by Bell, A. C.
Mom, Nikki and I were currently sitting on the floor of the living room putting a new shelving unit together. Instead of actually making progress on it, however, we'd been mocking the instructions for half an hour, now. While Mom and Nikki found it unceasingly hilarious, I was getting frustrating. The manual had been written so poorly that it was barely legible.
"Grooves fit should together 'L' flennel." Mom read aloud, unable to contain her laughter.
"What's a 'flennel' supposed to be?" Nikki asked, bubbling with laughter as I took the booklet from Mom.
"Oh, here it is again. 'Latch bracket a bent, put flennel down to correctly'," I said.
They laughed harder at the haphazard syntax while I puzzled in frustration, trying to decipher what we were supposed to do. I decided to forgo the manual altogether and started trying to piece things together in a way that made sense. I’d reconstructed a good bit of Farrah’s engine. How hard could a shelving unit be?
Then my phone buzzed in my hoodie pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it was Raiden. Nikki and Mom stood abruptly. Had they seen the guilt on my face?
"I'll go make a snack," Mom said, heading for the kitchen. Nikki followed and Hayley Westenra started singing from the iPod radio Mom kept in the kitchen.
I answered the call. "Hey," Raiden's voice tickled my ear. Something had him in a good mood and I could tell he'd been laughing.
I smiled. "Hey," I answered, folding myself onto the couch. "What's up?"
"Slade burned an eyebrow off grilling a steak."
“What?” I gaped.
"I told you not to tell her," Slade complained in the background.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of. Rookies do it all the time," Raiden berated, barely able to hold in a chortle. I heard Slade's cooking ego bruise and he and Raiden started wrestling. A few moments later, Slade's deep gravelly tone reverberated clearly through the phone and Raiden made scuffling noises as he tried to escape what was likely a head-lock.
"It wasn’t the entire eyebrow. And it wasn't my fault. The wind shifted at the wrong moment. Could happen to anyone. And since we're on the subject of embarrassing stories, maybe you'd like to know that Raiden once set fire to a tablecloth during a—oomph!" There was a pause.
"Just a sec, Adeline." Raiden said calmly before a static scraping suggested he’d set the phone down.
"M'kay." I said to myself since he couldn’t actually hear me anymore.
Mom brought out a plate with a peanut butter and fluff sandwich chopped into neat triangles, which I gladly munched on while I listened to Slade and Raiden brawl. It was almost like entertaining ‘on hold’ music. Once Raiden and Slade finished there was another pause of silence before the phone was picked up.
"Hey," Raiden said as if starting the conversation from the beginning.
I broke into laughter. Even knowing the situation didn't warrant so much of it, I couldn't stop laughing, as if a dam had been ruptured in my diaphragm. Only when my cheeks hurt and I was short of breath did I stop.
"Believe it or not, I didn't call to make an idiot of myself."
"No? But you do it so well," I teased.
"Ow, you wound me," he said laughing. He stopped himself by clearing his throat and his tone grew serious. "I, uh, I actually wanted to apologize."
"Apologize? For what?" I asked.
He sighed. "Everything that's happened. I can't help feeling that none of this would have happened if we hadn't thrown ourselves into your life."
"Raiden…" I thought back to his reaction to what Ian had said about Raiden “ruining me" and realized why it had bothered him so much. I lowered my voice to make sure Mom and Nikki wouldn’t hear. "Is that what you think he meant? That he only did this because you guys were teaching me about what I am? He would have done all of this regardless of whether you'd gotten involved. He’s been watching me for a long time. He said he cured a man in Salem and came back to do the same to me.” Goose bumps ran up my arms.
I heard a growl rumble in his throat. “If he’s been watching you for so long, then why didn’t Worg notice sooner?”
Somehow, I hadn’t anticipated that this would upset Raiden more. I winced. I’d theorized a lot about Worg, actually and why his intuition hadn’t warned him until this year. I’d come to the conclusion that Worg hadn’t sensed it before because Ian hadn’t intended to do me any harm until he actually came back from Salem once he knew his formula worked. I hadn’t been in immediate danger until then. I said as much and Raiden sighed his agreement.
“Anyway, if you guys hadn't shown up, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do about him. I would have felt alone and probably thought I was going crazy. Who knows what would have happened, then. More people could have been hurt." I paused to take a deep breath, anticipating a rush of emotion that was creeping its way to the surface. "Everything you guys did, going out of your way to teach me and to make sure I was safe even though you didn’t even know me; I'm grateful to you. So, please, don't be sorry."
He was quiet for a long time. A really long time, actually, until a knock came at my front door and I jumped, making a small sound.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said chuckling. "Sorry, someone's at the door. I'll talk to you later?"
"Okay," he said chuckling, too. "Bye."
"Bye.”
The knock came again, a little louder this time, so I stood and called to Mom that I'd get it. I hurried to the door, my socked feet sliding a little on the hardwood floors and pulled the door open. A small, foolish part of me hoped—pleaded—that it would be Peter. It wasn't.
The man before me wore a well-tailored grey three-piece suit, his hands tucked into the pockets of a coat that could easily cost half a grand. His black hair was nicely slicked and his blue eyes, almost identical to mine, were framed with faint laugh lines that deepened when he smiled warmly at me. This was the man who had given me Xavier Cahn's journal. All at once, I remembered where else I’d seen him before. He’d been at my father’s funeral and Mom had not been happy about it. The ring on his finger confirmed who he was before he identified himself.
"Hi, my name is Wyatt Parker."
The end of book one of
The Culling trilogy