“What do the charms mean?” she asked me, touching the figure of an angel lightly and smiling.
“They are meant for protection, I suppose. I was never told what they mean.” I looked at the woman and smiled back at her.
She let the angel charm drop back into place.
“Where is a young girl like you going all by yourself?” she asked, sounding concerned.
“I’m going to see my mother. She lives in El Paso,” I answered, trying to sound older than I really was.
“That’s a long trip, darling. Does your father know where you are?” She looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
“Of course,” I lied.
“Well, young one. I myself am headed in the same direction. I will make sure you get there safely.” Her smile was warm. All the fear I had of her washed away.
“I’m Dawn,” I said, holding out my hand as I had seen my father do on countless occasions.
“Bridget,” she replied, taking my hand in hers and shaking it lightly.
“Why are you going to El Paso, Bridget?” I asked, making conversation.
“I have family there. I haven’t seen them in so long.” She smiled wide. “I have a daughter. She would be about nineteen now.” The woman sighed. She had unexplainable pain in her eyes.
“Where is she?” I asked, looking around, assuming that they were traveling together.
“Oh, honey, I have never met my daughter. I was so young when she was born that I gave her up for adoption. However, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about her.” Bridget wiped a tear from her eye.
“Maybe you can find her?” I suggested.
“I would give anything for that. But the boss man doesn’t like us looking for those that we have let go. So for now I will just think of her.” Bridget reached over and took my hand in hers. “Maybe, one day, you will meet her, Dawn.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How will I meet her? I won’t know who she is.”
Bridget leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Because she’s just like you.”
What was that supposed to mean?
***
Bridget did not leave my side the entire trip from Dallas to El Paso. She even waited with me until I was safe inside the taxi that was to take me to my mother. She left me with her phone number and strict orders that I was to call her the moment I got into my mother’s house. I hugged her warmly and thanked her for her assistance.
I handed the driver the last letter my father had received from my mom and paid him in advance for the drive. It took a while to get there, but when I arrived I had this overwhelming fear. Was she going to be mad that I was here? Was she going to understand why I had to leave? Was she going to answer all my questions?
There was only one way to find out. I told the cab driver to keep the change and got out of the car with my meager possessions. Traipsing up to the door, I noticed that my hands were shaking. I was afraid. I knocked hesitantly and waited for an answer.
When the door opened I felt tears in my eyes. My mother was standing right in front of me. She didn’t look a day older than the last time I had seen her, though it had been several years.
“Dawn?” She reached out and touched my face.
“Mother?” I felt tears pouring down my cheeks.
“Get in here,” she said, pulling me inside and wrapping me in the warmest hug I had received in the longest time. “Why are you here, Dawn?” I could hear her crying.
“I had to. Dad told me,” I sobbed.
“Told you what?”
“Told me what I am.” I sniffed and she went silent.
“Dawn, did you run away?” she asked finally.
“I had to, Mom. He said I was never supposed to be.”
I felt like my world was collapsing. Didn’t she want me here?
She looked down at me and smiled softly before letting me go. Crossing the small living room to the phone table, she dialed a number without even looking it up.
“Damien?” she said.
My heart leapt in my chest. She had called my father!
“Yes, she’s here.” She tapped her finger on the table. “No, I don’t mind that she is.” She looked at me. “What do you want me to do?” She bit her lip. “Okay.” She said a few more things and then hung up the phone. Turning around, she glanced at the clock.
“What is it, Mom?” I asked, my eyes burning.
She smiled. “Looks like you will be staying with me for a while.”
I ran at her and threw my arms around her. It was the first time I had been able to just hold her since I was a child. The difference now was that we were nearly eye to eye, and I was much older than seven.
“Mom, may I use the phone?” I asked quietly.
“Of course,” she answered, narrowing her eyes at me.
I pulled the number I had been given out of my pocket and punched it into the phone. Bridget’s voice came in loud and clear on the other end.
“You made it, did you?” she exclaimed happily.
“Yes! Thank you for everything.” I looked at my mother.
“You’re welcome. If you need me for anything, just call,” Bridget said, and the line went dead.
I looked at the phone, confused, then put it back on the base.
“Who was that?” my mother asked me as she picked up my bags from the floor and proceeded to walk down the hallway.
“It was just a nice lady who sat with me on the bus. She told me I had to call her once I got here,” I said as I followed her.
“Does this nice lady have a name?” she asked, flipping a switch in the spare bedroom.
“Bridget,” I said, coming to a stop behind her and trying to see inside the room.
I could have sworn I saw her shoulders tense and her head give a little shake. Had I said something wrong?
“This will be your room. We will pick up some things for you tomorrow. I’m sure you had an amazing room with your father. This one, though, is going to be better.” She smiled at me.
I looked around at the bare walls and the double bed. It was nothing like what I had with my father, but it would do nicely.
“Go ahead and unpack. I’ll go and call your stepfather.” She smiled at me once more and left the room, closing the door behind her.
I meant to lie down only for a second, but the bed was so comfortable that I wound up falling asleep. When I woke up I wandered toward the kitchen, where I heard talking. Silence descended when I entered the room. My stepfather’s face fell when he saw me.
“Dawn?”
“Yes.”
He looked different to how he did when I first met him. Though still dark-haired, he looked older and battle-worn, all the years in the army having taken their toll on his body. He was still dressed in his BDUs and his face had smears of dirt around his chin.
“It’s nice to have you here,” he said, looking at my mother and forcing a smile.
“Thank you for having me,” I replied politely.
“We’ll get you settled in,” he said, touching my cheek. “You look so much like your mother.”
I pushed my blonde hair behind my ears and smiled at him. I hated the man the moment he said those words to me. Over the course of the next three years he would repeatedly be caught cheating on my mother. I would always be the one who had to comfort her about his infidelity. She never did anything about it, just let it happen, like it was allowed.
I couldn’t understand how she could just stand there and look around, like she was the one doing something wrong. I also couldn’t grasp why she wasn’t more upset. Did I miss something about this marriage arrangement the day she dumped me with my father?
***
“Dawn?” my stepfather called from the front door.
It was my seventeenth birthday and, of course, hot, as summers in El Paso tend to be. I had just made my way into the kitchen of our trailer house with my earbuds secured in my ears, jamming out to
the newest Three Days Grace album.
A lot had changed over the last three years. I had abandoned the sweet little rich girl behind the grocery store a year after I got there. My apple-pie demeanor didn’t blend well with the other students. One day I had woken up and realized the world wasn’t rainbows and butterflies. My entire attitude had changed.
Then I met Jeremy, my first real boyfriend. Let’s just say it wasn’t the most innocent relationship. In fact, it wasn’t innocent at all, but I was sixteen and impressionable and he was eighteen and knew exactly what he was doing. After he got what he wanted from me he dumped me for a girl that went to his school. It was probably another reason things went dark for me.
“What’s up?” I asked, pausing my music and pulling the buds from my ears.
“We got you something,” he said, smiling.
I had to admit the last few months had seemed okay. There were no new women hanging round my stepfather and my mother seemed to be truly in love with him. It was odd, because I had never seen her look at him the way she was looking at him now. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to know why there had been this sudden change in them.
Suddenly, for my mother, it was no longer “I” but “we” and I slowly found myself hating the man less and less. He was nice, really. I just didn’t like him walking all over my mother like he had been.
My mother came up behind me and wrapped her hands over my eyes. I laughed as she led me outside. Every year they did something outrageous for my birthday. The previous birthday they had taken me skydiving. So what did this year hold? She pulled her hands away. Sitting in the driveway, right in front of me, was a car, an elderly black hatchback. On the back window my mother had stuck two decals: one was an angel and the other a demon. I raised my eyebrows as she shrugged at me. Her husband was grinning from ear to ear.
“I had a whole new stereo system installed for you. It also has a rebuilt transmission. I thought that you and I could work on it together. You know, as a way to bond.”
He meant well. I knew he was trying to make up for the last few years and what he had done to my mother.
“Yeah, I would like that.”
I opened the driver’s side door and burst out laughing. The driver’s seat cover had an intricately stitched demon on the headrest. There was an angel on the passenger side.
My mother had raised me to be proud of who I was, and not to feel I needed to ignore my demon blood because I lived with her. She had also given me free rein to try out my powers and gifts as they came. Sadly, they had landed me in some trouble over the last year. But I didn’t want to think about that just now; it was my birthday.
My stepfather’s phone rang and he stepped to one side to answer it. There was a muffled argument followed by the usual, “Yes, sir. I understand, sir. On my way, sir.” He put his phone back in his pocket and looked sadly at us both.
“As you may have guessed, that was my CO. I have to get to the base. Now.” He kissed my mother’s cheek. “Dawn, don’t you take that car out until I get back. I want to see how you like it.” He pointed at me and I laughed.
That night he broke it to us that they were sending him overseas. Something had happened and they needed reinforcements. Since my stepfather was one of the best of the best, his entire troop was being shipped out. We were looking at six months to a year before he could come home. Until then, it would just be my mother and me.
My stepfather was picked up the next morning at 4 a.m. I watched my mother and him share a moment. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. He made a promise to her: as soon as he got home he would put in for retirement. I was almost done with high school. We could travel the world, just as she had always wanted to do.
Here’s the thing. He never came back.
Chapter Three: Twenty-One Gun Salute
There was an unusual knock on the door six weeks after my stepfather had been deployed. It was one of those slow, drawn-out knocks that instantly makes your heart sink. My mother pulled back the curtains and sighed; this was her confirmation, she had been right.
“Stay here, Dawn, I have this.” Her eyes were already watering.
The pain of losing him had already taken a toll on her, and it wasn’t even confirmed yet. For weeks she had been walking around like a zombie, trying to find ways to get in touch with him. When none of them worked she had become distant.
“No, Mom. You will not go through this alone,” I insisted, taking her hand in mine as we walked to the door.
She straightened her top, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“Are you Angelina Peterson?” the uniformed soldier asked.
My mother nodded slowly, gripping my hand tight.
The man started speaking about my stepfather and everything else faded into the background. My ears buzzed, my mind raced, and my mother’s facial expression told me how she was fighting the need to cry and scream. It must be true, then: he was gone.
We hadn’t been completely sure till then. There had been no hard evidence that the visions had been of him dying. My mother had had a dream that he was caught between worlds. Something had happened to him, she was sure. The void in her heart had told her he was gone. For the last few weeks she’d been keeping her fingers crossed and praying it was nothing. But it was something; it was something bad.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Peterson. Your husband was a brave man.” The uniformed gentleman shook her hand gently.
“This was his final tour. We were going to travel the world.” My mother began to collapse on the steps but the soldier caught her. “We were going to see the world.”
His promise didn’t seem possible anymore.
She pulled herself together quickly and stood up. Shaking the man’s hand again, my mother shut the door and looked at me before breaking out into sobs. I grabbed her before she hit the floor again.
“He’s gone, Dawn,” she mumbled. “What am I going to do now?”
“I’ll take care of you, Mom,” I answered, wiping her tears away.
“I can’t do this alone. I can’t raise you by myself. I can’t protect you,” she sobbed.
I didn’t understand why she relied so much on my stepfather for protection.
“Yes, you can, Mom. I’m old enough now. Let me pay you back for all the good you did for me.”
She nodded and rubbed her eyes.
***
My mother took the funeral well, even when the uniformed soldiers handed her the folded flag at the ceremony. She stood tall, and she didn’t shed a tear, just stood there looking blankly at the empty casket. She was broken now, well, more like shattered.
Ever since the soldier came to our door she had been a zombie. I couldn’t get her to eat, and she hardly ever slept. All she would do is go through photo albums and fawn over pictures. She had lost a lot of weight in those weeks. Her eyes were not as bright and her smile was never visible. My concerns for her were increasing.
I put the flag they had given us on the mantel over the fireplace, next to their wedding photo. I figured it was the best place for it. This way, whenever she was in the kitchen she could look out and see him.
The plan was to stick it out till I finished high school, but that just wasn’t going to happen. The longer we were in that house the more broken she became. All she would do was get up and go to work each day, only to come home, make dinner for me, and go to bed. I spent more time alone than I did with her. I was worried.
This phase lasted for several months. My junior year ended and summer began. My mother was slipping further and further away from me. Something had to be done soon, before I was left entirely alone.
***
“I was thinking, Dawn.”
My mother was standing over the stove, stirring a pot of noodles.
It was about two weeks into summer vacation and it was the first time in forever she had stayed outside her bedroom with me. I was enjoying the company, most of all her conversation.
“I’m thinking we need to get out of here and start over.”
I had been expecting this, honestly. The blank stare on her face when she looked towards the door and the way she avoided his pictures. Inevitably, sooner or later, she would want to leave.
“Where do you want to go?”
She put the spoon down and looked at me with her sad blue eyes.
“Well, I was talking to Pastor Rylie, and he told me about a little town in Missouri. He said a church there has an opening for a counselor. I figured it was worth a shot, you know, to get us a new start, so I applied. He gave me a great recommendation for the position.” She tried to smile but her lips just wouldn’t do it.
She had done this without discussing it with me first. Not that I was upset about it. By all means, I welcomed going somewhere new. It was just who it was that had put in her recommendation.
“Yes. I see. Pastor Rylie said. So, because he said this, we are supposed to pack up and move everything to a little town in Missouri?” I rolled my eyes.
“He’s been good to us.” She gave me a stern look. “I wouldn’t have my job if it wasn’t for him.”
“Yeah, well, he gives me the creeps. There is something about that holy man that isn’t so holy.” I tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear.
She groaned. “That is neither here nor there. What he does in his spare time is none of our concern.”
“Mom, he showed up on the doorstep wanting to do ‘private Bible study.’ I think that’s a concern,” I countered, making air quotes.
The man always had a way of singling me out from all the other youths. It was like he knew that something wasn’t right with my blood. He was constantly asking me to keep looking for redemption, to be cleansed of the sins of my father. If he only knew the sins of my father, he would have to eat those words.
“He just really cares about you.” I could tell she was trying to make excuses for his awkward behavior.
“If you say so,” I grumbled.
“Putting that all aside, what do you think, Dawn?” my mother asked me quietly. She was obviously annoyed by my concerns.
The Wardens Boxed Set Page 2