Page 69 of Strange Lights

“We’re family,” I say firmly. “The three of us, we’re sisters. We love each other.”

“I think Adele’s looking for something else from us, not love,” Zara says. It’s the first time I realize she’s started saying “Adele,” like I usually do, instead of “Mom.”

“I can’t change Adele. But I promise we’ll always be family, the three of us a team, a unit, even if it’s a fucked-up, warped version.”

“Let’s make a blood pact,” Meredith says.

“Ew, Meredith, that’s how you get diseases,” Zara says.

“Maybe a tad extreme,” I say, ruffling Meredith’s hair fondly.

“I’m serious,” Meredith says. “Then we’ll be family by blood.”

“Listen, I love you, but I don’t even want to share drinks with you,” says Zara. “And I’m serious too. It’s not safe. There are diseases and I don’t know our blood types and if we mix it, our blood could clot and kill us both. Or we could be patient zeros in an outbreak of some exotic disease.”

“We couldn’t both be patient zeros⁠—that isn’t how numbers work,” Meredith replies.

“Compromise,” I cut in before they get further from the rails as this argument devolves more. “Let’s make an oath. We can pinky promise on it or something, but no open wounds.”

Meredith and Zara both find this reasonable enough.

It becomes an oddly solemn occasion. I’m only twenty-five, and I’ve been an adult for at least fifteen of those years, but for a minute I’m a child again, playing make-believe with my sisters. The three of us, sitting in a circle, tucked under the covers of my bed with a flashlight. We make the oath threefold, a piece for each of us. Though, in the end, we all promise the same thing.

Meredith makes us vow to love each other no matter what. We’ll be a family until the day we’re all dead. Even after death, she says, my cheerfully morbid little sister.

Zara says we will always be on each other’s side. We will always choose each other first over Adele. Never first, always-overlooked Zara, quintessential middle child.

I have to think for a while. What do I know about love and family? Besides creation of progeny for survival of the species, a necessity, why does family even matter? Why do my sisters and I exist? Are we just the whims of a cruel and bored woman? I think about the babies. The ones I didn’t choose, the extra ones. Four of them who haunt me. Babies whose fates rest squarely at my feet. And the two babies I chose, lying here years later, looking at me, asking me to tell them what’s important about life. I doomed them to a different fate, but I doomed them all the same. I remember my plans to run. My plans that failed again and again. How I almost left Zara behind. How I tried not to love Meredith. Adele telling me she’d see them dead before she let me take them with me. I wouldn’t put it past her to track us if we managed to escape. And the worst thought that still creeps into my head anytime I’m especially frustrated: I could leave alone.

Finally, I say, “We should vow to never leave each other behind. We might not be related, but we are family. And we’ll be each other’s most important thing.”

Sealed with a pinky promise and whispered cryptic reminders.

Remember the most important thing.

“Come down to the dungeon,” Adele says without preamble one morning.

“Why?” I question warily. She hasn’t locked me inside since⁠—I cut off that painful train of thought. But either way, I’m suspicious.

“I found one of the creatures I’ve been searching for. And I want Zara shadowing you. It’s time she took on more responsibility. It’s nearly time.”

Her excitement sets me on edge.

The strangest déjà vu washes over me when we reach the back of the dungeon, stopping in front of a cage with impenetrable walls, marred only by the gouges a werewolf left there once upon a time. But this occupant is so much smaller.

There’s a baby in the cage. I mentally flick through my memories of Zara and Meredith for a comparison. He’s maybe eighteen months or thereabouts. He crouches on all fours, only mistakable for human until you take a second look. His skin flickers colors, doing a remarkable job of camouflage one minute, flashing what feels like a warning in violent reds and poisonous blues the next.

I hear Zara’s gasp, and she opens her mouth to speak. With Adele between us and the mask on my face, all I can do is twitch my head in warning. Luckily, Zara shuts up.

“We don’t need a brother,” I say acidly.

“I didn’t get you one,” Adele says. “It’s a Chupacabra. Supposedly. I want you to find out if there are others here with it.”

“‘Here’?”

“Earth, obviously. Find out if there are more. And where? How did they get here? When? Are more on the way? Everything, I need to know everything. Use any means necessary for this beast,” she says, her voice eager, almost hungry.

The baby creature snarls. He bares his fangs at Adele, though his eyes are wide and fearful.