Again, he interrupted her. “You need to have more fun. You don’t have enough fun. Maybe you should ask Vivien and Aaron to play board games with you. We have a whole day for board games coming up. Oh dang, I got to go. They just brought out the pizza. Love you, bye!”
The call went dead.
“Love you too,” she muttered. Then she blew out a heavy breath. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to answer.”
Jamal. Knowing her kid’s name, hearing his voice, somehow gave me another piece of the woman I saw every day. There was something I instantly liked about Jamal. In the brief moments he spoke to his mother, he exhibited a candidness and maturity that matched hers. More than that, he seemed somehow unruined by life. As if the heavy weights of living hadn’t yet crushed any vital part of him yet. I wondered how much of that was his own indomitable spirit, and how much was Miranda’s wisdom and guidance.
“It’s alright,” I assured her, though my voice was hoarse now. I was spent from holding back the surge of power. “Are you going to take his advice?”
“What?”
“Are you going to practice having more fun?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” she said in warning. She thought I was trying to mess with her about her kid.
“It’s good advice, you know.”
“Oh really?” she snorted in disbelief. “Are you down here playing ping-pong by yourself?”
“I knit,” I said without pause.
“Har har.”
“Your kid know you are a badass blade wielder?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.
“Unfortunately, he knows more about the supernatural than anybody should have too. Grim saved his life once when some vampires used him as a pawn. I'm very grateful he is unusually mature, but he is still a sensitive soul.”
The distress on her face kept me from asking any more questions about her son’s knowledge of gods and monsters.
Then she walked over to the lone chair and opened her lunch sack. She pulled out a prepackaged bag of chips and ripped it. Her face rearranged into an unreadable mask.
Why wasn’t she over here stabbing me through the heart? She seemed to be considering something, very intensely.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“What is it?” I asked, trying not to crawl out of my skin.
Why was she so distant?
Miranda waited until she finished chewing and swallowed a chip. My fingers twitched, desperate to rip the bars apart and shake her until she told me what happened.
“I’m not sure I can kill you,” she said quietly, dispassionately. Her eyes drifted across the room.
Inside my skull, a storm of panic raged. Lightning bolts of fear struck at the core of my thoughts, threatening to shatter my fragile equilibrium all over again.
I began to pace back and forth, never taking my eyes off her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
It would have been better if she yelled it, if she dug her heels in and faced off with me. But Miranda turned off like a switch, so cold and distant.
“Can you calm down first?” she asked in an even tone.
“No, I can’t fucking calm down. You just said you aren’t going to kill me.”
“Please,” she said, wincing.
The lights flickered. My power was going berserk and hurting her. Before I could register the impact I had on her, I found myself up on the bars by the ceiling. I didn’t remember climbing up here. Instead of reacting, she continued to stare at me impassively, as if waiting for me to get over my fit. Like I was some kind of child.
I leapt off and landed silently on my feet, reeling the excess in, though it pained me to bite back all the energy and pain I wanted to let explode out.
