A Place Worth Living

by B D Grant

  The gray haired woman is saying, “So you thought you could just call and he would come running? Have you ever, for one second, thought about him?”

  Mom has gone rigid glaring at her. “How dare you act like he doesn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t have a choice like he did to stay around. Now tell me, where he is!”

  “You won’t see him until you tell me what this is about, Catherine.”

  Mom lunges at her grabbing her shirt, “He is MY brother!”

  It’s time this lady meets the rest of the family.

  My mom hears me running up but the lady sees me coming moments before I get to her. Mom releases the lady in her grasp to move away from the running steps but the lady knows what’s coming. She puts her foot behind her to brace herself as I barrel into her. I get her to the ground and pin her. I look up at my mom waiting for her instruction.

  She looks confused. “Taylor, what are you doing? Let go of her.”

  “Mom, I thought…” I clamor to my feet looking at my mom with the same confused expression.

  “Mom?” The lady says huffing as she gets to her feet.

  “I’m not surprised you have a kid but a Dyna? Is she the one you were talking about being in trouble?” She rubs her wrists where I was holding her down looking from me to my mom.

  “She’s not a Dynamar,” she says like it’s a bad word. “She is a Veritatis, like me.”

  Being in arms length of the lady I see what I thought was gray hair is actually a platinum color. She’s not that old either, maybe around my mom’s age. She pulls some loose hair back out of her face while watching me look at her. “I’m Cassidy Sipe,” she says and puts her hand out to me to shake. I shake her hand but glare at her with mistrust. “She sure acts like a Dyna,” she says looking at me.

  “I don’t know what that is but we’re suppose to be meeting my uncle not… you.”

  “We’re not meeting anyone. You were supposed to stay put young lady.”

  I ignore my mom and stand my ground in front of Cassidy. “Where is he?” I ask frustrated.

  Cassidy walks back to my mom like I’m not worth her time. I can’t stand this woman and her attitude. She is going to answer me. I charge at her, this time with a real intent to harm.

  “Taylor!” I hear my mom yell as I crash into Cassidy. She’s more prepared this time. She grabs my shoulders when I hit her and we tangle as I throw my entire weight into her.

  “Not this time,” she hisses as we go through the air.

  I reach for her neck but she slings my hand away. Somehow she manages to get the upper hand before we hit the ground. I know this simply because I hit the ground first. Something hard collides with my back or maybe my head I’m not sure because right after I make contact I black out.

  I find myself somewhere I’m not familiar with. I’m confused. I’m thinking about the people that just left the room. They want more from me but there’s no one left for them to find. The voice in my head isn’t mine. I’m imagining the horrors to come when they refuse to accept that I will not give them anymore. I rub my eyes with my hands, but they aren’t my hands that come to my face. I’m dreaming I’m an older woman. From the looks of the scars on the inside of my arms I’m a woman that used to have a drug problem. I chuckle, rubbing the worst of them. I look up at the camera in the corner of the room, high up safely out of my reach.

  “I know you’re there,” I say out loud.

  I have never had a dream that feels so unnatural like this. I can’t get over the difference in the voice that should be mine when I speak.. It’s trippy like when I inhaled Helium out of a balloon.

  “Focus, I’m talking to you,” I say silently in my head.

  I’m so confused.

  I watch as the hand that isn’t mine uses a finger to write invisible letters on the opposite forearm, out of view from the camera. T..A..Y..L..O..R. I don’t get it. I know my name.

  “I know you’re there,” she repeats.

  Me, she’s talking TO me. The shock jolts me out of the dream.

  I open my eyes to see I’m walking away from a broken tombstone. Something is still wrong. Everything is upside down. Then, I realize I’m not moving on my own; I’m being carried. People are talking at a distance but I can’t make the words out. I willingly shut my eyes.

  “You can stop milking it, Taylor. They aren’t in here anymore,” someone fairly close says.

  I can open my eyes easier now but my head is loudly keeping beat with my pulse. I look around for the person talking to me. It’s Miles sitting in a recliner playing on his phone.

  “Where’s my mom?”

  I sit up on my elbows looking around the room. I’m laying on a couch in someone’s living room. The pictures on the side table are of Miles during his youth. This must be Clairabelle’s place.

  “Do you want me to go get your mommy?” He says condescendingly.

  I can hear other people down the hall talking including my mom. “How did I get here?”

  “I carried you.”

  “But you weren’t at the cemetery.”

  He puts his phone down and goes to the coffee table. “I watched you go wild on that Cassidy chick. It was like a flash back from when these two groupies got in a fight during a gig over the drummer. You see, it turns out he was talking to both of them at the same time. When they found out it was chaos. Heels, purses, whatever they had they used. Those chicks wanted blood.”

  I don’t feel like reliving Miles’s glory days. He picks up a bottle and a glass of water from the coffee table. When he turns back to me I give him my best “I could care less” expression.

  “Anyways, Mom freaked on me when she got off the phone and couldn’t find you. Thanks for that. She sent me to go to the café to get you. She stayed at the shop and called my cell phone that your mom had.

  You weren’t at the café so I grabbed some soup since I was there.” Miles pauses to look at me smiling. “I clearly didn’t understand the magnitude of you going missing because then my mom comes storming in the place. She freaks on me again, this time for eating while I should be searching for a lost child. Did I say thanks for that? That was my go-to lunch spot and now that I’ve been publicly humiliated I can’t go back.”

  “I’m not a child. ”

  “That’s what I said! Your mom wasn’t answering which is why she ran to the café expecting you not to be there. After the butt chewing I was sent to the cemetery while my mom went to drive around looking for you.” He hands me the water and opens the bottle and pours out two capsules. “This will help the headache but I doubt it will fix your concussion.”

  He hands me the capsules. I gulp them down. I need them to work fast because the lights from the ceiling fan are louder then Miles’s voice. I put my arm over my forehead to block the direct light lessening the intense brightness. Someone changed the dressing and bandages around my hand making them extra tight. I pull on it a bit to allow circulation to my fingers.

  “I could have taken her on if I wouldn’t have blacked out. Is she here?” I can’t make out the other voices down the hall.

  “Everyone is here and you didn’t just black out. You broke a big stone with your skull. You know breaking solid stone with your body and walking away isn’t normal?” He says sitting back down in the recliner.

  “I didn’t walk away,” I tell him.

  “You two got some major air before your head hurt that stone.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Well I walked around for a while until I heard the commotion. When I got to the back you were charging Cassidy. I’m pretty sure the cops were called. If it weren’t for the security guard being so cool you probably would’ve been arrested. Take my word for it you don’t want to visit the jails here.”

  “What?” The security guard didn’t get involved that I can remember but I was unconscious for part of it.

  “It was just a misunderstanding, both times. The cops around here enjoy scaring the hell out of first timers.
You don’t have to worry though, the guard took care of it.”

  “I don’t care about your experiences with the law. How did the guard come into the picture?”

  “Him and your mom know each other. If you ask me I think he’s an ex-boyfriend. When he showed up I was getting you off the ground. They were hugging each other when I turned around.”

  She never mentioned an old beau that she might run into while we were trying to save Dad but she wasn’t really talking about much during the drive.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Miles continues, “He even gave us a ride back here.”

  “He drove us here?”

  He gives me an annoyed look, “I just said that.”

  We’re here trying to meet one person and Mom dumps me on Miles and his mother. Then she’s chatting it up with Cassidy in the cemetery when a security guard from her past pops up and she asks for a ride home?

  “Even in New Orleans, dragging an unconscious girl around in the street isn’t the norm. Don’t think I couldn’t have done it though,” he says flexing a bicep like I should be impressed. “I just didn’t want to take the chance of being sore for my gig.”

  I can’t believe I missed all this. I rub my temples easing the headache. “So he shows up, saves the day, then chauffeurs everyone around?”

  Miles’s cell phone starts ringing, “My mom was at the other cemetery on the other side of town when your mom called her back. I have to get this,” he answers his phone. “Hey man. No, you better tell her something because this gig was set up a month ago.” He rolls his eyes at me, “You can’t let her do this to you man!” He gets up and walks out the room.

  I hear a man’s voice in the mix of female voices down the hall. I quietly walk down the hall following the conversation. “I told you I didn’t actually see them, Taylor did. They had to have been waiting at Beth and Charles’s because Darrell would have known if he was being followed.”

  “But what would they want with them? If they were after the boy then they’d have just taken him. Why Darrell and the other couple?” The man asks.

  I recognize Cassidy’s voice, “We all know Charles used to be a Rogue. Maybe he was still working with them—”

  “No,” my mom interrupts her. “He might have been a member at one time but he got out early on because he knew the measures they were taking to get control of the cities. If he was going to stay in touch with anyone it would be the family he left behind.”

  “He knew what disgusting things were being done and instead of doing something he runs away,” Cassidy says dryly.

  The male voice chimes in, “Whom was Thomas going to meet in Dry Creek?”

  “Civilian friends of his had found a girl. A Seraphim girl that was in the foster system.”

  “So the old man was going to let her move in and put everyone’s lives in danger?”

  Mom lets out a huff, “No, Cassidy. He was simply trying to help find her a safe permanent home. One that would encourage her abilities.”

  “Sounds like I would like this Thomas fella,” Clairabelle says, sounding farther away then the rest.

  “We know Thomas is a Cache but if others knew about this girl they could’ve found out about Thomas,” the man says.

  “They weren’t at his house, Will,” Mom says.

  “Someone in your group was located, Catherine. Either someone slipped up or they were told where to find you. I need to make some phone calls,” the man says.

  I back away from the door as someone on the other side takes a couple steps toward it and opens it.

  The man that walks out is the security guard I ran by in the cemetery. Looking at him, a picture of my dad and Uncle Chuck pops in my head. He was the third guy in the picture, the tall guy. The tall guy, the one I didn’t know, wearing the same uniform as my dad and Uncle Chuck. He stops just before fully opening the door with no expression of surprise seeing me there.

  “Ease-dropping are we?”

  “I was not. I was looking for my mom,” I reply in the most pained voice I can muster on such short notice all the while rubbing my head.

  “Does your mother let you get away with such blatant lies?”

  I open my mouth to answer but he stops me, “And now you’re going to lie about lying!” He turns back to the room behind him. “There’s no way she’s related to me,” he says to the room then turns around and walks past me grumbling something to himself.

  I’m not too sure what just happened so I proceed toward the door. My mom is smiling when I walk in. That’s a nice change. She looks at Cassidy who is smiling too.

  “It’s pretty hard to believe,” Cassidy says to my mom then upon seeing me at the door she goes straight to another open door that leads out to the balcony.

  Clairabelle is sitting just outside the balcony door at a small table. There’s a stocked bar on the opposite side of the room, a long couch with a big T.V. on the wall across from it, and some chairs. This must be the party room. Clairabelle walks in from the balcony after Cassidy walks out, shutting the door behind her and heads for the bar. I wish she would lock it too.

  “Is that who I think it is?” I ask Mom about the security guard.

  “That was your uncle.”

  “He’s charming isn’t he?” Clairabelle says taking a glass from the bar to pour a drink. “All jokes aside he really is. You just caught him on an off day,” she adds.

  “I’m sure he’s a gem.” I walk up to my mom lowering my voice, “I’m sorry I followed you. I just didn’t want what happened to Dad to happen to you and when I saw you two arguing,” I look out the door window to the balcony where Cassidy is standing facing the street. “I thought she was one of them.”

  “Come here, sweetheart.” She takes my good hand with one hand and touches my cheek with the other. “They wouldn’t stand a chance if they tried to take me away from you.”

  Normally I would pull away when Mom was being mushy but not today. “Dad didn’t try to stop them.”

  “Oh, Taylor.” She pulls me into a hug, “He was trying to protect Jake or he would have. They all would have.”

  “Why would they NOT fight to protect Jake?”

  The door to the balcony opens as I’m asking the question. Cassidy walks back in the room, “Because they would have killed all of them before letting even one get away.”

  I don’t want to talk to her so I stay in the hug hoping she’ll just go away but she doesn’t. She takes a seat on the couch and Clairabelle hands her a drink. “Does she know anything about these people?”

  Mom releases me from the hug. “I’ve told her some. She saw them take Darrell so she has a good idea how they operate.”

  Down the hall somewhere my uncle calls for my mom.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “And I’ll go see if Miles can get us something to eat,” Clairabelle says then stops short of the door, “Are you two alright to be alone together?”

  I look at Cassidy.

  “She couldn’t handle a round two,” she says taking a drink.

  I roll my eyes and head to the door behind Clairabelle.

  Clairabelle stops me saying, “No, you stay here. I need someone to watch you so you don’t give your mother any more trouble.” Then she leaves the room.

  Not knowing where to sit with Cassidy on the couch I prop up by the window staring at the street. “You know today would have turned out really bad for you if I would have been a Rogue.”

  “I know. My mom would’ve been taken too.”

  “No, I mean for you, not her. You would’ve been dead before you hit the ground.”

  “I get it. They’re like ninjas or something.”

  “More like mercenaries when it comes to opposition. The only reason you would make it out of a fight alive would be to get information from you or to recruit you.”

  “So is that what they are doing to my family, recruiting them?” I ask.

  “No, the kid maybe, but not the rest of them. They may keep them alive to manipulate the
kid but once he joins they’ll kill them if they can’t use them for anything else.”

  I get angry listening to her tell me what I’ve been fearing since Mom told me who they were.

  “They can’t be that bad,” I plead. “They might have changed since everyone left.”

  “Everyone didn’t leave.” She slams her glass down on the side table next to her. “If they have changed it’s only for the worse. These people were taught just like the rest of us to use any gifts we have to make things better. We have stopped wars. Your mom was being trained to work with the Army General for God’s sake.”

  I take a seat on the couch listening to Cassidy. She knows more about my mom’s past then I do.

  “Why was she going to work for the Army?” I ask.

  “She is one of the best Veritatis we’ve had in decades. She was going to help them with some problems they were having with an ally country. Let’s just say they weren’t acting like allies. She had a month left of training and Mandarin courses when she left.”

  “They were killing people, she told me all about it. She didn’t want to take the chance of them taking me. She was protecting her child. And it’s not like she was the only one.”

  “Don’t talk to me about protecting the people you love. I know first hand what was happening to our people. My father was a council member. He was the one that first suspected that not only was there a large group of people behind the disappearances but that our youth was being targeted too. Despite not having approval from the other council members, he sent Seraphim out to investigate the recent disappearances. The first body was found because of him. It confirmed his suspicions of what Rogues were doing. The same day I was sent home with strep throat from The Southern Academy. I was going to have a week home with my family. My house was broken into that night. I was in bed when I heard my father yell at my mom to run. Unlike you, I know how to run silently. I made it to the stairs when I heard something heavy hit the ground downstairs. I ran past the stairs to my brother’s room. He must’ve been downstairs with my parents because he wasn’t in his crib. That was about the time I heard something else heavy hit the ground. You can call me heartless but I didn’t even think about going downstairs. I opened my brother’s bedroom window and climbed out.” She stops and picks up her glass taking a gulp before going on. “My dad probably saved my life that night. He could have yelled out to me that night too but he didn’t. He yelled for my mom to run even though she was in the room with him. I think he was yelling to alert me. I wasn’t suppose to be at home.” She looks me in the eye then says, “They killed my parents. The heavy thuds I was hearing while I was upstairs were their bodies hitting the ground.”