“Hmm, you could set the table.”
I frowned. The table consisted of a classroom desk-sized table in the corner of the kitchen. Four stools surrounded it, but there was no way more than two people could sit there at a time.
Keeping my thoughts to myself, I did what she asked.
I was grabbing the mismatching glasses when Nicole burst into the kitchen, dragging a pink stuffed bunny by the ear. I had given it to her when she was born. It looked old and dirty, but she never let go of Pinky. She even took it to school, and I was somewhat proud of it.
“Are you done helping?” Nicole asked, looking up at me with huge bright green eyes. She moved back and forth on her heels, making her pretty, curly hair bounce. She was my six-year-old angel, and I couldn’t help but fall in love with her all over again each time my eyes met hers.
I ran a hand on the top of her head. “Almost.”
“That’s okay, Nadine,” my mom said. “I cook every night alone. I can do it tonight again. Give them some attention.”
I didn’t argue. I hadn’t seen them in so long, and I was dying to experience how much they had grown and changed, and to play with them.
Nicole grabbed my hand and pulled me to the living room, where Tommy and Teddie were wrestling. Teddie was ten and a lot taller than Tommy, who was eight, but he played it down, letting Tommy win some rounds. There was no TV at home to keep them entertained, but my mom kept a radio on in the kitchen at all times, broadcasting news and music.
When he was born, Teddie looked exactly like Troy. I remembered the first day, when it was odd looking at him. It was as if Troy had come back to life, though I knew it couldn’t be. I had no idea how Troy would have turned out since he died before he was six months old, but Teddie was cute. He would break many hearts when he grew older. All of them would.
Sighing, I sat down on the couch, and Nicole climbed on my lap. I squeezed her, wishing with all my soul the world would stop getting worse so my siblings had a chance to grow up, to build less miserable lives. Way less miserable.
God, I couldn’t really stop and think about the future. It hurt too much. And I had no idea how to help anymore. Without NYU, my scholarship, and my job, I couldn’t help. I was actually a burden. Everything I vowed I would never be.
I had to think and come up with a plan. I couldn’t stay here and make things worse.
“Sing for me,” Nicole said.
I smiled. I would leave the thinking and planning for after they had gone to bed.
“What do you want me to sing?”
“Don’t you have one of your own songs?”
“Hmm.” Not really. I had never had time to write songs down, though lyrics of several pieces of my own were stored in my memory. “I know one.”
Nicole jumped off my lap and went into her bedroom.
“Hey, where are you going?” I asked, confused.
She came back, dragging Pinky and my old Spanish guitar.
“Where did you find this?” I asked, taking it from her hands.
“It was under my bed. I grabbed it for you when we left the other house. I thought you might want it.”
My heart squeezed a little. After everything, she still thought of me.
I pulled her into an embrace. “I do want it. Thanks, Nikkie.”
She sat beside me and nudged the guitar.
I took it, cleared my throat, and sang an old song written before I was born, one that I had sung to them every night when I put them to bed, when I still lived with them. Lullaby by Dixie Chicks.
After the first verse, Teddie and Tommy stopped wrestling and sat down at my feet, swaying with the tune.
“I missed that song,” Tommy whispered between verses.
My eyes filled with tears, and I noticed Mom was leaning against the doorway, watching us with a smile on her face. I fought so my voice wouldn’t crack and I wouldn't cry in front of them.
“More!” Nicole yelled, as soon as I stroked the last chord.
Mom took three steps to the couch and kissed my forehead. “I’ll never get tired of listening to you sing.”
Tommy and Teddie argued about which song I had to sing next. I didn’t wait for them to decide before I played another. They quieted down immediately.
“Wow,” Mom said, her eyes wide. “If you can calm them down that easily, I will ask you not to leave us ever again.”
I almost missed the right chord. I knew she was joking, but it didn’t change the fact that I should leave them sooner than she expected me to. I still hadn’t made up my mind about how many days I could stay, but I had decided that more than a week would be too much.
One more thing for my after-the-kids-go-to-bed to-do list: to decide when I would leave and where I would go.
Dad arrived just in time for dinner. He seemed surprised to see me, and he hugged me tight. Under my arms, I noticed how weak and thin he was.
“Glad to have you here,” he said, pushing back and looking at me.
While he had lost weight, his face had gained a few wrinkles since the last time I had seen him.
“I’m glad to be here too.”
He leaned down and kissed the top of Teddie’s, Tommy’s, and Nicole’s heads. They barely paid him attention as they played a board game on the floor.
“Come on, dear,” my mom called him. “Dinner is ready.”
The kids had already eaten. Mom had insisted I eat too, but I preferred to wait for Dad so we could eat together, even if we had to squeeze around the tiny table.
Mom served us, and then sat down with us. As I predicted, we were crammed and our plates touched each other on the table.
To keep my mind off that, I started a conversation. “So, Dad, what were you working on?”
“I have been working for the mayor,” he said.
“Really?”
“With all that is happening, the mayor wants to build a wall around the city, keep guards at the gate, and supervise everyone who comes and goes. So, I’ve been helping. I’ve been building the wall.”
A wall like NYU had. A wall that had done nothing other than delay a major attack for about five minutes. There had not been enough time to run and find shelter, especially when the city burned to the ground.
However, I didn’t mention that to my parents. If the wall brought a little internal peace to the townspeople, then so be it. Besides, this heavy work had probably given jobs to many unemployed adults.
My mother touched my hand. “Nadine, will you tell us what happened to New York City? What did you see, and how did you escape?” I stared at her. “I’m sorry, honey. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. It must hurt, I know.”
“It hurts, but I guess I can tell you.”
I opened my mouth, and the words I had rehearsed with Keisha and Raisa rolled off my tongue. It was easier than telling the truth.
I thought of the girls for a second. I wondered if they made it home, if Chicago and Richmond were still intact. Then I thought about what I had told Keisha, if she believed me, or if now that she was safe at home she thought I was insane and everything we had been through had been a nightmare.
I wished.
“You’re blessed for escaping,” my mom whispered. Wiping her tears, she stood up. “Go play with the kids. I can clean up here.” She grabbed our plates and put them in the sink.
I stood. “I want to help.”
“I can help your mom,” Dad said.
“But—”
My phone rang, and Mom smiled at me. “Answer it,” she said.
I excused myself, walked into the kids’ bedroom, and fished the phone from my pocket while closing the door.
Unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Nadine, hi.”
“Victor? What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said. I sat down on Nicole’s bed, not sure what else to say. “Look, I need to see you.”
“Oh, you’re in pain.”
He didn’t answer me right away. “Yeah.” He took a l
ong breath. “But I don’t want to go to you because I don’t want to risk having demons follow me there.”
Good point. I didn’t want that either.
Wait. He knew where I was? Well, thinking about it, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out where I could have gone. One more reason to leave soon.
“What do you suggest then?” I asked.
“You could take a taxi to Minneapolis and meet me in a public place. Or maybe not, considering what happened to New York City. You could take a cab to a gas station or motel outside of Minneapolis.”
Out of habit, I grabbed a thick piece of my hair and twisted it around my finger. That would mean a twenty- to thirty-minute drive. In a cab. Paid. With money I shouldn’t be spending because I had to buy groceries for my family.
“Victor, I can’t.”
“I just looked online and found a taxi company. I’ll send one to pick you up. You just need to tell me a time.”
He would pay for it? I knew he was loaded as a human, and I couldn’t imagine how rich a god could be. I wouldn’t argue with that.
“I’ll walk my siblings to school at eight thirty tomorrow morning. The taxi can pick me up right after.”
“Okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
He ended the call before I could answer. I stared at the phone confused. “See you tomorrow.”
9
The taxi showed up in front of my parents’ building at 8:45 a.m.
“Ms. Sterling?” the driver asked through his lowered window.
“Yes,” I said, skeptical.
“I’m here to take you to your meeting.”
I nodded and entered the taxi. He drove toward Minneapolis but turned south before we entered the city.
Forty minutes into this awkward drive, the driver exited the interstate. He took us down a back road for about five more minutes, and then stopped at an abandoned motel.
I opened the door. “Thank you.”
“Thank the guy paying for this trip because if it wasn’t for the ridiculous amount of money, I wouldn’t drive here. Ever.”
I ignored his comment and exited the car. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I looked around. The place was creepy and reminded me too much of the school where Brock had kept Morgan, Micah, and me.
The motel didn’t only look abandoned; it looked sacked. Vandalized. Torn down doors, walls covered with graffiti, broken lamps, and the sign, once hanging from a post, was now in pieces on the ground.
Victor wanted to meet here? Seriously?
And where was he? I wouldn’t stay here, in the dark and in the middle of nowhere, for long. I grabbed my phone and was about to call him when he appeared out of the darkness.
I held my breath.
His sea-green eyes were hard on mine, ensnaring me.
And he didn’t look sick.
“I thought you said you needed my healing,” I said as he approached me.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Not really.”
Frustration built in me. “What? You brought me to this motel out of a horror movie for nothing?”
He halted four feet from me. “Not for nothing. I think we need to talk.”
“Talk? No.” I turned to the taxi, but he held my arm.
“That day at the hospital, I wanted to talk to you, but you just left. You’re not leaving again.”
“Who do you think you are to tell me what I can or cannot do?” I raised a finger. “Don’t answer that.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Please, talk to me.”
Talk about what? The past? He was dreaming if I was going down that lane again.
“Victor, I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t want to be involved in any of this. I know I can’t escape healing you or Micah, but this doesn’t work.” I gestured around us. “I can find a way of coming to you when you need healing, but other than that? Please, leave me alone.”
“I’m trying,” he said in a low voice. “I’m trying to leave you alone, but after all that happened between us, I think we should talk.”
I crossed my arms. “About what?”
“Us. We obviously felt something for each other a few months ago.”
I stared at him. The expression on his beautiful face reminded me of a lost puppy. “Like you said, a few months ago. It’s in the past.”
“Is it?”
I took a deep breath. “You want to know what I think? Okay, I’ll say it. I think my feelings for you weren’t real, as yours weren’t for me. Ceris planted those feelings in me. She steered me to you, and she pushed us together. It was her plan. Every little thing, especially my feelings. Whatever I felt for you wasn’t real.”
“Felt,” he repeated.
“Yes. In the past. And I’m sure if you stop and think about it, you’ll realize your feelings for me weren’t real either. Or maybe you felt something because you thought you were alone. You wanted to feel something for someone, and I was there. Which was not a coincidence since it was all in Ceris’s plans.”
He frowned. “She said the same thing.”
Wow, that was unexpected. I tried pressing my lips together, but the words rushed out of my mouth on their own. “I take it things aren’t good between the two of you.”
Victor laughed, and it wasn’t an amused tone. “Aren’t good? They have been terrible.” He paced. “First, she takes me off that mountain without my permission and leaves you alone with that demented Mitrus against hundreds of demons. After all the bad things she had done and the people she killed, I was sure I could have included that act to the list. But then the Fates found us and said you were okay.”
I snorted. “No thanks to them. I was lucky Micah and Morgan were there with me.”
“I’m sorry about leavin—”
I raised my index finger. “Don’t go there.”
He stared at me, and I averted my eyes. “Anyway, Ceris and I talked—well, argued really. We can only argue—and we decided to start working toward finding my scepter. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last three months.”
Of course. Finding the scepters was priority.
“No success?”
“None. We have no idea where to look for it. In addition, we had to deal with the demons and run from Omi and Imha more than once. Ceris can fade her aura completely, but only lessen mine. The demons pick up my aura often, and that makes it hard to look for the scepter because we can’t stay in one spot for long.”
“Unfortunately, I know nothing about The Everlasting Circle’s lore and power or whatever. I can’t help with that. I also don’t have visions anymore and can’t lead you where you need to go. What I can help with is healing, which isn’t what you need right now.” I turned to the taxi. “Please, only call me when you need my healing.”
He rushed toward me. “Nadine—”
“I beg you, Victor. Don’t involve me in this mess more than I need to be involved.” I slipped inside the taxi. “Good luck.”
“Ready to go, Ms. Sterling?” the driver asked.
I closed the door and turned my back to the window. “Yes, please, take me back.”
The rest of the day was uneventful.
I returned home in time to have lunch with my mother. Then she asked about my plans, and I said I didn’t have any. Which wasn’t a complete lie. After the kids had gone to bed last night, I had thought about what to do, but my mind kept going to Victor and his call, and I lost my train of thought. Now that I had seen him, I was in a bad mood because I had been away for two hours for nothing and because I had seen him.
I told my mom I would probably try to find a job while applying for scholarships to other universities, preferably closer to home this time. That part of the plan was true, but what I didn’t tell her was I would be leaving in two or three days. I wasn’t sure exactly to where. At first, I had thought I needed to stay in a big city because they had more soldiers and protection, but my options weren’t many. I wanted to stay no less than five hours from here. Min
neapolis was too close to home, and Des Moines was only three and a half hours away.
However, now that I had talked to Victor and he mentioned having to move around because the demons could sense his aura, I wondered if that would happen to me too. I was afraid of attracting them here, wasn’t I? So what would stop them from sensing me in Des Moines or any other place I decided to move to? Then demons would attack the city, and people would die because of me. I couldn’t live with that.
The solution was to move around.
But how would I help my family if I didn’t stay in a place long enough to get a job and make some money? If I couldn’t be in school?
At three thirty, Mom picked up the kids from school, and I went grocery shopping. Mom almost had a heart attack when I came back with more than I could carry, but it was the least I could do. Once inside the house, the kids surrounded me and we played on the side patio until Dad came home from work. After dinner, I put the kids to bed, singing the lullaby song for them, and then came back to the living room where my parents sat. My father cleaned his work boots, and my mother organized the kids’ toys.
I knelt on the floor and helped Mom.
“Nadine,” my father said. “Your mom and I need to talk to you.”
I stopped and looked at him, worried. Could he know something? “About?”
“About you and your situation right now.”
“Oh.” I put the toys in my hands in a box, and then sat beside him on the couch. “I know things aren’t easy and I’m sorry for being a burden, but—”
“A burden?” my mom asked, her expression appalled.
Dad shook his head. “You’re not a burden, dear. On the contrary. You’re the one that actually kept this family up for so long.”
“I’ll do it again,” I said. I had to believe I would. There had to be something I could do. “I’m not sure how yet, but I will.”
“You don’t have to do this. It’s not your responsibility.”
“But I want to help.”
“I know. But I think finishing your education is more important.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure about that. Right now, I just had to work anywhere so I would stop being one more mouth to feed and maybe help with feeding the others. Regardless, I was convinced I couldn’t stop in one place for long. How would I finish school like that?
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