Chapter 29

When I came back out, Loki had turned the light out and was laying on his side, his back to my side of the bed. Stupidly, my stomach loosened. I hadn’t had a problem sharing the bed until I woke up this morning. Instincts, are a bitch sometimes.

I climbed into bed and turned my back on him as well. In the dark, the space between us seemed very large and safe. After everything that happened today, too many fights and bruises and one throbbing arm, secrets and all the stress, it wasn’t that difficult to fall asleep.

Oh. One of these dreams. I’ve had them since I was three, just after my mother died. I always know they’re dreams and they never feel like dreams.

This time I wake up in a field. The grass was long and I know it hides me. I was lying on my side and had flattened a yard’s worth of grass around me. It smelled freshly mowed despite the fact that it would reach my hips if I was standing up. I could also smell wildflowers and forest. Sometimes I came to in the forest, but not often.

I climbed to my feet and sure enough, the grass reached my hips. I was never in quite the same place when I came here, but there weren’t any other flattened areas of grass either.

The forest was behind me. I saw deer and rabbits moving around. And birds. The birds are everywhere. They never blot out the sky, but they sit in the trees, watching me from their safe spot. Or on the roof of the house. That, they completely coat until it looked like it was alive. Writhing and moving.

Only the black birds sit on top of the house.

I waded through the grass until I found the stepping stones. Then I followed those up to the path. I approached the backdoor this time. It was sliding glass, but the curtains were drawn. I couldn’t see inside and she couldn’t see outside. Once I got to the glass, I grimaced. The curtains were black, even though in life they had been white. The black made the glass like a mirror and I had to see my new appearance.

Always, I looked different here. I hated it, not because I loved the way I looked in real life, but because I hated looking more like my father. My hair was red and wavy. My hips narrower, like his mother’s. My features were just slightly different, taking away what little of my mother was in my face. My eyes were ice blue and my skin a little creamier. I despised any claim that man had to me and I thought that was why I looked like him in these dreams.

I knocked lightly on the glass.

A hand appeared around the curtain and quickly unlocked the door before disappearing back into the house. I opened the door and stepped into the house. The one that was so familiar to me still. I hadn’t been inside the house since I was three and it didn’t actually look like this back then either.

The black curtain barely let me through, it was so thick. The second I was inside, it fell back into place, blocking out all the daylight that would otherwise pour in. Also blocking the splattered blood on the glass. I could still see the blackish blood on the tile of the kitchen, but it was only a hint. The kitchen table was only two feet from the backdoor. There were broken dishes on it, like usual.

The kitchen itself looked fine. Nothing broken and nothing out of place. Then again, my mother never cooked.

The dining room was where most of the destruction was. The table was broken in half and there were streaks of blood on the wood. A noose hung from the chandelier and sometimes, if I looked too hard at it, it would start to swing back and forth, like in my memory. There were tears in the carpet and bloody fingerprints on the concrete below.

The railing to the stairs was also broken and laid across the steps crookedly. The sound of running water constantly came from the bathroom. If I were to go to see what it was, both the faucets would be off, though. The tub was always full to the lip and there was always water on the floor, soaking the bathmats.

My old bedroom was right next to the bathroom and my father’s bedroom/studio was next to that. I knew from past exploration that my father’s bedroom was empty and mine had a tendency to look like whatever room I was currently living in. I didn’t feel the need to check out either right now because I knew she wasn’t in either.

I walked past the stairs without going up. It was just darkness up there. If she wasn’t waiting by the backdoor, then she was in the living room. The space has been completely empty for as long as I could remember. In life it had been filled with expensive furniture neatly arranged.

And there she was. My mother never sat on the floor in reality, but this was a dream and she had no problems letting her suit meet the carpet. She had always looked presentable. Wearing dress suits that were the newest and hottest. Her hair was light brown with blond highlights and it curled gently. In my whole life, I never saw her put it up and it wasn’t up now. Her eyes were the same black as mine. Her skin tone a mix between the tanned of her Native American father and the pale of her English mother. When standing, she was about five-six, in heels, add another two or three inches. Her nails were manicured and long and she wore makeup that perfectly accentuated her features.

My new appearance didn’t keep me from looking grubby next to my mother. I wore tattered jeans and a tank-top so used that my skin showed through the fabric in some places.

I sat down next to my mother. “Hey,” I said.

“Hello, Angel,” she said.

My father was the one who named me, but neither of my parents ever called me Asire. To them, I was always “Angel”. I never understood why. They didn’t treat me like anything but a burden.

“How’re you?” I asked.

My mother smiled gently. “Good. Interesting things happening,” she continued. “Things I very much look forward to watching play out.”

She often said things like that.

“What about you, Angel?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It’s okay.” If you ignore one missing child, the fact that if the right person sees Billy with me, I’m dead, the man sleeping in my bed, the wolves acting funny, the vampires trying to kill us and the knowledge that I’ll lose Billy and Regory again. Yeah, everything’s A-Okay.

My mother pat my knee.

“It’ll all work out, I’m sure,” she said. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen Billy and Regory,” she said. “I know how much you’ve missed them. You don’t seem to be spending much time with them, however.”

There was a gentle chastisement in her voice. Not a day in her life was my real mother gentle.

“I’d love to,” I said. “But there’s a real chance they’ll get ID’d when they leave and I’ll die, so I’d rather not give Billy time to remember how much she loves me.”

“Just enough time to drive home how much you love her?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“It’s not fear of getting hurt that’s holding you back. It’s not even fear of what would happen to the Tiny Heartbreaker if you spend time with your cousin instead of searching for her. You don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Of course I don’t,” I said.

“Why not?” Her voice became darker instead of that gentle wave. “Everyone hurts you.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

“Yes it is,” she declared.

I changed the subject. When she got stubborn like this, she stayed that way. “Besides, since the shop was burned, I’ve got the most time to look for Millie. It would be selfish of me to do anything else.”

She rolled her eyes. “You love the kid?” she asked dryly.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve known her since she was born.”

“You can’t let anything happen to her,” my mother demanded.

“Doing my best.”

“Good,” she said. “Now, as for the wolves.”

As if I were a wolf myself, my ears pricked up. Yes, something was definitely not right with them.

“Their eyes,” my mother said.

“Wrong,” I agreed.

“What would cause a wolf to lose it?”

“Extreme anger, pain or grief,” I supplied. The information had been drilled into me for years by my grandfather, in between the training. Getting beaten when you get an answer wrong is good motivation for getting it right. I still knew all the information he had forced into our heads.

“They were angry.”

“Before they changed,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Their shifts didn’t have the uncontrolled nature of a wolf taking over from the person,” I said.

They had been shifting at a normal rate. The wolf pulling the human back, but not forcing them down.

“They did lose a wolf earlier this week. Because of you and Reggie and Loki, I might add. That’s grief,” she said.

I shook my head again. “Not enough. They aren’t a pack. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t be agony.”

“Changing is painful.”

“If a wolf lost control every time they shifted, the world would be utter chaos or they’d be extinct,” I said.

“So what was wrong with the wolves?” my mother asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Shouldn’t you figure that out?” she asked.

I almost waved her away.

“The vampires,” she continued.

“Are always annoying.”

“Yes… they are, aren’t they?” she said. “It’s that bitch, right. Debienne?”

“That’s the one.”

“Are they a concern?”

“No more than usual, but…”

“This isn’t a usual situation,” she supplied.

“No, it’s not. We have a missing child now,” I said.

“Maybe something should be done about them,” my mother suggested. “And while someone is doing something about them, maybe someone can also do something about the wolves?”

“Yes…” I said.

“Now… the Annihilists,” she said.

“Need to be found,” I agreed.

“Killed,” she said, her voice that dark murky thing again. Flowing through the room with deadly accuracy. “Their blood should paint the walls.”

“Billy can’t find them.”

“So you might have risked your life for nothing?” she asked.

I waved it away.

“Angel,” she said. “If Billy can’t find them and Loki can’t block them, how are you going to get back the Tiny Heartbreaker?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not being very helpful, am I?” she asked, sounding saddened.

“It’s not an easy situation,” I said.

“True, I guess,” she said. “It is quite confusing. What—”

There was a pounding that shook the entire house.

“Looks like someone wants you awake,” she said.

Distantly I heard a voice and then the pounding started again.

“Up, up, Angel,” my mother said.

I rose to my feet and went toward the front door. Before opening it, I glanced back at my mother. She sat against the wall, watching me with her sad eyes. She hadn’t gotten up off the floor.

I opened the door.

I opened my eyes and heard someone knocking on the bedroom door. “Loki, Asire,” Billy said. “Wake up.”

“Okay, Billy,” Loki said from next to me, sounding amused and annoyed at the same time. I’m familiar with the feeling.

The dream drifted into the back of my mind. I knew it was one of my mother and that we were in my childhood home. But I couldn’t remember a thing we said to each other.

Loki sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced at me and asked, too casually, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said automatically. It wasn’t until a second later that I realized it was true. My heart wasn’t pounding, I wasn’t scared. My body was warm again, for whatever reason. Warm and relaxed. That tightness was in my stomach again as well, hinting at something I couldn’t quite figure out.

He looked like he was about to say something, but then Reggie yelled up the stairs. “Asire! I’m about to come up there!”

“Do it and I’ll break your heels off and use them to stab you!” I yelled back without thinking. Arguing with Reggie was the most natural thing in my world. Threatening her was right behind that.

So it didn’t surprise me when she screamed, “I’ll break the tail lights of your truck if you touch my shoes!”

“Bring it!”

Loki laughed and got out of the bed. While he gathered his clothes, I changed and brushed my teeth and hair. Then we traded spots in the bathroom.

My arm throbbed and I had aches and pains from the fights yesterday. There were new bruises that were already faded and cuts that were almost gone. I was good enough to face the world once more.