22. Helene
Helene
Audra wakes from her stupor before lunch with a bad attitude. No matter what bed she’s in, she manages to find the wrong side of it.
She tugs her hand away from mine with a frown deepening the delicate lines around her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You are not,” I insist.
“Oh, and you're psychic now? If I tell you I’m fine, then take it at face value, Helene.”
I grip her tighter. “You’re awfully bossy. Where did you pick up this nasty habit?”
“From you, obviously.”
Holding her hand is more for my benefit than for her. She’s right. I need the closeness. I need physical presence to watch and wait for the next fit, or worse.
To make sure Nicholas’s blood doesn’t set off a change reaction we can’t come back from.
“Is it too cold for you? We can move into the bedroom? I’ll even...get you some coffee from The Grind. Eh?”
The window is stuck in place. Wren pried it open for us earlier when Audra woke and wanted fresh air. Desperate for something other than the stale normalcy of the apartment with its familiar reek and dust.
But she isn’t strong enough to get downstairs herself, and as much as I hate it, I’m not in a state to carry her. Not right now.
An open window is a compromise. At least from here, we’re able to hold the vantage point, and any trolls stupid rough to stroll down Willow or Wentworth...
We’ll see them coming.
Wren shoved the casement open a few hard-won inches, and, with a dark look promising more heat than I’m capable of holding, he left.
My cheeks burn, and my lips sting from the kisses. It’s a good kind of tingle, like a bee bite, a pang of pain with my pleasure.
What does this make me?
“This is good.” Audra smooths the blanket across her lap with a free hand and jerks her chin to the mug of coffee, set in the same stained ring like a performer’s spike. “I’m fine.”
“Wench.”
“Wench 2.0.”
Her tired eyes dart from my face to the street corner, and she sighs. But she doesn’t withdraw her hand again.
Fingers flexing, she links us together.
Our legs rest beside each other with our arms touching. When she was little, I used to pull her into my arms and let her tell her stories. She's always had a thing for fantasy.
Hell, if she wants to dig around through Mom's old stuff then why not? She can find secret maps and buried clues in the margin doodles. I don't care.
She loves those novels with immersive worlds and forbidden love, the ache of yearning, the bite of magic.
Only now, fiction feels less fantastical than something I should have recognized all along.
My spine curves.
“I love days like this. When the storm is rolling in and the entire world goes quiet. You know?” She stares out the window with a longing fierce enough to twist my gut.
If wanting something made it possible, she’d turn into a bird and glide along the thermals, like Forest.
“It’s going to snow,” she adds.
“The weather said nothing about snow. Unless it’s another one of Kari’s giant trolls ready to bring us a blizzard. It’s too early in the season.”
“It’s never too early. And Kendrick Grisham from Channel 7 News is a liar.”
As if to echo her words, the weather makes a fool of me. A snowflake floats in from the window and lands on Audra’s cheek, melting instantly.
But it gets a smile out of her. “See?”
My sister’s profile stands in stark relief, trapped between dim outside light and the flickering fluorescent bulbs inside.
“Kid.” Her nickname comes out in a whisper. “Aren’t you scared?”
She won’t look at me. Some base part of me is terrified in a way I can’t name. I don’t want to.
Dreams of excitement and adventure used to lull me to sleep. Love, maybe. If I were extra lucky.
Or at the bare minimum, some toe-tingling, off the charts sexual chemistry.
I’m not sure I want the reality of any of it. Not right now when the bleak sky is more of a constant than my hammering emotions.
“I should be scared.” Audra’s voice goes as low as mine. “Shouldn’t I?”
The apartment hasn’t been the same since the men took off. Odd, how things change when you least expect them to. I thought the space was claustrophobic, closed in and shrinking when the three of them stood shoulder to shoulder.
Now, without them, a distinctive something is missing.
Audra retrieves her hand and stares at her palms, at the grooves left along her life and heart lines from the seizure. “Being scared is smart. It means your nervous system is working to keep you alive. But I think I stopped being scared a long time ago.
“There’s no point to it anymore. You know?”
I lock my jaw tight, because I do know. I've thought about it more times than I can count over the last twenty-four hours while I waited for county-wide fallout from two attacks and got zilch.
“Maybe it’s time to take a nap. Snowy Sundays are perfect for napping.”
She scoffs. “I’ve been asleep for ages.”
“You were knocked unconscious and fed blood from a vampire. I’d say that begs for a nap.”
She only smiles, resting her head against the back of the couch. “Isn’t it cool?”
Sure, that's one word for it. Not the one I’d use. Horrifying is another. Her face, pale and blood-coated, stretches across my mind. I glance at the phone again and wait for the screen to light with something from Barnes asking about the bookstore damage.
So far, nothing.
“How about brownies, then? If not a nap, then nothing screams comfort like some ooey gooey chocolate snacks.” I rise to my feet, and three steps take me to the kitchen.
Scouring the off-kilter shelves of our “pantry” yields no brownie mix, but how hard is it to slap together some cocoa powder, sugar, and flour together?”
“Hey, Hel?”
I’ve spent most of my life caring for her, focusing my awareness on the needs of others. Now Wren, Forest, and Nicolas occupy an annoyingly large part of my thoughts, and they refuse to budge with typical male arrogance.
Each one begs for attention in my head.
Wren’s sharp retorts and easy rebuttals, Nic’s brooding silence and controlled chaos. Forrest’s kindness and the way he couples golden retriever with rabid Viking.
“Brownies, brownies. Where are you?” My foot taps along with the syllables.
“Helene!”
Audra suffers my neurosis with the kind of sisterly indulgence she pairs with irritation. She twists her hands in the loops of one of the first things I ever quilted, and her head falls back.
“Isn’t it better to admit magic is real? It’s exactly what we’ve been missing.”
“No.” Now it’s my turn not to look at her. “It’s what we’ve been running from. It's the reason our mother was so fucked up and probably why we have both Mommy and Daddy issues.”
At least Audra's dad is out there. Somewhere. I think.
Mine never even gave a name.
“Come you. You don’t think Mom knew about your three mates, do you? Because if she did, I guarantee she would have run into their arms instead of out.”
It’s called a Mare.
My mouth goes dry. “Don’t call them that.”
“What?” she asks, false innocence. “Your mates?”
“This isn’t a romance novel.” I strangle the box of baking soda and give the same treatment to the cocoa powder. “This is real life.”
“And reality can’t have a foursome in it?”
What a yummy prospect.
“Not when it comes with murderous trolls and...and prophecies.” I turn to her. “You didn’t see yourself, kid. You didn’t see what you went through on the couch. I was terrified.”
I clasp the cocoa to my chest.
“I never want to see anything like that happen to you again.”
Despite her youthful face, those freckles we both got from mom, Audra’s eyes have seen too much to be young. “You will, though.”
I scoff. “Not if I can help it.”
She’s right. There isn’t a damn thing I can do to keep her from seizing again, whether it’s at the whim of something more commanding than fate doing the talking...or her disease.
Audra drifts, her head resting against a pillow and her arms folded over her chest.
She’s fallen asleep too quickly, my mind argues. Too fast to be natural, she’s usually such a light sleeper, but there are no shadows in the room and nothing to knock her unconscious magically. All lights are off except one because fuck my electric bill.
But I’ll feel better with this place lit up like Christmas.
I grab a bowl, scanning the recipe on the side of the cocoa powder. Easy enough. A substitution here and there will get us a batch of brownies in forty minutes if the oven sensor decides to work.
How?
How do I process this?
Jaw still clenched, I snatch eggs from the fridge. In the past two days, someone upended the table of my life and sent the pieces scattering.
Gods are real. Myths are real. So are monsters. And if I believe a word Wren said, I’m one of them. A myth. A story.
Loved to obsession.
I went from single and celibate for the last year and a half to making out with two men, one right after the other. Consecutive.
“I’m a hussy,” I mutter.
At least with Audra resting, she won’t agree with me.
Those stories are bullshit. Love at first sight isn’t genuine. How many times did Mom go out and search for it, her dates a disaster, her attempts leading to heartbreak?
She’d cherished Audra’s father with a fierceness that defied logic. It killed her when he left.
She was never the same when we picked up and moved from Sedona. Her degradation led to madness, and the poison leached into everything she touched,
I don’t want that insanity, and so I’ve never found it.
Jamming a finger to the wonky button on the stove has it preheating to 350°.
Love, sure. Companionship and sex. That kind of thing is necessary, self-care. Justified.
Now?
These three strangers who know me, who claim to know me, are pressing closer. They’re crowding me with their energy and their desire and a dormant part of me reacts to them.
I move and discard cracked eggshells in the trash. Behind me, Audra huffs. I glance over my shoulder in time to watch her snuggle under the blanket.
A fierce wind kicks through the open window and brings with it the rich cold of an oncoming snowstorm.
Mid fall is way too early for this level of snow.
Unnatural.
Why am I not surprised?