was grateful to all the counselors I’d been forced to visit when Mom and Dad had “died.”

  “I don’t think I’m actually angry with you—well, maybe a little bit, residually, for the whole knowing-about-Mom-and-Dad-being-alive-when-I-didn’t thing—but mostly I’m angry for you. I’m angry for both of us. I know why they left you with MOME. I understand that they thought they had no choice, but… I feel like they decided protecting me was more important than saving you, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive them for that. How could they, Trev? They made that choice for both of us! I know that’s not the choice I would have made, if they’d asked. I would have told them not to worry about me, told them that the three of us should have broken you out and then gone on the run together. I’ve been evading MOME for months now, and I’m a freaking teenager! I’m sure we could have managed it as a family.”

  Trev reached out for my hand, and I gave it to him, our fingers lacing together in a reassuring knot.

  “Are you mad at me for forgiving them?” Trev asked.

  I considered that, for a moment.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. That’s your choice, obviously. But… it’s going to take me a long time to forgive them, Trev. I know they were trying their best, but damn it… if four teenagers can break into MOME and bust out everyone there, why couldn’t they? Why did it all have to wait until we grew up and could do it ourselves?”

  “Honestly, Vic, I am still amazed that we pulled that off, and it only worked because I knew how to hack into the system from the inside, and Sol had worked there, and even then we might have died if you hadn't had a friend who was a literal goddess… I’m not sure anyone else could have done it. And would you seriously recommend to a grieving set of parents, who had just lost one of their children, that they should risk the other child in a desperate attempt to save the one who was taken? I mean, they would have been risking losing everything. Leaving you in MOME’s clutches, as well as me, and getting themselves locked up in prison, or worse. Missing both of our childhoods entirely.”

  I sighed.

  “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” I muttered.

  Trev laughed, though the sound held little humor.

  “I had ten years to think about it, didn’t I?”

  “Ten years that you could have spent learning to hate your parents,” I whispered. “I’m sure MOME would have liked that.”

  Trev squeezed my hand again.

  “I think MOME would have loved that. In fact, that’s probably a big part of why I wound up forgiving Mom and Dad. MOME made every effort to turn the kids they’d taken against each other, and to turn us against our parents and families. They did everything they could to convince us that the people who loved us most hadn’t cared enough to take care of us ‘properly.’ That we were a risk to everyone around us, and that if our families had truly loved us, they would have voluntarily handed us over to MOME for safekeeping. Lucky for me, they took me right around the time when I was starting to question adults. I didn’t trust them from the start, and them telling me my family didn’t take care of me properly? They couldn’t have done anything to make me decide to forgive Mom and Dad faster. Once I was in my teens, it was like everything MOME did made me just want to come up with more reasons that Mom and Dad weren’t to blame. MOME really should have invested in some child psychologists, if they’d wanted to succeed at turning us against our families. Instead, they had a bunch of guards and research scientists try to prod and bully us into it.”

  It was horrifying to think of, but also somewhat reassuring that MOME had been so bad at that particular job.

  “So, yeah, I forgave Mom and Dad a while ago, and… look, I’m sure we’ll have our differences yet. What family doesn’t have their disagreements? But, we have parents, Vic. Unlike so many of the people I knew growing up with MOME, we still have our family, and they still love us. Shit, they love us a lot. They haven’t seen me in a decade, and I can still feel the love rolling off of them every time we hang out. They’re pretty desperate to make things up to us.”

  I squeezed Trev’s hand again and leaned back against the tall grass behind me. He and Rhelia did the same.

  “I don’t want to hate them. I don’t hate them. I just… I grieved them for a year. The first few months… I was sure it wasn’t true, that they weren’t actually dead. The stories I made up in my head as to what had happened to them were almost as bizarre as what actually wound up being the truth. If they had shown up then, I think I could have shaken the whole thing off. I would just have been relieved that they weren’t actually dead. Relieved my denial proved true. I would have been so damned grateful to have them back, grateful that the nightmare was just that, a nightmare, a farce, not reality. But that didn’t happen. I eventually accepted that they were dead. I raged against it, I cried for hours, days, weeks, months, about it, but it was true. It had to be true, because they hadn’t come back. I was certain they had loved me, and if
they loved me and were still alive, they would have come back. When they didn’t… it was finally, horribly true, and… it’s not like I was over it, or anything, but I was growing into it as my new normal. Episodes of deep grief followed by mostly normal. Going whole days without thinking about them, or at least without feeling the searing pain of losing them. It was getting better. Tiny bits at a time, it was getting better. And now they’re back. Now, surprise, they’re not dead. And I’m glad they’re not dead. Of course I am, but… they put me through that. They weren’t really dead, but they put me through losing them. I know that they thought they were protecting me by leaving me behind, but they didn’t even give me a choice. I’m not a child anymore, and they didn’t give me a choice. I’m not sure I can forgive them for that.”

  Trev was silent for a moment before saying, “Makes sense to me.”

  I turned to look at him, his face so close to mine that I couldn’t really focus on anything but his eyes.

  “What? That’s it?”

  Trev stared back at me, but said nothing.

  “You’re not going to make their case for them? Tell me I’m being unreasonable?”

  Trev smiled.

  “First of all, emotions aren’t reasonable, but they’re natural, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Second of all, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all. Your emotional response doesn’t need to be grounded in reason to be valid, but, I mean… everything you just said is true, and if it were me, I’d be pissed at them too.”

  I just blinked at him for a moment.

  “But you’ve forgiven them for far worse!”

  Trev shrugged.

  “I’ve had more time, for one thing. And for another, I’m not sure it was worse, Vic. Mom and Dad were trying to protect both of us as children, and that’s what parents are supposed to do. MOME stole me. It’s not like Mom and Dad just handed me over—they fought it as hard as they could, legally, but MOME threatened to take you, too, and it’s kind of a miracle they didn’t, really. It’s not like they’d asked permission to take me… and then Mom and Dad, rightfully not trusting MOME to keep their word after they’d wiped all of your memories of me, disappeared, to keep you safe. They couldn’t do that and try to bust me out at the same time. And honestly, if they’d been able to ask me, I would have told them to protect you too.”

  He must have seen the horror cross my face, because he frowned and continued, “Don’t look at me like that. The whole reason that you’re pissed at them on my behalf is because you feel the same way about it that I do. If given the choice of protecting your twin or yourself, you’d choose your twin. Right? You’re angry because they chose to protect you over me, but if our situations had been reversed, I know you’d expect them to take care of me.”

  Ugh. He was so right that I didn’t even say anything, I just turned to stare angrily at the sky.

  “So, yeah,” Trev continued, even though I wasn’t looking at him anymore. “I get it. What Mom and Dad chose makes sense to me, and I have had years and years to process the whole thing. But what they did to you? You’re right, they were protecting you by disappearing. And while you were still legally a child, they probably should have given you a choice, or at least given you some idea of what they were doing. I understand why they didn’t, but I’m pretty sure it would piss me off if they’d done the same thing to me. I know it pisses me off that they did it to you. So, no, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable.”

  Rhelia hadn’t said anything for a while, but she was still lying there, silent in her solidarity. And I found I took a surprising amount of comfort from her presence. She was starting to feel like a sister in more than just name. The three of us just lay there for a while, eyes to the sky, sun on our faces.

  “So, what now?” I asked eventually.

  “Musssst you forgive them in order to sssspend time with them?” Rhelia asked quietly.

  I considered the question.

  “I suppose not, as long as they know how I actually feel.”

  “So, let’s go tell them how you feel,” Trev said, giving my hand another squeeze.

  “And then?”

  Trev chuckled.

  “How about a game of Hearts?”

  I TOSS THE keys into the small bowl by the door and kick off my shoes before hanging my backpack from the coatrack. Then I reconsider, and put the bag containing over fifty pounds of textbooks on the floor, because the coatrack is solid, but it isn’t invincible. The smell of fresh coffee pulls me down the hall into the brightly lit kitchen, and I wrap my arms around Seamus’ waist as he distributes the pot evenly between three mugs.

  “Is this ok?” I ask. The embrace is habitual now, but so’s the question, and the answer isn’t always yes. Usually, but not always.

  “Quite,” says Seamus, and he turns to hand me a mug of coffee.

  I gesture at the two remaining mugs.

  “Is Sol home yet?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Nope. We have a visitor.”

  I raise a questioning eyebrow.

  “Check the living room,” he replies.

  I take my coffee mug with me.

  Draped across the leather sofa that I’d bought to replace the one that had burned down with the rest of this house, over a year ago, is an ebon skinned, silver winged hottie who probably only looks male because I have just been hugging Seamus.

  “Az!” I exclaim, placing my mug a little too hurriedly on the coffee table and jumping forward to embrace them.

  “Hullo, Luv,” they say, getting up and returning my hug with enthusiasm.

  “You here for socializing, or research?” I ask, reluctantly letting them go and retrieving my coffee before settling myself into an adjacent IKEA chair.

  “Can’t it be both?” they ask.

  “I suppose it has to, now I think about it,” I reply, trying to keep the warm feeling creeping up my neck under control.

  I am a big fan of the research that Az has been doing lately on behalf of the Council of Dark Matter Adjacent Peoples, or CODMAP, as I like to call it, much to Albert’s annoyance. (Hey, it’s better than MOME.)

  And it is. Unlike MOME, which had been a regulatory body that was so corrupt it was essentially an authoritarian regime, CODMAP is a research and outreach program. It’s doing its best to repair the centuries of damage that MOME has done to the magical (and non-magical) world, and it’s trying to include as many previously silenced voices as possible.

  “How are your studies going?” Az asks.

  “They’re interesting. I’m still hopeful that Earth biology will be a solid platform to start a xenological studies branch once I graduate.”

  “Haven’t your parents already started that branch?” Az asks.

  “Nope. They’re too singularly focused on dark matter to qualify. My current hope is to start cataloguing everything that lives in other realms, not just the things that interact with dark matter to function.”

  “Fascinating,” Az replies, and the glint in their eyes makes me think that they’re possibly just saying that because they’re hoping to use me as a research subject again tonight. It’s unnecessary. I’m always happy to participate in Az’s research, anyway.

  They are studying the various methods of ingesting and modifying dark matter. It’s related to my parents’ research, but Az is in charge of their own sector, a fact I’m truly glad of, since I don’t really want my parents having intimate knowledge of the experiments that Az and I are running.

  Seamus comes into the living room with the remaining two mugs of coffee, and hands one to Az.

  “Is tonight’s experiment with all three of us?” he asks, sitting down on the far side of the couch from Az.

  Az shrugs.

  “If you’d like to see if we can bring on the chimera event again, that could be useful to the next phase of my—”

  “Who didn’t make me coffee just now?!” Sol’s voice calls, as she enters the living room, carrying the now-empty coffee p
ot. “That’s just cruel. Hi, Az. No chimera tonight. And Vic, we should probably reschedule our sparring. We have guests.”

  That has all of us looking interestedly behind Sol, and sure enough, my parents stand behind her, doing that awkward waiting-to-be-acknowledged-by-the-rest-of-the-group waddle that happens when you follow someone larger than life into a room.

  I pop up to give Sol a kiss and go make some more coffee.

  “Don’t you have a gig tonight?” I ask, after a brief kiss.

  “Not til 10,” she replies, her arms lingering on my waist as I walk past her towards the kitchen. She’s been playing enough bass gigs lately to completely cover her tuition for law school. I can’t decide if I’m more turned on by Sol the musician, or Sol the future civil rights attorney.

  Both. Why not both?

  Reluctantly pulling away from Sol, I pause to give my parents a group hug on my way into the kitchen. Mom follows me.

  “You don’t have to cancel a chimera attempt just because we’re here,” she announces casually.

  “Ugh, Mom, I appreciate you trying to be cool and all, but I am not having sex with Az with you and Dad in the house. Az is… not quiet, and the energy spill-over gets everyone going—that’s how the last experiment wound up using all of us. If you want to find out what it’s like to be in a house with a succubus doing a power exchange, you can invite Az over to your place sometime, and please never tell me about it.”

  Mom frowns, but I can tell from the muscles around her eyes that she’s mildly relieved.

  “I appreciate the support of my lifestyle choices, though,” I add, half jokingly. “Besides, Trev and Rhelia said they would be staying over tonight, so that really just could not get any more awkward.”

  Mom says nothing, while I get the coffee brewing again.

  I had initially been pretty reluctant to rebuild the house in Flagstaff. I hadn’t been sure I wanted most of the memories that went with it, and besides, it had been too large for just me to begin with, and the plans my parents had for the rebuild had been ridiculous. Or they’d seemed that way until I figured out that Sol and Seamus were both happy to move in with me, as long as we each got our own room, and that Mom and Dad—who were still splitting their time between Hel’s realm and their own rebuild of our Colorado home—were going to be visiting almost as often as Trev and Rhelia.