15. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
JASON
I met my dad.
I met my dad .
And Mom was right! He never meant to leave us. He loved us and had tried to get back to us so many times. He hadn’t been taken by a monster either. He was the monster. I just hadn’t realized that’s what was happening when I saw him get sucked through the portal. It had looked like he got swallowed by the monster because he’d turned into it as soon as he’d crossed the threshold back to his original home.
I could figure out the rest, even if I couldn’t remember everything clearly. It would have gotten too quiet after the portal closed behind him. Then loud again and scary as the storm got worse. I must have turned back toward the house and ran my little feet off, until I finally stumbled at the edge of the tree line and succumbed to crying, where Mom found me.
It was my fault because some piece of myself had been drawn to the portal to another world that was and was not a part of me. If I hadn’t gone to it…
But I wasn’t going down that road. Giving in to guilt that shouldn’t be put on a ten-month-old would only make me suffer more, when this story finally had a happy ending. Dad was back, right by my side as we leapt through the portal after Ricky and the others into the woods of the human realm.
Which were on fire! What the fuck?
“Holy shit!” Ricky exclaimed, rushing to the nearer of the two workstations. “Did the lightning cause this or did someone start a fire?”
The sounds of yelling and chaos were louder than before, but at least the siren had stopped, meaning the worst of the storm must be ending. The injured human guard and the ogre I’d pushed away to prevent her from being taken with us were also gone. Almost half an hour had passed since we’d left, and shit having hit the fan was clearly an understatement.
It sounded like pandemonium in the woods, yet I couldn’t actually see anyone near the portal anymore, other than those of us who’d come out of it. It sounded like the worst of the noise was coming from the lake.
“It’s not the equipment,” Ricky said, having run to the outer workstation after checking the first. “Everything seems to be in working order, and the portal is stable for now. It’ll probably close whenever both storms dissipate, but it shouldn’t accidentally suck anyone else in until we stabilize it for good.”
“Hurry!”
I looked at the exclamation, and the ogre was returning with another monster. I didn’t know what it was, but it was able to project water from its mouth like a dragon breathing fire, putting out the flames not yet doused by the lessening rain.
“You,” the ogre growled when her eyes landed on Jensen Senior. She started stalking toward him. “It was others like you that thoughtlessly decided starting a forest fire was better than capture—”
“Wait!” I dove in front of her, arms spread to keep her from mauling Jensen. He was a dick, and it wasn’t as if I forgave him for what he’d done to Kai, but we didn’t have time for this. The ogre stopped when she realized it was me. “We need to help each other, not fight anymore.”
I whirled around without waiting for a response to address Jensen Senior.
“Lead these people out of the woods down the path to my backyard.” I gestured to it. “Tell my mom you’re the dick who hurt Kai, but that I sent you because you’re sorry for all your dickishness. Say it exactly like that, or she won’t believe I sent you. And don’t let the cat out. Got it?”
Whatever emotions or conflicting logic was warring inside Jensen’s brain, he nodded.
“And if you see anyone else along the way, tell them to get their heads out of their asses.”
The Jensens and the now no longer missing people hurried down the path.
“That is going to eventually close,” I told the ogre about the portal. The other monster came up beside her now that the fire was out. I didn’t know where the human guard was, but I hoped he’d been brought to safety. “Stay here to make sure no one else tries messing with it, but it should be safe until it disappears.”
“Who put you in charge—” the ogre began.
“Stay here.” Ricky came up beside me, while Dad stood at my other side and gripped my shoulder. “I am part of the research team, which gives me the authority to give orders. We need to deescalate the rest of this. What can you tell us? Is everyone by the lake now?”
The ogre grinded her teeth in frustration but eventually blurted, “After you got sucked in, more and more people kept showing up, trying to start shit between humans and monsters. There are all out brawls going on in some cases, and the guards and officers arriving are barely holding it together. But yes, most have been pushed toward the lake.”
“Someone is going to get killed,” Dad fretted.
“Oh shit!”
Our attention was once again drawn to the tree line toward the lake, where four people I didn’t recognize had been in full sprint until they realized where they’d ended up. They saw the portal, saw the machinery, saw the monsters guards, and tried to rush them.
Dad swept in front of me, returning to his leshy form in an instant, and lashed out with whiplike vine tentacles the same way I’d lashed out at, well, grandma. The attackers were all tripped and knocked onto their backs, giving the guards more than enough of an advantage to apprehend them, especially when several police appeared, having chased after the others.
They were human, and their eyes widened when they saw Dad.
“Just helping calm things down, officers,” Dad said.
It worked. Not just the resonance of his voice, but something about his presence, about the touch of his vines still making sure the attackers couldn’t get up right away, seemed to infuse them all with the calm we needed.
“We can calm people too,” I whispered to him, “just like animals and the elements?”
“It takes significantly more practice, but yes,” he whispered back.
The noise from the lake was growing louder.
“We need to get over there,” Ricky said, “or at least see what’s happening and which direction might need us more.”
“Jason.” Dad nodded at the sky, retracting his vines from the attackers now that they were calm, and the guards and officers had them.
I looked too and spotted a hawk in the tallest branches above us. “So? What does…? Oh .” I realized what he wanted me to do. “But I can’t just turn into a bird person at will.”
“You can. Try.”
There wasn’t time for trial and error, but at least if I fucked up, I knew Dad could do what I couldn’t. Maybe that would make it easier, knowing it was okay if I failed.
“You know who and what you are now, Jason,” Dad said. “Believe you can, and you can.”
Those two sentences back-to-back were a lot to hear from the father I’d barely remembered and hadn’t seen in over twenty years.
I focused on the hawk, launching itself from the branch it had been resting on to soar overhead, high above the trees and dissipating smoke. Fire department sirens, and police, and ambulances, were all so loud in the background, mixing with the shouts from people, but I blocked it all out and focused on flying.
“Jason!” Ricky gasped. A happy, amazed gasp, which I would never tire of hearing from him whenever he saw me become something new.
I flapped upward to join the hawk above the trees. My arms had literally become wings, all of me like some giant, humanoid bird, and the thought that I could do this normally and just fly whenever I wanted now almost distracted me.
The war zone beneath me helped keep me focused. I was glad I couldn’t see the wolves anywhere. I just hoped he’d listened to me and was keeping his mate and pups safe. No one deserved to lose family in these woods.
Most of the people were indeed near the lake, and while much of it was brawls no worse than shoving matches, it still looked like a powder keg surrounded by sparks. The entire town had shown up for this. I even saw McDickhole arguing among others, fighting openly with police and guards and agents from the facility.
Like Whitmore! He was doing his best to rein people in, but it was chaotic enough that no one noticed… when McDickhole’s daughter got elbowed into the lake!
“Shit! Straight through this way!” I called down to Ricky and Dad. “A little girl just fell into the water! I’m going! Catch up with me!” And because I had wings, I soared over the insanity to land as close as I could to the edge where she had fallen in.
The storm was passing, but with the remaining wind and rain, and all those sirens, no one could hear the little girl shouting, as she tried to hang onto something, and only managed to catch herself on a root. She was keeping her head above water just barely.
“Hang on!” I shifted human as I landed. I didn’t know if I could get her while in bird form. I wasn’t used to it enough yet, and if she got spooked and let go of the root, she’d get swept away. I didn’t know if I trusted myself to swim effectively either. Could I turn into a fish person like Kai?
“Hey, snake-man!”
Bina .
She noticed the little girl and came running up to me. I didn’t know where she’d come from, but given everyone else was here now, Kai and his folks must be nearby too.
“If you get into the water and I hang onto your arm to keep you from being swept away, can you get her?” I asked.
“Not to flex, but that current is nothing for a kappa.” Bina was already shrugging off her jacket and getting ready to hop off the ledge into the lake. It was no wonder she’d made human friends so quickly. She fit right in.
“We’re coming!” I called to the girl, who was clearly close to losing her grip.
“Esther!” I finally heard from McDickhole, but I didn’t have time for him to notice how badly he’d neglected the very daughter he pretended this nonsense was about.
I let my lower half return to my leshy form and sent winding branches into the ground to anchor me like roots, the way I’d seen my grandma and the others do it. Then I summoned my leshy arms, sending winding vines forward to twist around Bina as we clasped forearms. If worse came to worst, maybe I could grab Esther with my vines too, but I’d only chance it if I had to.
“Someone’s in the water!”
“Where’s the fire department!”
Yeah, now everyone was noticing.
Bina leapt in, and despite her flex , the current strained our hold on each other enough that I grunted and fought to keep my roots secure and my vines tight without cutting off circulation to her arm. It was like a maelstrom in the lake, even as the storm quieted, and finally, the surrounding opponents of arguing sides all realized what was happening.
“Bina!” I heard from the scientists as they raced over too.
And Kai, who, even though I was dug into the dirt, grabbed hold of me to help keep me upright. Bina strained to get close enough so Esther wouldn’t have far to reach, stretching me extra taut too between her and Kai. Even with the storm and the sirens getting closer, everything fell into a hush.
Except for Esther.
“I… I can’t!”
“Yes, you can!” Bina assured her. “I got you, fam! I will not let go. And if you slip, I will dive in after you.”
Esther looked at Bina, an eighteen-year-old monster she didn’t know, and I saw the moment when she completely trusted her. She let go of the root with one hand, using the other for leverage to launch herself closer to Bina, and their hands connected.
Bina pulled. I pulled. Kai pulled. And with one final yank and topple backward, we got Bina and Esther back up on the bank.
“Esther!” McDickhole rushed to his daughter’s side, while Kai and Bina’s parents rushed to them. I hadn’t expected Dad and Ricky to have already reached me, but they came out of the woods too, just as I was summoning my branches and vines to return to feet and fingers. It helped that I could do this without losing my clothes anymore.
Dad was still in leshy form, which caught a lot of the townspeople’s attention, but they’d seen me half like that too and seemed to understand.
“What were you doing? How did you fall in?” McDickhole asked his daughter. At least with it raining, I couldn’t smell his patchouli.
“N-no one… was paying attention to me. You were all yelling and shoving, and I… I slipped.” She sobbed into his chest, soaking wet and shivering. Then she looked past him at me and Bina, as we were surrounded by our families too. “The monsters saved me. Th-thank you.”
“Like I said,” Bina panted, “we got you, fam.”
“Just doing what neighbors do,” I added. “After we rescued all the missing people, who are warming up in my house.”
The egg on McDickhole’s face would have been more comical if his daughter hadn’t almost drowned. But I had to hand it to the guy, because he looked right at me and Bina and echoed, “Thank you.”
I could have left it there and just nodded.
I could have.
“Next time don’t be a dick.”
His daughter giggled.
Ten-year-olds heard worse.
“If everyone has gotten that out of their systems and leaves peacefully,” Whitmore shouted over the quickly re-escalating din, cutting it short as he pushed through the crowd, “maybe we can avoid too many arrests. Unless of course you would like to press charges for trespassing, Mrs. Bosco.”
“Unnecessary, assuming you all leave now . Only those I gave sanctuary to are welcome.”
It was Mom, coming out from behind Whitmore with her hair plastered to her face from the rain. Sanctuary? She must have ventured out after letting the missing people into the house.
“Sandy…” Dad said a little breathless.
Mom flinched, just like I had when I first heard his voice, instantly knowing, even while he looked like a tree with a skull for a face.
Dad let that form fall away, and in its place was the human him, a little older like she was, but very much the man she and I had lost.
“Bo…?” Mom gasped. “How—”
He swept her into his arms before she could finish, and in seconds, it was impossible to tell how much of the wet on their faces was from rain or tears.
“Bo!” Mom cried louder, squeezing him around his neck as tight as she could.
I never thought I’d be so happy to see my mom kiss someone, but in the rain, watching her get lifted off her feet like in some lame rom-com—that at least hadn’t ended with her hooking up with Whitmore—all I could think was, Get it, Dad . They were finally together again, and I felt like I might need to cry more over it too.
I already was, but I sniffled most of my tears back when Ricky dropped to his knees beside me and kissed my cheek.
As soon as Dad had set Mom down again, he reached down to pull me to my feet and tugged me in for a group hug. I could still barely believe this was real, and I knew Mom had to be gobsmacked, but it didn’t matter. We were a family again.
I pulled Ricky into our hug too. No one should have to stand or sit in the rain by themselves. Except for maybe Whitmore, although it sure did look like Kai was contemplating making a move from out of his family group hug, given how much he was staring at Whitmore’s wet sweater clinging to his abs like a second skin.
“We should all get back to the house,” Whitmore said. “I clearly need a debrief and everyone could use a towel and a change of clothes.”
The other people from town were trudging back through the mud, carefully now to not elbow anyone new into the lake. Only Kai and his family stayed behind to wait for us, alongside Whitmore.
“Am I going to get a debrief?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” Dad answered. “About everything.”