A Place Worth Living

by B D Grant

  “You shouldn’t have stopped me,” I tell her as we near the empty cemetery. She doesn’t accept or deny being the cause of my sudden mood change mid D-mode. Being away from everyone else and still feeling such disconnect from my anger has got to mean she has something to do with it.

  “They need to question those people,” she says, “We can’t get answers from the dead.”

  “You don’t know what she did.”

  “She’ll get what she deserves. They all will,” she says matter-of-factly.

  Lia hollers out in pain by the van. It’s sweet music to my ears. Taylor ignores it, walking further into the cemetery. I stop to see if someone else picked up where I left off but she’s still on the gurney. The old man has her arm and is pulling on it to pop it back in place.

  Taylor notices me watching. “You aren’t going back over there.”

  “Are you going to stop me?”

  She kneels in front of a headstone and traces the heart that’s printed on it with her finger. “Yup.”

  “Even a fast Tempero wouldn’t be able to keep up with me.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that. I’m not a Tempero.” She stands up and looks at my unbelieving expression. “Veritatis, pleased to meet you,” she says proudly.

  My right hand and arm are throbbing. I look down at it. There’s bright red blood bleeding through the bandages on my hand.

  “You want to get that looked at?” she asks.

  I look back at the medical vans. More vans have left. I would have to walk past the ones that are loading Lia and the other captives up.

  “I better not yet.”

  “Good decision,” she says. She finds a small head stone further back. I follow her. It’s for a child.

  “Do you know what they’re doing with the dead?” I ask her.

  “No. I don’t see them going back any time soon in case your people go back.”

  “They aren’t my people,” I say harshly.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Names are being called by a member of the medical staff, “Taylor, Taylor Jameson.” She doesn’t say a thing to me just sprints off to the lady calling her name. She points her to a van that’s being shut. It’s the one that her father is in. She stops them from closing the back door, climbs in, and shuts it behind herself.

  Lanton comes from the vans loading the captives looking mad. As he gets close his disposition completely changes. He proudly says, “Well, you broke her arm, disconnected it, broke her nose, and jaw by the looks of it.”

  “That’s a paper cut compared to what she deserves.”

  “I don’t doubt that. That was a much more enjoyable fight than the last one I watched you in.”

  “What fight was that?” I ask.

  “The one where you hospitalized that kid that went to school with you.”

  I look at him in disbelief. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t even working at the school around that time, I don’t think. He’s watching me, waiting for me to put something together. I return his watchful gaze with confusion. Finally, with raised eyebrows he asks, “Who do you think lost the video evidence of the fight at the police station?”

  I had forgotten about that. There was a recording of the incident showing me whaling on that punk but I never saw it. The police confiscated it that night. It was missing from the evidence room before my attorney could view it. From the sound of it, losing the footage was my saving grace. I had been looking at possible jail time up until that point.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “That was the point,” he says, “You regretted hurting him. You knew it was wrong. You going to jail would have done nothing but break you grandmother’s heart and dampen your future.”

  The pain from my burn is dramatically increasing by the second. Lanton and I make our way to Rod. I give a wide berth walking around the one van of captives remaining in the parking lot.

  Abby’s being walked to the van by a man holding the back of her arm. She swings her arm out of his grasp. When I pass her line of sight she scowls. Her hatred of me is evident.

  Thinking about all the energy I wasted on her makes me sick. I know she’s really going to loathe me if I get a chance at her mother again. I’m going to give Lia the same end she gave Anne if it’s the last thing I do. Abby climbs in the van. As I watch her I decide that I hate her too. If I can’t get to Lia than Abby Heincliff will have do. Lia took someone irreplaceable from me. I can do the same to her.

  “I’m impressed you lasted this long,” Rod tells me when I show him my arm. He starts to unwrap it then thinks better of it. “I’m gonna send you to the hospital.” He stands up and waves Lanton over, who’s talking to those remaining that helped him check the captives out. Rod wraps me back up.

  “I don’t think it’s that serious,” I tell him trying to act like it doesn’t hurt as bas as it does but I think I’m getting nauseated from it.

  “Oh, it is,” he assures me.

  “What’s up?” Lanton asks.

  “Your kid needs to go to the hospital.” He tosses Lanton a set of keys. “Take the Impala.”

  “Don’t look so down,” Lanton tells me on the way to the hospital.

  “What can they do for me that Rod or the others couldn’t? Give me some pain medicine and I’ll be good.”

  “Better to be safe than sorry,” he says. He opens the pocket on the chest of his jacket. “Here, I lifted these from Rod before we left.” He hands me two tiny white pills. I waste no time gulping them down. The discomfort from my burns have gotten so bad he could have offered me rabbit poop and I would have taken them if he’d told me it would help. I turn the radio on and stare out the window.

  I can see Lanton occasionally looking over at me through the reflection in my window. “Your grandmother will be happy to see you,” he says cheerfully.

  I look at him like he’s crazy. “Is this your weird way of telling me I’m dying?”

  He looks very confused staring out the windshield. “What are you talking about?”

  “Gran’s dead. She’s been dead.”

  “What? Who told you that?”

  “Lia,” I tell him. Immediately my blood starts to boil. That monster lied to me. Lia’s face when she told me about Gran was so genuine. The memorial service and everything, why go through all of that? “Are you sure that my grandmother is alive?”

  He nods. “Her and I talk regularly.”

  I roll my window down in hopes that the wind will distract the rush of disgust and anger that’s trying to envelop me.

  “Once you left with Lia I got in contact with some Seraphim that were hearing rumors about Rogues and a school. I found out, not only was it true but that I had handed you over to them on a silver platter. I had your grandmother moved in the middle of the night as soon as I could.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t know where you were sending me?”

  “I had no idea. I’ve been on my own for years. You and your grandmother were the first Seraphim in over eight years that I’ve had anything to do with and neither of you knew what you were.”

  “Gran isn’t a Seraphim.”

  “Evelyn is most definitely a Seraphim. She’s a Cachelerie that’s been unknowingly keeping herself and you out of sight all this time. If your grandmother wouldn’t have had a stroke while Lia was in town getting that girl—”

  “Anne,” I interrupt.

  “Anne,” he repeats. “Then I would have never told Lia about you.”

  “If we were the only Seraphim that you’ve been around in nearly a decade how did you know she was getting Anne?”

  “I ran into her during one of my night shifts. She was staying at the hotel that I was called to for a domestic dispute.” He looks over at me and I raise an eyebrow at the thought of such a coincidence. “I admit, in hind-sight, it should have been a red flag but when she saw me she acted just as surprised as I was to see her. She told me she was a recruiter for the new school they built in place of the old one. She
told me how things were looking up for our youth and that they had managed to purge the bad blood that had nearly broken Aurora. She didn’t talk about Rogues or murders. It was as if it was all forgotten. She did tell me that the location of the school was kept private until parents and faculty could agree there was no longer a cause for secrecy.”

  He looks over at me. My eyes are getting heavy. Whatever he gave me is working marvelously. “Why don’t you lay your seat down? I can wake you when we get there.”

  I’m not in much pain as I use my right hand to press the button on the side of the seat to recline. The last thing I see as I lay back is the light from the setting sun flashing between the trees. I welcome the slumber as it takes me.