by Amy Braun
“How much longer do you think we have here, Constance?”
I reclined back against the couch. “You really want the answer to that?”
She sighed and leaned back next to me. “No, not really.”
Of course she didn’t. I saw the way she looked at Max. Dro wanted to stay with him. We both knew that if we left, she would never find someone who would look at her the way Max always did. After a long silence, she turned her head to look at me.
“Did you find anything out on your little lunacy escapade?”
I snorted. “Only that demons hate Nephilim. I guess that’s what you are after all.”
I skipped the part where they appeared to want her alive for now. Once we knew why, then I could tell her. I wouldn’t worry my apprehensive sister more than I had to.
She frowned. “I don’t know how I feel now that it isn’t a mystery. But I still think you shouldn’t have gone out there and talked to that demon for me,” she said, worry filling her icy blue eyes. “Look at what happened.”
I turned my head to her. “Trial and error, Dro. I’m fine.”
“But it wasn’t your responsibility. You’re human. I’m not. I should have been the one to talk to it. They’re after me.”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t let you. The demon knew about you, little sister. If it had seen you…” I shook my head, all sorts of horrible scenarios running through my mind. “It would have gone very, very badly.”
She stifled a laugh. “You’re saying the way you did it went well?”
I turned on the couch to face her. “I’m saying I took a risk for you, and that I’ll do it again if I have to. You have enough on your plate with the powers and the nightmares. If I don’t help you every way I can, then I’m not being a good sister.”
Dro flinched, suddenly regretting having said anything. But I was glad she had. It was important for me to know what she was thinking. It was the only way I could help her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just… I…”
“I know,” I said so she wouldn’t have to. “And so am I.”
My dark gold hand circled her pale shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Let’s get some sleep, Dro. We’ll be safe for tonight.”
She nodded and stood up, starting to walk back to the basement. I stayed on the couch, remembering another time where being a good sister meant more than caring about consequences…
Dad was stunned when I walked back in the house without so much as a mark. Dro was still crying, unable to sob out the truth to him. I thought that was a good thing. Dad loved us, but he was a practical man. He wouldn’t believe even me if I told him Dro had healed me with a single touch.
I felt fine, better than fine, but Mom told Dad to take me to the hospital to make sure I didn’t have a concussion. She worked close to the hospital and was going to meet us there. We had the barest bones of government healthcare, so all we could do was pray that whatever Dad had to pay for wouldn’t put us in more debt. He already had a second mortgage on the house. There was no way he could get a third.
Just like she’d said, Mom was at the hospital when we got there, still wearing her restaurant uniform. She shot up from her chair and raced over to me, hugging me as tightly as a mother could.
“Mom,” I wheezed, “Mom, I can’t breathe.”
She pulled back from me but kept her arms on my shoulders, looking at my head. “Your father said you were bleeding.”
“I was,” I said, not lying. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked though. It just hurt a lot.”
“Which doesn’t make sense,” Dad said from behind me. “I saw the cut. Your head was cracked wide open. When you came in, there wasn’t even a scratch.”
I glanced at Dro, who was holding Dad’s hand and looking at the floor.
“Maybe it was just bleeding too much for you to see the wound,” Mom offered.
Dad shook his head. “I’ve seen injuries like that at work, Carmen. It takes weeks to heal, not minutes.”
Mom looked at me again. I didn’t let my face betray anything. Mom was trying to reason it out with Dad while we waited for the doctor. Dro was looking at me like she wanted to tell them the truth– that she healed me with magic.
I carefully shook my head at her. This wasn’t the time or place to explain anything to Mom and Dad.
We waited five hours before the doctor could see us. Mom was holding Dad’s hand, talking quietly in Spanish. I could speak it as easily as I could speak English, but I chose English because that was what most of the people at school spoke. Dro fell asleep on my shoulder within the first hour. My little sister could sleep through a hurricane. She twitched a bit, but slept peacefully otherwise. I nudged her when the doctor came in. She raised her head wearily, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
“How was your nap, sleepyhead?” I asked with a smile.
Dro pouted at me as we hopped off the chairs with Mom and Dad. “Fine,” she said.
Her tone of voice didn’t make me believe her, but I didn’t think anything of it.
The doctor did an X-ray of my head after asking me endless questions. He didn’t have any answers for why I had healed so quickly given the circumstances. I still said nothing and Dro didn’t make eye contact with anyone. She held Mom’s hand and stayed close to her leg.
After another hour of waiting, the doctor came back with a puzzled expression and some black and white prints of my skull.
“Well Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez, I’m not sure I can explain it. It seems that Constance has escaped a concussion, and there don’t seem to be any fractures. She’s clearly a very strong girl.”
Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “You can just say that our little trouble maker is a bonehead, doctor.”
I frowned and shoved his hand off of me. He chuckled and Mom was smiling. Dro was still looking away.
“That’s one way to put it,” the doctor smiled. He looked at me. “But to be on the safe side, take it easy at school tomorrow, Constance. You look fine, but we shouldn’t take any chances.”
I nodded at him. There was no point in making a promise I likely wasn’t going to keep.
We left the hospital as soon as Dad paid for the X-Ray. Dro was usually quiet when we drove somewhere, but she’d barely eaten the McDonald’s Dad got us for dinner. She hadn’t said a word, even to me. Mom and Dad knew something was wrong, and we were going to be in for it when we got home. They led us to the living room and sat us on the couch. Dad was beside me while Mom sat on the far side next to Dro, putting her arms around her adopted girl.
“Bella, you heard the doctor. Constance is okay. What’s wrong?” Dro tried to fold herself together, but Mom just pulled her closer. “Miles won’t come back and hurt either of you. Daddy and I will make sure of that.”
Dad was tough, but I got the feeling that if Mom ever saw Miles again, she would make him more afraid of her than Dad did.
Dro looked over at me, and I read her mind. She took a deep breath. “It in’t Miles,” she said. “Dro–” I tried.
“It was me.”
Mom and Dad were silent. “What do you mean, sweetheart?” Dad asked after a long time. “What was you?”
Before I could stop her, lie to our parents for her, Dro confessed. “I fixed Connie.”
Dad and Mom exchanged confused looks. “What are you talking about, bella?” Mom said.
“Connie was hurt, so I touched her and made the hurt go away. Like magic.”
“Andromeda, you heard what the doctor said,” Dad told her patiently. “Your sister–”
Dro reached for one of the magazines on the coffee table and put some papers between her fingers. She pulled them along the tender skin, giving herself a massive paper cut.
Mom gasped and grabbed her hand. “Andromeda! What did you…”
She fell quiet when Dro put her fingers on the bleeding skin, her fingers starting to glow. Mom and Dad watched with amazement as Dro’s wound knit closed. They were frozen, staring at their adopted daughte
r with shock, and horror. Dro’s eyes lifted to meet mine sadly.
“I’m sorry, Connie,” said Dro. “They had to know.”
I couldn’t even speak. I was the big sister. I was supposed to take all the responsibility and make all the hard choices.
Sometimes I forgot that a sister’s love was supposed to go both ways.
Dro took a deep breath and looked at our parents.
“Mommy, Daddy, there’s something I should tell you…”
My fingers played along the hilt of the hatchet at my hip as I thought about the night Dro told our parents about her powers. How she told them for the sake of us all. They had still loved her, but after that they looked at her with caution. And a little fear.
I hadn’t been afraid of Dro in years, but now that I knew what she was, I couldn’t stop that creeping feeling in my stomach again. The one that told me the worst of our problems were only beginning.
Chapter 8
Dro slept fitfully that night, making it hard for me to sleep. If she was going to get dragged into a nightmare, then I was going to have to react as fast as possible to keep her from burning down the house and killing everyone inside. I didn’t get anymore sleep than she did, so when she woke up and decided to make breakfast, I agreed to help her.
She tried to frown, but it twisted into a smile. “Maybe you should just sit back and watch,” she said as we walked out of the basement into the kitchen.
“What? I can kind of cook.”
“Burning macaroni and cheese isn’t cooking,” Dro pointed out.
“It’s not my fault that I get the faulty boxes and shitty stoves,” I grumped.
Dro laughed and started getting ready to make breakfast. She’d always known her way around a kitchen, and cooking was one of her favorite things. She used to do it all the time with Mom. An old sadness tugged at my heart as I remembered eating cookie dough and getting into flour throwing fights until Dro and I looked like ghostly twins.
I made a cup of coffee and glanced at my sister. Despite feeling comfortable with cooking and happily focused on her task, I could see how tired Dro was. With her snow-white hair braided down her back, it was easy for me to see her face, and the dark circles under her eyes.
Max came in the kitchen about half an hour later. He yawned as he sat down at the island across from me. He dropped a heavy textbook on the counter. “Something smells insanely awesome,” he said.
Like Dro, he didn’t look like he had slept very well the night before. Probably staying up late working on his essay or math test or whatever. But when he looked at Dro, he saw a reason to wake up.
“Chocolate and blueberry pancakes,” she said. “Would you like some?”
He grinned. “You had me at chocolate.”
She smiled at him, a flush coming into her cheeks before she went back to cooking. I played with the cup of coffee in my hands. “Shouldn’t you be studying?” I asked.
Max shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s boring.”
“Shouldn’t you be at least trying to focus on it?”
He looked at me innocently. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Constance? I was hoping you’d be thrilled by my charming presence.”
I stifled a laugh and took a sip of my coffee. Dro walked over to us with some plates and a huge stack of chocolate blueberry pancakes. I stared at them like they were sent from the gods. The last time Dro had cooked something like this had been when we worked for the Blood Thorns. She’d been one of the kitchen helpers, and no harm was allowed to come to her. It had been a small comfort to me, because I had never fully trusted a single member of the Espanis de Sangre.
“Actually, I skipped studying because I might have found something out last night,” he said as Dro placed some pancakes in front of him and sat down close to him.
Max was distracted by Dro’s closeness, so I waited for him to remember he was talking. My patience ran out fast. I cleared my throat loudly.
He looked over at me. “What did you say?”
I rolled my eyes. “What did you find out?”
“Oh, right. Well, I guess you could say I had a vision. Sometimes my dreams hint at things to come.”
“So you dream the future?”
He pouted. “It sounds so much less dramatic when you say it like that.”
I shrugged, slapping some pancakes onto a plate and starting to devour them like there was no tomorrow. They were light and fluffy, the blueberries warm and the chocolate melting in my mouth. I might not eat like this again for a long, long time, so I enjoyed every bit of them. Max took a bite of the pancakes, and from the look on his face, I guessed he was having a minor orgasm. Given how amazing Dro’s cooking was, I couldn’t blame him, but I my impatience was getting to me again.
“Come on, Max, don’t keep us waiting.”
Max glanced at me, slowing his chewing. “I think we should step back from looking for demons and trying to look for angels.”
My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. “Say again?”
He held out his hands, “In my dream, there were these two guys in long white trench coats. I could almost feel how powerful they were in the dream. They were trying to talk to me.”
“Talk to you?” I repeated, thinking back to the men who had been on the roof when I killed the Red demon. “About what?”
“Not about what.” He looked at my sister, who’d been nibbling at her food. “About who.”
We were both looking at Dro, trying to think. We had spent so much time running from demons that angels had never really crossed our line of thought.
“How do you know they were angels?” I asked.
Max shrugged as if he knew I wouldn’t believe the truth. “They told me they were. They said they’d be meeting us soon.”
“No offence, Max, but it sounds like you just had a weird dream.”
“Is it really that hard to believe? Your sister is probably a half-angel.”
I tried not to think about what it meant if Dro was a Nephilim and angels were following her. I wasn’t sure their intentions would be any nobler than the demons. I picked at the pancakes, forcing myself to eat.
“I wish I could believe it was just a dream, that it doesn’t matter. But when I woke up, I got this feeling deep in my gut. Nothing they said was random and I just… I knew.”
The extent of Max’s talents as a psychic still eluded me, but I trusted him enough to know he wouldn’t lie about anything concerning my sister.
“What did they say about me?” Dro asked quietly.
Max looked at her. “That you were chosen for something important. Something that will change the world.”
His words sunk in, and I tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Good of the angels to be so specific.”
My attempt utterly failed. Max sighed and Dro was hugging her arms around herself. I played with the pancakes on my plate, hoping I would find the will to keep eating, but I just couldn’t get the motivation. I dropped my fork onto my plate and rubbed my forehead.
“Did they say what they wanted? Did they say anything about Dro being Nephilim or what it means?” I asked, hoping I could massage away my growing headache.
“No,” Max answered. “All they said was that Dro had to be protected above all costs.”
“Did they seem hostile at all?” I asked.
“Not exactly. I mean, they didn’t threaten to rain down holy vengeance on me or anything, but I got the feeling that if I messed with them, it would be a huge mistake.”
That’s comforting, I thought sarcastically.
“I got that feeling too,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Dro asked.
I told them about the two people I had seen on the rooftop when I’d finished killing the demon, that I wasn’t sure who they were, but that they’d worn long white coats and had been staring at me. I wondered how long they’d been watching over us, feeling uncomfortable and a little bit angry. If they were supposed to protect Dro, what the hell had they been doing while we’d b
een running and fighting for our lives? I didn’t mind that they were more concerned about her safety than mine, but shouldn’t they have at least done something when she’d been having those terrible nightmares? When she’d been burning?
“Great,” Max said. “So we’ve got demons who want to kill you and angel stalkers who like invading people’s heads.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Never let it be said that you ladies don’t keep interesting company.”
I looked at my little sister. She was staring into space, toying with her braid over her shoulder.
“You okay, Dro?” I asked.
She nodded, but I didn’t believe her for a second.
“I just wish I could be normal,” she said sadly, releasing her hair.
Max reached over and took one of her pale hands in his, gently squeezing it so she knew he was there. Physical contact was important to Dro. She always felt like an outcast, that she was a freak and people wouldn’t want to touch her so softly. She slowly leaned her head onto Max’s shoulder while he rested his cheek on the top of her head. For him to be so selfless and tender with my sister when she needed it made my admiration and respect for him grow tenfold.
The door behind me opened and I whirled, my hand slapping to the hatchet on my hip on reflex. Manny walked in, looking well rested for once.
He glanced at the pancakes on the table. “I see someone made enough for me,” he said with a grin.
His mood faded when he realized none of us were smiling back.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Max was still holding Dro, so I filled him in on the angel theory. Manny sat down at the far end of the island closest to me and listened intently. When I finished the spiel, Manny looked grim.
“It’s fair to believe that where there are demons there are also angels, but I’ve never heard of them coming to earth like this. Let alone entering someone’s dream.”
“So we’re screwed,” I established. “That’s basically what you’re telling us.”
“Not at all, Constance. I’m saying there is something else going on behind the scenes. Something we don’t understand, and it’s clearly dangerous. We all need to tread carefully from here on out.”
