Quentin crouched down, pulled off her shoes and socks, then put her legs under the blanket. He stood over her, listening as she breathed in and out, guilt washing over him for the part he had played in how the night went down. Grace was right. He was supposed to protect her and be her friend. Somewhere between the blurring lines of Guardian and Chosen, he knew he’d storm the gates of hell, no questions asked, to protect her from anything… including himself. Damn it!
He walked into her bathroom, grabbed two Tylenol and a glass of water, and left them on the nightstand. He leaned over Grace and brushed a light kiss on her forehead. “I’m sorry.” He tried whispering quietly enough so she wouldn’t wake.
A tiny smile lightened her features as she whispered dreamily, “I know.”
The two little words filled him with more rage and determination to get rid of all threats, including the douche bag waiting outside. Quentin glanced at Grace once more, caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, then left the room.
Wasting no time with stairs, he jumped over the banister, landing on his feet with a thud on the foyer’s wood flooring below. He had to pull himself together before reaching for the front door, otherwise he would have ripped it clean off its hinges.
Quentin found Darius waiting outside, leaning casually against Grace’s car. With a few strides, Quentin stood about a foot away from him.
“I stayed, now what do you want?” Darius asked.
Quentin crossed his arms over his chest, hoping it would help him keep his hands to himself. “You need to stay the hell away from Grace.”
“What the hell for?” he spat back.
“We both know that you’ve got one thing on your mind, and I won’t let you hurt her.”
The guy’s amused chuckle reverberated off the house. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the only one between the two of us hurting her.”
Quentin’s eye twitched and the muscle in his jaw jumped. Before he knew what he was doing, he leaped the distance separating them, slamming Darius against the car by the throat. “I’m only going to tell you this once more. Stay away from her!”
Darius shoved back at Quentin’s chest, pushing him far enough away his fingers slipped from his throat. “And I’m only going to tell you this once. Don’t ever touch me again, or next time I won’t play so nice.” Getting up from the car, he started walking down the driveway. “Besides,” he said, turning back to Quentin. “Grace is a big girl and I don’t think she’d appreciate you making more decisions for her without her knowing.”
Quentin held himself in place as the guy disappeared at the end of the drive. His body trembled with anger and adrenaline. He knew if he moved, he was going to hurt the guy…bad—especially, because the douche bag had a point.
Quentin spat on the ground. Damn it!
When Grace woke the next morning, she wasn’t angry. She was too woozy to channel anger. She rolled to her side, willing the bed to still. When the bed finally stopped rolling, the room moved instead. The alarm clock said it was a little after eight. In front of the clock were two Tylenol and a glass of water. Quentin must have left them there, because her mother wouldn’t know to leave them.
She hitched up on her elbow, grabbed the two white pills, and swallowed them with the water. The thought of getting out of bed was pure anguish, but she had to pee in order to continue sleeping through the spin phase of her morning. She heaved herself to the floor and practically bear-crawled to the bathroom.
The Tylenol stayed down for all of five seconds. She barely made it to the toilet. When there was nothing left in her stomach to come up, the full-on vomiting was replaced with body-wracking dry heaves. She swore she’d never drink again. Too tired to hold herself up any longer, she laid her face against the cool tile of the bathroom floor and fell back to sleep.
“Grace?” she heard, as something cool and wet touched her face.
Worried if she moved she’d get sick again, she chose to barely open an eye instead. “Yeah?” Her voice croaked. The wet washcloth felt good.
“I brought you some soda water and crackers. It’ll help.”
Grace didn’t move.
“Come on,” her mother said, coaxing her to get up. “You’ll feel better if you get up and put something in your stomach.”
Reluctantly, Grace followed instructions and let her mother lead her back to her bed. The blankets were pulled back and a TV tray sat on the nightstand. As Grace got in bed and Laney covered her, she wanted to be mad at her. She even tried to pull from what she was feeling last night. But it was no use. She was completely exhausted and only part of it was her hangover.
Laney placed the TV tray over Grace’s lap and sat on a fold-up chair she must have brought in with her. “I promise if you eat some crackers you’ll feel better.” Laney gave her a barely-there smile as unease pulled her face tight.
“Okay.” Grace took a bite of a dry saltine.
Grace was unmoved as tears filled Laney’s eyes and slowly trickled down her cheeks before she spoke. “It wasn’t like that, you know.”
“Oh, Mom.” A small fissure slowly cracked along Grace’s heart as she watched her mother cry. She really didn’t want to see her mother hurt again. “Please don’t buy the BS he’s trying to sell to you.”
Her mother smiled at her. Actually smiled. Not a smile hiding pity for Grace, but one of true and utter… peace. “I know it’s hard to believe. Who am I kidding?” she kind of mumbled to herself and then brought her gaze back up to Grace. “It was hard for me to believe. It really is true, Grace. Your father only left to keep you safe.”
The synapses in Grace’s brain weren’t firing correctly yet, making her feel a little slow despite trying to understand. “I don’t get it. How does leaving keep me safe? Aren’t fathers supposed to stick around so they can protect their families?”
“When you were born, your father and grandfather didn’t know if you were the one or not. Christophe had a feeling, but there was no mark. When you reached your first birthday and the mark still wasn’t there, they didn’t think any more of it.” Laney’s eyes moved to the sheet she was playing with between her fingers, but she kept talking. “By the time you were three, you still barely had hair. I worried you’d never get any and everyone would think you were a boy forever.” Laney laughed to herself from the memory. “I was giving you a bath one night, and I noticed a funny swirl on the back of your head, close to the nape of your neck. When I showed Richard, he called Christophe. That’s when they told me.”
Grace saw the memory skip along her mother’s face and the hurt in her eyes as tears filled them again. “I don’t understand,” she said.
Her mother reached out and wrapped Grace’s fingers in hers. Grace tensed, not sure if Laney was trying to give strength, or draw it from her, as her mother continued. “They said Richard would have to leave, the others knew what he was. If he stayed, they’d eventually realize he had a child. I didn’t know about Fallen or Nephilim or Chosen. When they explained I’d never see Richard again until after Christophe died—” Laney tried to say, but lost her voice between swallowed sobs. “I accused Richard of wanting to leave us, said he was a coward for trying to use such a ridiculous story as an excuse to leave.”
“How does leaving protect me?” Grace asked again, beginning to struggle for air. She pulled her hand away from Laney’s and leaned back into her pillow. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m not Nephilim and neither are any of your cousins, and no one would sense what you truly are until you’re eighteen. But Richard is Nephilim, and your proximity to your dad put you at risk. If your dad was near you and any other Nephilim were in the vicinity, they would know you were Nephilim and possibly Chosen, simply because you were with your dad. The connection between the two of you would be obvious. It would be much worse if those Nephilim also happened to be Fallen. Don’t you see,” her mother begged. “The only way to keep you hidden and safe was to keep you close to Quentin, who was the only one of the three
that could sense Fallen. Quentin insisted on guarding both you and your grandfather.”
Grace focused on Laney’s voice. A highpitched, ominous sound started to ring loudly in her ears, making it tough to hear. “But how come I never saw Quentin?”
“He stayed in the shadows, much like he does now. If you had seen him, and realized that he never aged, you’d have known he was different.” Grace looked down at her hands, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. “Others might have suspected you, but we went to great lengths to make sure no one connected you as Richard’s daughter. If Richard had stayed, they would have known you were his daughter, no question, and Quentin said all they would have to do is wait until you were close to eighteen. Many knew Christophe was Chosen, and if Christophe died around your birthday, then they’d know what you are—”
“Wait,” Grace interrupted, stumbling over her words. “Wha… what did you say?”
“Which part?” her mother asked with guarded eyes.
Laney didn’t have to repeat it; Grace had heard her clearly. Her breath left her in a painful squeeze. A loud whooshing magnified the ringing as it pulsed deafeningly in her ears. She was either going to throw up again, or pass out. Her vision turned a hazy purple as she felt herself falling sideways toward the floor. Laney caught her with a gasp and righted her in the bed. Quickly removing the tray, Laney sat on the bed next to her.
Panic seized her lungs and thoughts. The panic squeezed harder. This isn’t happening, she thought. Laney wrapped Grace in her arms, and rubbed her back as she cooed, “It’s going to be okay,” in her ear. It was never going to be okay. Ever.
Grace’s vision returned, her lungs quit trying to hyperventilate, and her mind cleared. The truth in her mother’s words still rang loudly in her ears. It was her fault, all of it. She’d killed her grandfather. She’d made her father leave. She was the reason for her mother’s fifteen years of heartache and bitterness. Through the tears she didn’t realize were falling, she said, “So, that’s why you hate me? I understand now. I’d hate me too.” And she did.
“Hate you?” Laney asked, wiping away Grace’s tears with the back of her hand. “Every time you missed calling when you were supposed to or didn’t come home on time, when a stranger stood behind us in the grocery store, or the school called saying you got hurt…I worried they’d found you and were trying to kill you.” Laney grabbed her hand and all at once, what her mom was feeling rushed through her. Laney loved her. It was a stop-at-nothing, sacrifice-anything-for-the-sake-of-my-daughter kind of love, and it awed her.
A tear slowly trickled as a rush of belonging swept over Grace, melting away the bitterness she’d clung to for so many years. All she’d ever wanted was her mother and the love, protection, and warmth pouring from her now. She wrapped her fingers tightly around Laney’s, desperate for more.
“The constant looking over my shoulder was making me lose my mind, Grace. I had to distance myself for your sake. You would have felt my fears for sure. We wanted you to have some kind of normalcy, because the moment you found out who you really are, your life would be anything but normal. Normal was all I had the strength to give you. And I failed miserably at that.”
Grace sat up a little more on the bed, pulling her mom in for an embrace like none they’d ever shared. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“What are you sorry for?” Her mom pulled away and Grace scanned her face, seeing the results of the pain she’d caused her mother in the furrowed eyebrows and streaming tears.
“Everything … it’s all my fault.”
Laney grabbed her chin, pulling her face up. “Now you listen to me, none of this is your fault. None of it!”
“Yeah, but if I were never born—” The onslaught of tears stole her ability to speak.
“Then I would be incomplete,” Laney said as her voice hitched into a sob. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and worth every moment of the last fifteen years.”
The last few words spoken by Laney kicked Grace straight in the gut. Not only was she responsible for her grandfather’s death, she was also the serial killer of all those moments with her mother. The wasted years clawed murderously at Grace’s heart. Shame and guilt balled up in the pit of her stomach and crawled painfully up the back of her throat, sticking there.
Grace clung to her mother, sobbing uncontrollably into the crook of her neck. The irony overwhelmed her that the loving mother she’d always yearned for so desperately had been there with her all along. “I’m so sorry,” Grace cried over and over. “I love you. I love you so much.”
Laney’s arms wrapped tighter around Grace’s wracking body. “I love you too, Grace. I always have.” Her mom gently rocked her, running a hand down her hair and back as they continued reassuring each other of how they felt.
When the tears began to wane, Laney asked Grace if she’d be okay. “I will be.” As Laney got up, Grace grabbed her hand. “Do you know about my curse?”
“You mean your gift?”
“It doesn’t feel like one,” Grace said, as she dropped her mother’s hand. “Did my grandfather—”
“—tell me?” Laney finished her sentence. “No.”
“Then how?” Grace asked puzzled.
A secret smile spread across Laney’s face. “A mother always knows.”
When her mom left the room, she didn’t leave without saying, “Happy birthday.” Real happy. All her life, Grace had thought her parents were the reason for her messed-up life, only to find out she was the reason for theirs. Even worse, if she’d never been born, her grandfather would still be alive. Burrowing down into the blankets and smashing her face in her pillow, she couldn’t help but cry some more. If she had been the one that died instead of Christophe…
Everyone would have been better off.
Grace had no tears left to cry. She was empty, dry, cried out. She pushed herself to the bathroom, and tried not to look at her alarm clock. It was already 1:45. So much for not looking. After she finished showering and getting ready, Grace stumbled to the kitchen for some food, not caring about her blotchy face or swollen eyes. The hangover was gone, but the dehydration lingered. It wasn’t all the beer’s fault this time.
Quentin was sitting at the island, eating a sandwich while reading the paper, and doing a good job of ignoring the condition of her face.
“Hey,” she said, pulling the orange juice container from the refrigerator.
“Hey.” He didn’t lift his gaze from the paper.
Eventually, Grace parked herself in front of the television in the family room, her iPhone in hand. She had several texts wishing her a happy birthday. Her thumbs quickly replied to them all with a thank-you.
Before she laid her cell on the cushion next to her, Emily had already replied.
Emily: Howz ur bday so far?
Grace: Ok.
Emily: U still want 2 shop w/me?
Grace: When?
Emily: 1 hr.
Grace looked at the time on her phone and pressed gently around her eyes with her fingertips. The swelling would probably be down in an hour or so. She could probably do a good enough job covering it with makeup.
Grace: K. U getting me?
Emily: Yep :)
Grace: C u soon.
Emily: K.
She decided to sit for twenty minutes or so before climbing back up the stairs to get ready, and flipped through the channels. Grace turned off the TV and tossed the remote beside her, giving up on visual entertainment. Her phone vibrated next to her. On the screen was a contact photo of a boyish-smiling Darius holding a bouquet of blue wildflowers in front of a backdrop of night. Not sure how she got his number, or how it could be programmed into her phone with a picture no less, she answered with an unsure hello.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” she answered, a little embarrassed. “About last night … uh, I’m sorry. I feel so stupid. I guess I can’t hold my beer.” She sank into the couch and put her face in her hand, mortifi
ed.
“No, it’s fine. I had fun.”
“Sure you did,” she countered, pulling her hand away.
“Well, you weren’t passed out the whole time,” he said through his laughter.
“Gee, that’s a relief.”
“I’m just giving you a hard time. No, really, I had a good time. The talking and the not talking was … nice.”
Nice? She hoped during the non-talking she wasn’t snoring, or—oh God—drooling. Silence fell between them for a few awkward seconds. Grace wondered what Darius was thinking.
“So, did you get my present?”
Absentmindedly, she played with a string coming loose in the seam of her sweats, and felt her cheeks warm. “Are you talking about the pic?”
“Did you like it?”
“Yeah.” She longed to be back at the lake. “The flowers are beautiful.
“I thought you might since they’re your favorite color.”
Puzzled, she stopped pulling at the string. She didn’t remember telling him that. “How do you know that?”
“You told me last night.” She did? What else did she say? She shuddered to think about it. “I saw your phone in the ashtray. I hope you don’t mind that I programmed my number in.”
“Not at all.” Grace pulled more violently on the loose string.
A few more silent seconds hung in the air.
“Is everything alright there,” he asked with reluctance in his voice.
Grace smiled to herself. “Everything … is going to be fine. It’s good.”
“Good,” Darius said. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you have family plans for your birthday then?”
Shattered Grace (Fallen from Grace) Page 23