Chapter One #3
Her shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine, not that but... something. I don’t want us to be guardian and little kid anymore, and I’ve been thinking that for a long time,” she admitted softly. “We used to be sisters, Char. Just sisters. And I want to be that way again. Don’t you get that?”
“I...” I swallowed hard, eyes prickling.
“I do get that... and I want it too. Now that we’re both grown up and you’re going to college, we can be just sisters again.
” I cupped her cheek. “But being sisters isn’t about money, and you know that.
I’m allowed to throw you lavish birthday surprises, and I’m allowed to give you my car if I want to.
I can do whatever I want because I’m the big sister and you’re not the boss of me.
” I stuck my tongue out at her. “So there.”
Adora giggled, her pout running away. “I’m not going to take the car, but I do want to help out with the bills and stuff so that you have time to go back to school.
You’re twenty-two, C, and it takes seven years to become a lawyer.
Do you really want to wait until your thirties for your life to start? ”
I made a noise under my breath. “Well, when you put it like that...” I tossed my head.
“Look, it’s a no-go on splitting the house bills.
You’re moving out. It just doesn’t make sense.
But,” I rushed when she shot up to argue, “you could talk to the hospital administrator and see about turning your volunteer shifts into an internship. We’ll have to buy a whole bunch of stuff for your move to Maryland and into the dorms, so I wouldn’t say no to you helping to cover those costs. Plus, it’ll look good on your résumé.”
“I—” She perked up. “Okay, then, yeah. I can do that. Mrs. Appleton will for sure say yes. She’s always telling me what a godsend I am.”
I smacked the table. “Settled. Now, let’s eat!”
I didn’t need to say it twice. The best and most expensive meal we’ve had in years was getting cold right before our eyes. We couldn’t let that go on for any longer.
Settling in, we passed around the crab cakes, salad, and ribs while busting up over our favorite funny memories, and getting excited about all the things to come. The truth was I hadn’t given much thought to what my life would be like after Adora was ready to start hers.
All my focus for the last four years has been to keep our little family healthy and together.
But now I’m twenty-two years old with a high school education, a pile of unpaid bills, and seven years to wait before applying for a decent job with a decent lawyer’s salary is even an option. What am I going to do in the meantime? And is becoming a lawyer even still my dream?
“—and Baltimore to New York is only a three-hour drive, so Nikki and I are still going to see each other all the time. One weekend I’ll go up and stay with her.
The next weekend she’ll come down and stay with me— Ah!
” she squealed, startling me back to reality.
“It’s going to be so cool, sis. We’re going to see Broadway shows, and totally be those annoying, cliché tourists snapping pics of everything from the Statue of Liberty to finance bros peeing in a corner in the subway. ”
I laughed. “Wow. The New York City must-see list has really changed since I last looked it up.” I rose out of my seat. “I’ll be right back. I forgot the lighter.”
Ducking out of the living room, I slipped through the hall to the kitchen. All the deep life questions can wait until after Dora’s party. I don’t—
I stopped dead, grinding to a sudden, jerky halt in the entrance to the kitchen.
He stood there calm as ever, gazing at the half-moon windows, wooden kitchen, and river stone backsplash as though he’d never seen anything like it before.
Tipping his head back, bloodred eyes studied the crisscrossing beams on the ceiling.
He seemed to be quite fascinated with the architecture, because the man-sized scorpion tail attached to his tailbone rose over his head, brushing against his horns as his stinger poked the beams. He wore clothes but they were so ripped and scorched, they may as well have been rags.
They did nothing to hide the very hard, impenetrable, and impossible body beneath.
My lips parted.
“Ahhhhh!”
He snapped around, landing on me in the doorway. Snarling, four rows of vicious teeth glinted in the fluorescent lights—reflecting my terror... and frozen, locked jaw.
It wasn’t me who screamed.
“Dora!” I raced away, terror shotgunning my heart into my throat when heavy, unnatural footfalls tore after me. Bursting into the dining room, my tied tongue came loose. “Ahhh!”
Terrible, horrible, unnatural creatures from my nightmares swarmed my sister.
Razor-sharp teeth, red eyes, black nails, misshaped horns, and scales, exoskeletons, fur, and carapaces where skin should be.
They seized and hauled her screaming out of her chair.
The tallest, furriest one with a lion’s maw where a mouth should be, yanked her up so hard, his body flung back and burst the balloons behind him with his horns.
“Char!” The white of Adora’s eyes beseeched me. “Help! Help me!”
“Get off her!” I charged them, snatching up the cheesecake—stand and all.
I smashed it on her attacker’s head, shattering glass and crumbling cake on his horned, amphibious head.
The strike didn’t slow him. It didn’t so much as loosen his grip on Dora’s neck. Twisting around, he struck me one-handed.
“Ach!” The blow glanced across my side, and my lungs exploded. All the air blew out of my chest as I popped off my feet and crashed through the dining room window.
I tumbled head over feet on broken glass, leaves, and splinters. Skidding across the lawn, I wailed—my whole body singing with pain and a hundred weeping cuts staining the grass red.
“D-Dora—”
“Help me, Char,” my sister screamed over a cacophony of breaking plates and bursting balloons. “Stop it! Leave me alone! What are you?! What are you!”
“Dora!” I forced myself up on hands and knees—opening new seams on my palms and legs as I crawled over broken glass, tears streaking my face. “Let her go!”
“Ahhh!”
“Get off her!”
Their figures darted back and forth across the shattered window—limbs human and inhuman flashing, swiping, striking, and fighting to secure a thrashing Dora. Heaving myself over the sill, I snatched the tattered, burnt rags of the same curious, scorpion creature who chased me from the kitchen.
Shrieking, I plunged a shard of glass in his side.
“Ahhhhh!” he roared, releasing Dora’s arms in the shock.
She slipped out of her captor’s grip and collapsed on the floor.
“Dora, run!” I screamed—viciously twisting and plunging the glass deeper, uncaring of it slicing my flesh to shreds. “Run!”
Scrambling up, Dora bolted for the hallway entrance... and stopped.
She grabbed the candelabra off the hutch and hefted it overhead, bellowing as she charged the scorpion beast. As she tried... to help me.
“No, Dora! Run! Leave me and run!”
The last thing I saw after the frog beast, tiger beast, and snake beast leaped over the upturned table and tackled her to the floor, was the scorpion monster’s exoskeleton-covered fist flying toward my face.
Pain exploded in my skull, plunging me into the dark abyss as my sister’s scream echoed in my ears.