Natural Selection

by Elizabeth Sharp

  I WAS LOST in a dark, quiet place with my sorrows. Time passed, though I wasn’t aware. Someone picked me up, tossed me over their shoulder, and carried me somewhere. What did it matter? I felt myself roughly tossed onto a floor, and cold water rained down over me. A hand slapped against my cheek, and the world lurched back into crystal clear focus.

  Placing a hand to my stinging cheek, I looked around. Lying beneath the showerhead in a less than immaculate hotel bathroom, I stared up at my sister’s furious face. I tried to scramble back from her realizing just how scary Sariah could be. My back hit the wall behind me, and I swallowed harshly as she knelt beside me. As she moved closer the anger was evaporated leaving only the same sadness that I felt on her face.

  “I know this is hard, Amelia. But I also know you’re stronger than this. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through—having all this thrust on you at once—but I need you to pull it together.”

  I stared up at her, her face blurring as tears flooded my eyes. The shower floor was cold and hard against me as I wept. I would take this one last moment to grieve and then I would put it behind me until this was over. Everything I had lost in the last twenty-four hours ran through my mind and sobs tore from a place deep inside me. I couldn’t imagine how to go on without my parents. Despite the fact I looked like a grown woman, I was still only fifteen—I needed them. I’d lost my home, my friends, and the life I thought I’d had. All the pent up frustrations of the last several months were washed away with the tears. I hated how miserable I made my parents’ life at the end. My entire life I had been lost in my own troubles, but now it was time to pull it together. Their death would not be the end, and I couldn’t let my parents down. I had to keep living because that’s what they would want. We were their legacy, and I wouldn’t leave it lacking in any way.

  By the time I pulled myself off the floor, my teeth were chattering from the cold water. Stripping out of my wet clothes, I wrapped in Sariah's fancy silk bathrobe I found lying against the sink. I saw my face in the mirror. It seemed like everything that happened over the last couple of days should be visible. But all I could see were dark circles from lack of sleep and red puffy eyes from crying. The exhaustion was overwhelming, but I knew I couldn’t sleep. There was too much to do: plans to make, and problems to solve.

  I self-consciously opened the door, holding the robe around me with my hands, but no one was in the room. Dashing to my bag, I grabbed some clothes and scurried back into the bathroom. Once I was changed into a blue tank top, a grey cashmere cardigan and black cotton pants, I towel dried my hair and styled it with my fingers. I hung the crystal my mother had given me around my neck, then shrugged.

  I found Sariah sitting on the bed. She studied me for a moment then went to the door. When she opened it, I realized we were in one of the no-tell motels that are common along the highways. It was the kind where the rooms are stretched out, lining the parking lot in two stories. This one looked very generic with tan walls and a green door.

  Nate came in carrying a laptop case with Xander behind him carrying a brown paper bag with grease stains. He proceeded to pull out four greasy burgers and four boxes of fries. Sariah grabbed two cans of Coke and two bottles of apple juice out of the ice bucket. We ate in silence. Nate sat in the desk chair fiddling with the laptop as he ate. Xander, Sariah and I sat on the bed.

  I did my best not to make faces, but the days when I could graze by the side of the road at fast food joints were definitely behind me. It struck me as odd they thought to get us apple juice but didn’t think about the preservatives and grease in the burger. It wasn’t even a good quality burger. It was made with things I really didn’t want to think about, let alone eat. I tried to choke it down, but all I could manage to do was nibble on small bites of the bun. Even the fries were disgusting—genetically altered before they were processed, breaded and dumped in a vat of dirty grease. Sneaking a glance at Nate, I noticed him poking his food with a disgusted look on his face.

  Was this going to be our lives? Seedy motels and greasy foods I couldn’t choke down? What were we going to do for money? None of us had any marketable skills. Hell, I couldn’t even legally work! Xander was eighteen and Nate and Sariah were seventeen. We weren’t old enough to be on our own—and yet here we were. I wished I could take it all back. I would wake up in my own bed, and this would all be a horrible nightmare. Mom and Dad would be sitting in the kitchen reading the paper, and we would talk as I ate my cereal.

  Sariah cocked her head, and nudged Xander sending a significant look in my direction. I don’t know what it was about, but I found at that moment I didn’t care. Suddenly, I hated their damn demonic blankness. I hated that they could turn it off, and I couldn’t. I hated that they had known the truth all this time while I was kept in the dark. And I hated that they got to share this strange new world I was just discovering in a way that I couldn’t. But more than anything I hated that they watched me as I struggled not to fall apart.

  My vision went red with anger. I threw the disgusting burger. It splattered against the wall and slowly ran down leaving a trail of grease and cheese. Needing to move before I did something stupid, I stood up. I wanted to break something or hit someone, and I didn’t want to start a fight with the only family I had left. My fists clenched so hard they hurt and my nails cut into my palms. Ready to run out into the night, I headed for the door. But Xander stepped in front of me.

  I tried to go around him, but he sidestepped in front of me again. One look at his face, his disgustingly blank face, and my palm itched to slap him. Before I even realized what I was doing, my hand met his face with a resounding smack.

  “You can do better than that,” he said with a sneer.

  My jaw tightened. I balled my fist, ramming it into his stomach as hard as I could. A dam inside me burst, and I began to pummel him. I released all the anger and frustration on him, even though he wasn’t who I was angry with. I was angry at my parents. They hadn’t prepared me. They hadn’t felt the need to tell me what I needed to know, claiming they were protecting me. But were they really protecting me, or were they trying to keep me their little girl forever? All their secrets had wound up costing them their lives. Would things have turned out differently if they’d been up front with me?

  I punched, hit, and kicked my brother until I fell on the floor at his feet, utterly exhausted. Through it all Xander just stood and let me beat on him, never flinching. When I fell to the floor he knelt in front of me taking my chin in his hand and raising it until I met his blue eyes. I wasn’t prepared for the pain and hurt in them.

  “We can turn it off, but it doesn’t go away. It waits for us to focus on it. We can only get rid of it the same way you are—by falling apart. And we will go through it because like this—we can’t feel anything, Lia. No pain and sadness, but no love either. That’s what makes us different than other demons. We’re willing to go through the pain for the love. It’s what Mom taught us, and I won’t soil her memory by turning my back on it. When this is all done we can fall apart together. But right now, we have to hold it together. We have to come up with a plan to stop that psycho bitch.”

  With a nod, tried to pull myself together. I could do this for my mom and dad. I was strong enough to keep moving forward as long as I needed to. In that moment, sitting on the crappy carpet of a cheap roadside motel in the middle of nowhere, I decided I would not let my grief get in my way. I would make Monica pay. Eventually, I would figure out how to put myself back together again.

  Through it all Nate sat staring at the computer, pointedly ignoring us. Sariah sat on the edge of the bed studying me like a bug. I wiped my hands on my pants, certain they would be bruised tomorrow—my brother wasn’t exactly soft. There was a good chance my toe was broken from his hard shin. If it was I would just wrap it in tape and ignore it, because there simply wasn’t time for anything else. I refused to let this little temper tantrum set us back even a moment.

  I stood with a calm resolve, onc
e more putting lead in my spine. My stomach settled in place and my chin rose of its own accord, pride filling me. Sariah smiled and Xander clapped me on the back. “She’s back!” he said with a smile.