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"No!" I stepped in front of him. "Tell me now," I demanded with a knot forming inside my stomach as if I already sensed that I wouldn't like what he would tell me.
"Look, this is really not my place…"
"Alex!"
He took a step back, his shoulders tensed, and he rolled his head. "What did they tell you about the… apocalypse?"
I snorted but sobered quickly. "I guess an alien invasion is sort of an apocalypse." I chanced a glance at him, and he shrugged. "Not much. You know my parents make money by prepping, right?" I remembered our ill-fated date and continued, "Well, I guess you do. Anyway, every so often, they would take me and lock me in one of their shelters, sayingthey're here." I made quotation marks in the air. "Only, a day later, nothing ever happened, and when I asked whotheywere, my parents only laughed and waved me off, sayingoh you know,a meteor, zombies, whatever." Even though I had never believed that's what they were afraid of.They're herehad always sounded pretty specific to me.”
"Your parents used to be part of a secret society," Alex said and shook his head when I was about to interrupt him, "no, not what you think. This one is real and has been around for thousands of years. We," he pointed from me to him, "are direct descendants of the Nayphyllym, carefully bred and maintained over millennia. Each generation is expected to give life to a son and a daughter to keep the population going, after that—"
"Nayphyllym?" I interrupted him, was that the name of the alien race my parents had always told me we were descendants of? It didn't matter though, because my mind latched on to the reason, I had interrupted him for. "My parents only had me. There is no son."
Alex licked his lips and there was something in his expression that halted me. "Right?
His eyes avoided me. "What are you not telling me?"
"Look, this… organization, they pair people with whoever they decide they should have children with to guarantee the bloodline's pure continuance. Sometimes the couples fall in love with one another, but they're supposed to donate their children to the cause. They're supposed to distance themselves from their kids."
"Mine didn't distance from me. If anything, they're too clingy." I remembered all too well the fight I had with them to take over our New York branch.
Leave her be, Max, she's almost aged out, I remembered my mother saying.
"What does age out mean?" I asked, remembering the phrase and the never mind answer I had received from my parents in response. "Aged out?"
"By twenty-six, you're free of the organization, and you can go live your own life."
"And before that?"
He sighed. "You're considered achosen, to be given to the Daemons upon their arrival."
This time I laughed. "Chosen? Demons?"
"Daemons," he corrected with so much sincerity that I swallowed. Even if I hadn't seen the gargoyles with my own eyes, his tone gave me pause.
"Alright, I'm listening."
"Your parents, after they gave up their son, Ben, had a hard time conceiving again. They're one of the few couples who actually did fall in love with each other. Look," he threw his hands up, "I don't know much about it. All I know is that your parents refused to give you up and were eventually kicked out of the organization, but I was still part of it, and you are… the partner they assigned to me."
I blinked a few times as slow understanding moved my brain cells into forming a picture. "So you and I are supposed to be a couple?" I checked, already knowing the truth. "We're supposed to have two kids and what… just leave them to the… organization?"
"All of us are well off, and most hire… nannies or babysitters to distance themselves from their kids, most find other partners, have other families…"
That sickened me. "Is that how you grew up?"
His nod rose a wave of bile, but I was still mulling over other things. "So I have a brother?"
"Ben," Alex nodded.
I closed my eyes. My emotions fought between wanting to hate my parents for having given up their son and never even told me and loving them for refusing to give me up too. But then I remembered. "You said they had trouble conceiving?"
Alex nodded. "They found out they wouldn't be able to have any more children besides you."
This time I bent over, turning into a corner to heave up what little I had for breakfast and the water we drank on the way here.
The idea that my parents only left the group and kept me because they couldn't have any more kids sickened me and made me wonder if they would have been able to have more kids, would they have given me up too and remained with the group?
"Are you okay?"
