by Karina Halle
Oh, please, please, please, please don’t let them get hurt. Let them stay strong. After everything, I couldn’t handle another blow to my life. More than that, I would never forgive myself.
We ran and ran and ran. We bowled over overladen shoppers, bumped into surly pedestrians. We ran through red lights, cars swerving to avoid us, honking their horns. We passed by restaurants and cafes and souvenir stores and carts full of fake handbags. If there was thing that we were good at, it was running for our lives. This time it was to save lives.
And the entire city of Manhattan carried on, like nothing was at stake.
We finally reached the station at 53rd and 5th, sweaty but not out of breath. I felt like I could have run forever. We scrambled down the stairs, running past artwork in the tiled mezzanine and looked around. They weren’t here. Maybe they were down below.
I fumbled for coins in my pockets, practically throwing them at the ticket booth person and then ran on through the turnstiles. Dex took me by the hand and we flew down the stairs to the upper level platform, going against the river of bodies coming back up.
Down below there was barely anyone waiting for the train since the last one was just pulling away.
But there, at the other end, were my parents hunched over my sister who was lying on the ground, convulsing. A few bystanders were gathered around, one of them looking like they were trying to help.
“Shit!” I yelled and I took off down the platform, Dex at my side.
When we got there, I could see her face had a blue-ish tinge and her eyes had rolled back in her head. She was shaking, a man with glasses and a beard was trying to keep her head up and supported while my mother and father knelt beside her, trying to understand. My mother was crying.
“What happened?” I screeched, falling to my knees in front of them.
My father could only shake his head. “I don’t know, we got off the train and then she screamed and just collapsed a few seconds ago, holding onto her head.”
My mother looked right at me, her eyes wild. “She said there was something in her head. That ‘it’ was in her head!”
My mouth felt like I had a wad of glue in it as I realized how true the horror was.
It happened to me, I told my mom in my head. I fought it off. I knew it was coming for you next. We tried to get here in time.
My mother nodded and looked up at Dex before turning back to Ada.
“What do we do?” my mother asked the man who was helping them.
He grimaced. “It’s a seizure. She should pull through, we just have to keep her comfortable and secure.” He nodded at another man who was running up the stairs. “My partner has gone to get help, call where there’s reception.”
My mom looked back at me. What do we really do?
I could only hear what Pippa had told me. Kill the body and the head will die. There was no way that was happening to her. It didn’t matter what the demon did once inside, what he’d make her do, no one was going to hurt my sister.
Your grandmother said that? My mom thought.
Maximus said something along those lines too, but don’t worry mom, no one is going to lay a hand on her. We’ll take her to see an exorcist, we’ll contact my friend Bird, we’ll make this work, we’ll fight this. If I have to go into the Veil again, I will.
“No!” my mother cried out loud. “It shouldn’t be you, it shouldn’t be anyone! You girls are my girls and you have too much to live for, to have to deal with this, it’s not fair!”
My father stared at her, worried by her sudden outburst.
And suddenly I was struck with the most dreadful feeling, like some other, heavier shoe was about to drop at any second. Heavier than what was happening to my little sister as she lay on the ground, writhing, battling something deep within her.
Dex must have felt it too. He was behind me, grabbing hold of my waist, as if to hold me back from something.
Ada suddenly sat straight up, looking straight at me with pure black eyes. We all saw it, all sucked in our breath, as she started laughing, a sharp, raspy laugh that wasn’t human.
My sister was gone. The demon in her place was alive.
“Damn you!” my mother bellowed, grabbing Ada by the shoulders and shaking her. “Damn you, damn you!”
My father grabbed her, trying to pull her off but my mother wouldn’t let go. “Damn you!” She screamed.
And at that moment, Ada smiled, pure evil, and my mom suddenly flew backward as if shoved by invisible hands. Ada’s eyes turned back to blue and she collapsed back to the ground.
I whirled around, about to help my mom up but when she looked at me she wasn’t her anymore. And then she was. And then she wasn’t. Her eyes alternated between obsidian and azure, her mouth between a grin and a cry.
I didn’t know what to do. I felt completely and utterly helpless, hopeless. I could only watch. My father stumbled to his feet to try and help her, while Ada slowly eased herself up, holding her head in pain.
My mother hit my father, sending him flying a few feet and in that moment I think he finally realized it wasn’t his wife. I think everyone realized that, even the man who was comforting Ada.
My mother turned to face me and I stared right back at those shark-like eyes, at a grin that wanted to eat me alive. A grin that said, “I won.”
I was barely aware of what else was going on around me. I know the platform was growing crowded with people watching, some of them filming it on their phones. I knew that a voice was on the loudspeakers. I knew a train was approaching, not stopping at this station, not slowing down, shaking the walls and filling our ears.
All that mattered was that the demon had won.
It hasn’t, my mom’s voice came through loud and clear and for one brief instance I saw her eyes go back to normal and fill with tears.
Before I knew what was going on, my mother turned and ran for the edge of the platform, toward the tracks.
I remember screaming. I remember trying to run after her, my arms outstretched, trying to reach her. I remember Dex holding me back while my heart was ripped out of me.
My mother jumped down into the train tracks.
One second later a passing train came through.
The whole platform seemed to scream. The wail of brakes came a moment after but what was the point in stopping. She’d already been killed. She was already gone.
And the demon was gone with her.
She just gave her life for her family.
And I had just lost my mom.
While I remembered the moments leading up to it, I barely remembered a thing afterward, just flashes here and there. I guess I was in shock. Police, EMTs, the place was crawling with them as Dex and the bearded man tried to explain what had just happened. Dex let the bearded man do most of the talking, because he was the sane one here. We all knew what happened, but it wouldn’t make any sense coming from us.
Ada had cried and screamed, violently, and my father retreated into himself. He was acting almost normal, falling back on denial. It got him through it but I could see the pain. There was going to be so much pain. My poor fucking dad. He didn’t understand any of this and yet this was his reality. It was my reality. His wife had just died in a horrific way and in his eyes, her actions were one of madness.
But I knew the truth. So did Ada. So did Dex. My mother gave it all up so that it wouldn’t take us. So that it would finally be gone. But of all the sacrifices that I’d seen in the last few days, this was one I understood and because of that, it hurt the most.
My mother and I had never been close. She’d always been cool and closed-off to me. She always looked down on me but I later realized it was only because she feared me. She feared that I was like her mother and, she knew, that she was the same as us. She was just better at hiding it, at pretending it didn’t exist.
But it did exist. And there wasn’t anything more noble than embracing that fact and using it the way she did.
What the fuck did I know though,
about nobility? About sacrifice. We could all appreciate what someone gives up, the lengths that someone will go to for another. It touches us, makes us feel loved. But in the end, the sacrifice hurts. Because they did it for us and we may not be so deserving.
I certainly wasn’t the best daughter. I never even came close. I was bossy and bitchy, I was weird and demented. I was fat and drank and colored my hair a million Technicolor shades. I stayed out late in high school and skipped classes, I burned shit down, I was sent to a shrink, medicated, I hated life, hated myself, hated her, hated everyone. I did drugs and distanced myself from my family as much as I could. I had no self-esteem and I blamed everyone for everything.
My mother tried to do right, I know she did. But she just didn’t know how. Like Dex’s parents were afraid of him, my mother was afraid of me and where there is fear you can’t feel love. It doesn’t mean they didn’t love us, because they did. It just wasn’t shown so easily. It was fought for and I appreciated every time my mother fought to show me just how she felt. They were few and far between, at least I thought so. But when I looked back, I could see them there. It was like watching a movie for the second time and picking up on things you missed. It was there – it just needed to be found.
Grief is this thing, a hand of water that reaches into your lungs, and drowns you.
I drowned in my grief, as did everyone around me. If it wasn’t for Dex, lifting me out of it, and in time, lifting everyone else out, I don’t know what I would have done.
He may have not given his life again, but he saved me all the same.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dex
“Stay with me.”
I must have said those words a million times. Just holding onto Perry, trying to bring her to me, into this world we shared but was so brutally shattered.
Some days she couldn’t even get out of her bed. So I let her be. Most of the time, I joined her, just holding on, feeling her skin, her warmth, her assurance that she was still alive even though her mind was a million miles away.
Other times, I had to get up. I had to be part of the world. There were more people hurting than just her, people she cared about. I had to make sure Ada was keeping up on her studies. She didn’t have to go back to school – it was June and her grade was graduating anyway. She was allowed to pass but her teachers thought it was best that she still learn what she missed, to prepare for the next year.
So I became the despondent schoolteacher, trying to distract her if nothing else. It didn’t always work, but sometimes it did. Poor little girl. While Perry was struggling, I knew her heart, knew her strength. Perry would pull out, in time. At least, I had faith she would.
But Ada, I didn’t know about her. She was feisty and bull-headed as shit but in this sorrow, she wasn’t herself. She was just this walking blonde numb thing that roamed the house, silent. She was a ghost.
And then there was Daniel. He was the trickiest of all, mainly because he wasn’t my father. Not that my own father would have been any easier, but it felt like I had no authority over him. It wasn’t my right to tell him to eat or to shower, and so I didn’t. But I had some pull with the neighbors. One down the street, Debbie, whom insisted we call her DeeBee, became the Palomino’s guardian angel. She had no problems bossing her way into their life and making sure their ship was being run.
But most of all, I focused just on Perry. Just on bringing her back to life. Everything else was just put on hold. I talked to Rebecca every other day, make sure Fat Rabbit was being taken care of, that she was all right. I talked to Dead and to Seb. I talked to Jimmy and finally got the chance to tell him Experiment in Terror was over for good. There was a lot of yelling but I think he understood. He had no choice.
I even talked to my real father. He contacted me, finding me the same I found him. We talked twice and both times it was awkward. He asked about the wedding again and I wasn’t sure if he was hinting for an invitation. I was truthful with him – I wasn’t sure there was even going to be a wedding.
It was everything I wanted, a chance to start a new family. But it had to have come from Perry. She had to be the one to tell me. She had to want to move on. There’s nothing harder than trying to celebrate something – no matter how happy it makes you – when there is just so much fucking sorrow around you. Sorrow clouds everything grey, even the sunshine.
Her mother did have a lovely funeral, if you could use such a word to describe such an event. I guess you can’t. I’ve never done very well at funerals – having to say goodbye to an old friend a week before was hard enough. But somehow we all got through it. We all said goodbye. There was closure.
At least for Ada and Perry there was some sort of closure. They knew what had happened, they knew what their mother had done for them. But their father was another story. In his eyes – and what matched the reports of the other witnesses – was that she went crazy with grief over Ada and had leapt in front of the train. It didn’t matter that the doctor who was trying to help them had made a note of the way that Ada and her mother were acting, their eyes turning black, the things they said, their inhuman strength. None of that mattered. It was so easy to sweep it away. I was used to it, the way people can turn a blind eye to the unexplained. I had done the same once. It was easier that way.
The truth hurts.
But the truth also saves.
It saved me. And, in time, it saved Perry.
One day, about a month after New York, she woke up in the morning and gazed at me with these beautifully clear eyes.
“I had a dream,” she said and though her round eyes began to water, she didn’t cry. “Pippa and my mother were in it.”
I smiled and brushed her hair off her face. “Tell me about it.”
“Well,” she said, sitting up. I made sure the pillow was fluffed behind her. “We were by a waterfall. It looked like the Pacific Northwest and also like the Veil. Like, it had that one color. But it wasn’t grey, it was gold. Everything was gold, like autumn leaves. And the three of us were just watching the water go over the edge. I guess I knew they were about to jump.” She sighed, blinking, composing herself. “And they both hugged me and kissed me and told me to take care of myself, to take care of Ada, to take care of my dad to take care of you. They said they loved me and I would see them again one day. Then they let go of me and together they jumped over the edge. I remembered looking over and seeing the whole waterfall turn to sparkles, like fairy dust. And that was it.”
I had no idea my own eyes filling with tears as she said this, I had to quickly wipe them before they fell.
“Baby,” I whispered. “That’s beautiful.”
She managed a smile. “It was. And you know what, I think it was real. I think it was more than a dream. I just…I feel like they’re okay, both of them. They have each other. They’re happy.” She put her hand to her heart. “I feel it here. Right in here.”
And somehow, I felt it too.
After that, Perry seemed to pull herself out of her depression. The grief was still there, it still smothered her from time to time, but she was putting one foot in front of the other and managing to go on. For a few weeks, we both took reins of the household, and with the help of bossy DeeBee, made sure everyone was going to be okay.
Finally it was time for us to go home. To our home.
***
“Well, here’s to the groom to be,” Dean said, raising his beer in the air.
“Here’s to my best man,” I said, knocking my bottle against the bottom of his, ensuring that a rush of foam would be surging to the top.
“You’re such a dick, Dex,” he whined after he tried to slurp up the beer that spilled over.
I gave him a one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t mind being called a dick. Why not highlight my best feature, right?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re an asshole too, you know.”
I grinned. “Tight as a whistle.”
He grimaced. “Please tell me Perry and Rebecca will be her
e soon because I don’t know if I can handle another moment of bro night.”
“They’ll be here,” I assured him, leaning back in my seat. We were in one of my favorite bars on 2nd Ave. Perry and Rebecca had gone and done girly shit so I decided to get together with Dean and meet up with them later. Now that Dean had officially accepted as best man and Rebecca had accepted as a bridesmaid, it felt right to have a little soiree.
I gave him a wry look. “So, you getting any preggo sex?”
He rolled his eyes. “Dude, she’s still a lesbian.”
“A lesbian you put your dick in. Your super sperm got her pregnant. I don’t think it’s that far-fetched to think that you may still be hitting that.”
“Hitting that?” he scoffed.
“Sorry. Fucking that vagina with your dick. Better?”
“Dex you need to get more idioms. Join us in the future, will you?”
“Can’t happen, my friend. I’m getting married. Didn’t you hear? That means that Perry accepts me as I am, faults and all. It also means I don’t have to ever change.” I took a swig of my beer and burped. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
“For you, maybe.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Poor Perry.”
Thankfully, Dean’s baby mama and my wife-to-be showed up before our conversation could disintegrate along with the contents of our drinks.
“Were you guys talking about us?” Perry asked, settling into the booth, a round Rebecca going beside Dean. The first thing I noticed was the stiff way Perry sat down. It was almost like she was trying to match Rebecca.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She immediately looked at Rebecca.
“I told you he would know,” Rebecca said in her smart accent, though she looked awfully relieved to be sitting down. Next to Dean. No preggo sex, my ass. He was totally hitting that. Sorry, fucking her vagina. God.