Page 31

Chance

“My dad’s dog tags.”

Even though I kept my eyes on the road, I saw in my peripheral vision that Chessie had turned away from her window to stare at me.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“You asked what I gave the sheba as collateral. I’m answering you.”

She didn’t say anything, and I sighed.

“Help me out here, Chessie. It’s a five hour drive. I need you to talk to me so I don’t fall asleep.”

“I can do that, but pull into a rest stop if you need to. So your dad was a soldier?”

“Career Army.” I nodded. “When I was fourteen, he was killed in combat.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“It gets worse. Are you sure you want to hear all my drama?”

“I’ll listen to anything you want to share.”

I glanced over at her, but only saw myself reflected in her dark lenses.

I wish she’d let me see her eyes, I thought wistfully, but knew it would never happen. She was too self-conscious to drop her guard that far. Well, I’m about to share the most painful part of my life. Maybe that will encourage her to open up a little.

And why I so desperately wanted her to was something I wasn’t ready to delve into at the moment.

“When he died, Mom left,” I began. “She called my warden before she split, and August arrived that morning. Neither of us knew what was going on until the Army officers showed up. After the funeral and everything, August took me to the Sanctuary.”

“And your mom? She just left ?”

“Yep. The last time I saw her was when I told her I was going to bed the night before.”

“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.”

She laid one hand on my arm, and I glanced at it. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched me.

Is she starting to trust me? Just a little?

“Didn’t the Army officers want to talk to your mom?” she asked. “I would have thought they’d question her absence.”

“Mom and Dad weren’t married, and he’d listed me as his next of kin and beneficiary.

There was no record of her in his military file.

” I shrugged. “Besides, August pretended to be her father, my grandfather, and told them he was staying with me while Dad was deployed. They didn’t dig any further, and why would they? ”

“It’s quite a coincidence that she left the same day your dad died.” She finally took her hand off my forearm, as if noticing it was still there.

I heard the question in her voice and frowned. I didn’t want to tell her. Only Rome, Spin, and my warden knew the burden I carried in my heart.

“Same hour, as far as I could discover.” Bracing myself, I told her the truth. “She was a Fallen, Chessie.”

“What?!”

“It happens.”

“Wait a minute.” She held up her hand. “Are you saying a demon lived as a human for fourteen years, and no one noticed?”

“ Fifteen years. I was born a year after she and Dad met,” I clarified. “She acted like a neph. I assumed I was a second. It was only after I was at the Sanctuary that I learned the truth.”

“It’s strange she stayed so long, but, when you live forever, I suppose a handful of years doesn’t matter too much. Do you think your dad knew what she was? Did he know what you were?”

“No, to both. She told me we had to keep it a secret to protect him and ourselves. Of course, he was deployed so often, it was easy to hide things from him.”

We rode in silence for a few miles before she asked if my warden had ever checked on me.

“Shortly after I was born, August showed up at our house to give Mom the whole speech. He realized what she was right away and wondered if he was going to get out of there alive.” I chuckled. “Imagine his shock when she politely invited him in for tea!”

Instead of laughing as I’d intended, Chessie put a hand to her forehead.

“Sorry. That is funny, but I’m still reeling over a Fallen behaving as your mom did.”

“It was like she was playing a role and never broke out of character,” I admitted. “Needless to say, I have a lot of unanswered questions.”

“My biggest ones would be, what was her motive and why your dad?”

I nodded. They were my biggest ones, too.

“Rome’s theory is that Dad had a hold on her somehow. A binding he may not have even known about that was passed on to him in some way. That’s why she left when he died. Rome thinks she knew he was dead the moment it happened.”

“I’d want to research demon bindings before I accept that one,” she said, “but I guess things like that happen. The next question would be, how did your dad inherit the binding?”

“Right. And how would I ever find out?”

“Any other theories?”

“Well, August thinks she may have been hiding from an enemy, or biding her time against one. I find that less probable than Rome’s, but more likely than Spin’s. He thinks she either lost a bet or was tired of being evil and wanted a break.”

“What, she wanted a vacation from Hell?” She snorted. “I don’t think the Diabolical mind works that way.”

“He was being his usual dumb self, but who knows? Maybe immortal creatures do get bored.”

“Losing a bet makes more sense than boredom. I’ve seen people do some ridiculous things as a consequence for losing bets.” She paused, then asked, “Was your dad as handsome as you are?”

“You think I’m handsome, pretty girl?” I teased her with a small smirk.

“You know you are. Was he?”

“I could be his twin.”

“Hmm,” was all she replied.

“No,” I shook my head when I realized where her thoughts were going. “Don’t even suggest she took one look and fell in love. I can accept any theory, even Spin’s, over that .”

She laughed, then went quiet. I took a quick look over at her. She didn’t seem disgusted, only thoughtful.

“Was she good to you? As a mom?” she asked after a while.

“Of course. She was great.” I smiled. “Baked cookies, took me to soccer practice, made me do my homework and eat my vegetables. I was a happy kid with two parents who loved me. When I lost them both at once, I was devastated. It was worse when I found out it was all a lie. I shut down. Just stopped and couldn’t get started again. ”

“I can see the scars from that. I can also see that you—” She cut herself off.

My happy mood disappeared in a heartbeat.

“Go ahead and say it,” I said through gritted teeth.

She only shook her head.

“That I was heartbroken to find out my mom was a Fallen? Or I don’t know what that says about me?” Heat flushed my face, and my hands tightened on the steering wheel. “That I’m worried there’s something fundamentally wrong with me because the little boy inside me loves a demon ?”

“Stop it!” she growled. “There is nothing wrong with you! The little boy loves his mother , and that’s the way it should be. Your soul is as pure as the day you were born, and your capacity to love is to your credit, not detriment.”

I was silent for a moment, my throat too tight to talk.

“Thank you for that, honey,” I said finally.

“It’s only the truth, but you’re welcome.”

The SUV purred along and, when I saw signs for a rest stop, I asked if she needed or wanted to stop. She shook her head.

“Tell me about how Rome and Spin came to the Sanctuary.”

“Oh, Rome’s story is simple.” Relieved to move to an easier topic, I prattled on.

“He lived with his grandparents after his mom dropped him off as a baby. He never met her. His warden pretended to be his father so he could keep close contact with the family. Once Rome finished middle school, his warden told the grandparents he wanted his son to go to his alma mater for high school and college.”

“Very well done on his warden’s part. A good solution to that situation.”

“I always thought so, too.”

“And Spin?”

“Spin’s story is not as bad as mine, but it’s not nice. His mother was—”

I didn’t want to say raped, not when I was almost positive Chessie was a victim of some kind of sexual abuse.

“His mother was attacked by a Fallen and later realized she was pregnant.”

“She didn’t get an abortion?”

“She’s a devout Catholic. So is the rest of his enormous family. Well, Catholic, anyway. Who knows how devout some of them are? Anyway, they all watched Spin’s every move to see if he was going to turn into a violent thug like his biological father.”

“So he knew from the beginning he was a product of violence?”

“Oh, yeah. They made sure to paint him with his father’s sins, and his half-brothers tormented him all the time.”

“They’re the ones who should have been painted with sins.” Her tone was sharp. “Didn’t his warden intervene?”

“The summer his brothers broke both his arms, his warden rolled up in the guise of a CPS worker, gave the whole family a good lecture, and got Spin out of there.”

“So you and Rome took him under your wing?”

“Rome took us both under his wing. I arrived only a day before Spin, but Rome had been there a week already. The three of us went through orientation together, then the same newbie classes. As you can imagine, Spin and I were not in the best mental health. August helped, but it was Rome who saved us.”

“He strikes me as a protector.” She nodded.

That first day, Rome took one look at Spin and me and saw we needed someone. I sometimes wondered why he decided that ‘someone’ was going to be him , but I was grateful he did.

“He made us play catch and flag football and dragged us along on hikes and camping trips. He’s athletic and outdoorsy like that.

I grew up doing those things, too, but Spin was a city boy.

” I laughed. “I’ll never forget him fishing for the first time.

He had that hook cast everywhere but in the water, including his hair. ”

“Rome was smart to pull you out of yourselves with distractions that turned into interests. I’d guess your depression started to lift as that happened.”

“You’d be right. He gave us no time to brood. We had some tense moments, mostly because of Spin, but I don’t think you could find three tighter friends than we ended up becoming.”

“I never met Spin. Why did you say he was the cause of tense moments?”

“He’s a jerk.” I rolled my eyes. “Not all the time, of course, but he has a special talent for pushing buttons, saying the wrong thing, and being obnoxious. His one saving grace is that he can get you to laugh no matter how irritated or angry he’s made you.”

“Again, I never met him, but I’m pretty sure he is the way he is because of how he was raised. When everyone expects the worst from you, sometimes you feel compelled to live down to their expectations. Being a jerk can be a shield, too, you know.”

No, I did not know, but thinking about it, I realized she was right. The more vulnerable Spin felt, the more insufferable he became.

Six years I’d been friends with the guy and I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t even considered it.

Shame on me.

“I like talking to you, Chessie. You have interesting insights, and I enjoy hearing your perspective.”

I took my eyes off the road long enough to glance over at her and got to see her pretty blush spread from her cheeks to her whole face.

Chuckling to myself, I turned my attention back to driving.

She was quiet for a few minutes, then surprised me.

“I like talking to you, too.”