Krystan’sjaw clenched and she stood up. “Gregory and I are going to go out for a while.” Staring at me with the same adrift expressionas before, like I wasn’treally there, she asked.“Can you makesure Sophie is okay when she wakes up?”
I nodded. “Of course, I can.”
Phillip stood. “I will find your mystery woman and hopefully we will get answers before anyone else gets hurt.”
In moments, the house had cleared out, and I was left babysitting the kids. I had an important job, and I knewthat,but it still felt like I was useless in the situation.SoI did what I did best. I went into the living room and put on the television on a low volume to veg out until Sophie woke up. Icouldn’tdo anything useful anyway. I was just a body.
20
The drive to Smoky Badger ended up with me doing most of the talking while Gregory stared out the window.A few times,I thought he had returned to his previous catatonic state, butwhenI paused to look at him, he would return my look or nod his head thoughtfully.
I told him everything. How Emma met a Chevalier named Calan, how she was a part of some big dumb prophecy that said she had to sacrifice herself in order to save the world.Howshe andCalanchanged everything and helped keep the world safe from all the weird, awful shit the Stygian spat up. How Emma foundher mom,Diana,with the Order of Spiritus and smuggled her out. How Emma eventually figured out the truth about her own father being a Chevalier.
Gregory sighed and his shoulderssank.I couldn’t tell ifhewasdisappointedor relieved. After all the years of his trying to hide this other world ofsecret Orders andpure evil,Emmastill got caught up in it. Or maybe he was relieved he didn’t have to hold onto his secret anymore?
I’dcertainlyknownreliefyesterday telling Travis aboutmybeing pregnant and thenabout my psychofamilyhistory.Travis had been right. I was in a cage and I spent all my time trying to scare people off so they wouldn’t notice.He’d made it okayto come out and be seen.I’d been so completely vulnerable, I even allowed myself to sleep in his arms.
But today was a different story.Today Ifeltso raw, exposed, and stupid,I never wanted to face him again.Yet there he was. Henowcarried the stink of my putrid past and there was no taking it back.Iran right backintomycageagainand instead of slashing at himto keep him at bay, I froze him out.Itwasn’t really aprisonifIwanted to be in there, right?
I pulledthe van overandgot out,leadingGregory toa snow-coveredclearing, about acouplehundred feetfrom theabandonedSmoky Badger liquor store. This waswhere the final battlehad taken place. Wheremy friendstood her groundto close the doorway to the Stygianonce and for all.
Returning, the place didn’t lookright to me. It looked like a normal wooded area.The tall pineswere dappled in snow that had melted some, then frozen again into crusted patches.It wasn’t fair how everything looked so unaffected.I wished the groundwasscorched orsome of the trees had fallen over. The blood spilled over the dimensional landscape should havestained the landscape.Anything to show what happened here, leaving proof of everything we lost.
“This is the last place we saw them,” I said, sticking my hands in my coat pocket. I should have brought a heavier coat. It was always at least thirty degrees cooler up here than down in Denver.Here the snow stuck and stayed through the whole winter.
Gregory walked around as if hunting for some clue as to what happened.
“When I mean we,” I said.“I mean you were standing right next to me.” I looked uptowhere one lone bird was peeping rather dejectedly, as if he wished his friends would come back. The little loser probably got left behind when the rest migrated forwinter.What an idiot he was for staying.
“Emma figured out that all of the Orders needed to work together to close the tear that had opened. One person from each Orderneededto be sacrificed to close the dimensional tear.Your wife tried to go on behalf of the Order of Spiritus so Emma wouldn’t have to.Dianajumped in, along with several others. Phillip’s wife, Regina jumped intoo.”
Gregory looked at me in surprise.SoPhillip hadn’t mentioned who he was. “Phillip is Calan’s father. He seemed like arealdickweed at first, but he and Regina turned out alright.” Ibegan to aimlessly walkabout.I hadn’t worn waterproof bootssothe snow slowly saturatedthrough until my soles were frozen and wet.“The sacrifices weren’tenough though.Emma said thePropheroswas the final key to lock the door shut.Then Calan took her hand and went in with her, saying something hokey like theywouldface hell together.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat and kicked a pinecone. “You would have liked Calan. He loved your daughter and they saved the world together.” Half my mouth curved up in a smile. “A couple times actually.”
Mr. Smithcame to stand next to me, andI realized I had wandered back to the spot where Ihadwatched it all go down. I’dbeenin charge ofstaying withMr. Smithtokeep himout of harm’s way.
I’d always thoughtMr. Smithwas larger than life when I was little. While he was still a big guy,I was 5’10andsharply aware that I was standing next to him as an adult. I didn’t like that feeling. It was as if one more layer of protection between me and world had been stripped away and there weren’t many left.
Mr. Smith’sfacehardened.The lines in his forehead and his frown deepened. He had the faraway look of someone who had always known one day they would lose everything and was reconciling that the time had finally come.
Hesighed.“When Emma was only five years old, Dianadisappeared.It took two full weeks for me to come to terms with the factshewas gone.I didn’t know if shehad beenkilled or simply taken, butwe made an agreementwhen Emma was born. If either of us got taken, the other would stay with Emma. She was too important to leave unprotected or let the Orders know of her existence.But Emma is gone nowtoo.” His voice got increasingly rough as he finished.“I’ve spent so much time hiding.So many times, I stoppedmyself fromtracking Diana down orfrom trying tofind out what happened to her. I see now we never truly escaped the Orders and Emma would had to fulfill her destiny no matter what.”
“You gave her a greatchildhood. You protected her when she needed it.” I didn’t like hearing him talk like this.I refused to live with regret.
“I protected her, but I didn’t prepare her. Maybe if I’d told her the truth of where we came from, things would have turned out different.”
“Like you just said, it was destiny.”
His gray eyes narrowed as iffocusing on somethingI couldn’tsee in the distant trees. “All the same,I regret not going after Diana. We could have been a whole familyfor a little longer.Hard times are inevitable, but I see now how staying together should have been my priority.”
I couldn’t keep the anger from bleeding in my voice. “Or Emma would have been abducted from one of thepsychoOrders a long time ago. Or you would have gotten yourself killed instead of just fried in the noggin. MaybeevengetEmma’s momkilled trying to find her.”
Mr. Smithsighed and shook his head. “Perhaps. We’ll never know. But I'll always wonder what would have been if I tried harder to keep us together as a family.”
Anuncomfortable heat pulsedunder my skinand my body suddenly had an itch I wasn’t sure I could scratch. It was too cold to take my coat off, so I closed the collar tighter.
Tired of mincing words or drawing out anymore dramas I shot off every bullet in the gunI had. “My gran is dead, killed by the suicide demon. We are going to get evicted from her house. I’m pregnant and it’s Travis’s.”
Part of me recoiled, waiting for his reaction. Disappointment, shock, pity. He didn’t react in any of those ways. He simply licked his lips and gave a firm nod as if silently saying “okay then.” My shoulders, which had been inching up toward my ears, dropped back down.
