Chapter Thirty-Six
Shadow/Axel Monroe.
I fell in love with Raven Alvarez-Paloma the second she walked into the Monroe mansion.
She trailed behind Sofia, who was a vision in white, a contrast to her reluctant daughter dressed in a dark navy dress with a skinny black belt on her tiny waist. Dark hair in long pigtails, big, brown eyes, and sooty lashes.
She looked like a Latin version of Wednesday Addams. She didn’t have braces yet, so her teeth were a little too big for her mouth but to me, she was perfect.
“Son, say hello to Raven. Your soon-to-be sister.”
“Stepsister.” She said proudly, uncrossing her arms and looking around the mansion.
I took a hit of my inhaler, holding my breath, letting the albuterol do its job then slowly letting my breath go, shoving the thing in my trouser pocket and holding out my hand. “Hey, I’m Axel.”
“Like Rose?”
I looked at her quizzically because “Who is Axel Rose?”
Her mouth pops open and then she smirks. “I’m about to make you so cool.”
_______ _
I was born with weak lungs. Prone to fits of bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma attacks so I wasn’t allowed to play outside often.
But with Raven, I wanted to keep up. She was a month older than me, (August 26 th ) to the day.
She brazen and wild and she loved screechy rock bands and laughed all the time.
If she wasn’t outside exploring the grounds and woods behind the manor, she was in the attic or the basement, making up games, sliding down the banister, cackling, and driving the maids crazy.
We were ten the day our parents married. She took my hand, and we put our ballroom dancing lessons to use by making me dance with her. “I guess we’re officially siblings now,” she said, almost bored to tears.
But I wasn’t. She was in my arms in a cute little pink dress mom made her wear.
The entire wedding was lavish and ostentatious, gold glittered everywhere amongst the whites and pale pinks and honestly, it kind of made my eyes hurt.
I twirled her, setting us up for another turn, keeping up with the music and she giggled, flashing her invisible braces when I dipped her, placing a kiss on her cheek. “I’m so glad you’re my sister.”
“Hmm.” She hummed. “You’re probably the coolest thing about this whole thing.”
I took the compliment to heart because, at school, I was not the coolest thing. She often fought my battles for me, unafraid of the older kids, punching anyone who even breathed wrong in my direction. My protector. My warrior. “If this was your wedding, how would you make it better?”
“I’d get rid of the white and the pink. Purple everything. The walls, the floors, the windows .” I laugh because okay. “Except for my dress. I’d have a black dress.”
“Are you getting married or attending a funeral?”
“Hey, this is my wedding. I’d make sure it was all chic and stuff. Very posh.”
“Sure,” I reply, imagining myself as her groom at this very violet wedding .
“Anyway, I’ll probably never get married.”
I stop dancing. “Why not?”
“I’ll be too busy traveling. Hiking in the rainforest or… discovering a new mummy tomb with an ancient curse. And you won’t be getting married either because you’ll be too busy with me. We’ll skydive and go skiing and get lost in Germany.”
I resume dancing. “Why would we get lost in Germany?”
“Why not?”
“We’ll stay at hotels. Have a guide.”
“Oh, that’s boring!” She scoffs as if she can’t fathom being told where to go and what to do.
“Besides, you know I can’t… really do any of that.”
Now she stops dancing. “I’m your big sister now.
I’ll take care of you. And you will get better.
You’ll see. We just have to get you used to stuff like dirt and dust and…
and running and… cold weather. I’ve heard that’s how people can build up their immune system, you know?
Like you keep doing the things that might hurt you, so you build up a tolerance.
I’ve heard people can poison themselves a little bit every day and build an immunity to it.
So that’s what we’ll do. I’ll be your poison and your antidote.
And then we’ll travel the world together. ”
I don’t know why, but I believe her. Because I love her. Because I’m so lucky she’s mine.
________
We were eleven when our parents put me in Tai Kwan Do. She raged when she was made to take ballet instead, our parents said she was too aggressive already. She should put her energies into something more… relaxing, more feminine. But she’d come home and cry when her feet were bruised and bloody.
I hated Mom at times. Raven hid her tears from her a lot.
So I would bandage up her feet when I would find her crying in her bathroom.
We couldn’t play those days. She called her dad crying to come pick her up.
That she was miserable here and it made me so sad I begged Father to make Sofia pull her out .
I often used the hidden wall walkways to get in and out of the manor, to walk into other rooms going unnoticed because before Raven came along, that’s what I was. A living, breathing ghost.
“He’s threatening to get full custody,” Sofia worried.
“He’s a drunk, my love. He’ll never get custody.”
“I’m not so sure. My PI says he’s sober.
Going to AA meetings… There’s a chance he could take her.
Axel says she’s unhappy here. She fights me at every turn.
Fighting in school. John! Are you listening?
What do you think the media will say about me, about us, if I lose custody of her to a nothing-lawyer drunk? !”
My father sighs in resignation. “Sofia, come here, kitten.” Blegh . “I’ll take care of this. I love you. You are my whole world. If this makes you unhappy, I’ll take care of this.”
“Ay, mi amor,” she cooed softly “you always know just what to say.”
“Good. Now, lift your skirt. Show me what’s mine.” There was a sound like skin slapping against skin and then-
“Ugh! Johnny!”
I grimaced, walking away.
Raven’s dad died just two months later. I had never seen her so sad. Then her night terrors started.
I would watch her sleep. A lot. Standing guard.
I’d go to her room using the trap doors in the walls, standing in the corners, the first time she saw me, there was a lightning storm.
She ran to my room, where I zipped through the wall and jumped in my bed merely seconds before she crawled in with me, shaking, sputtering nonsense about a shadow person in her room watching her.
While I felt guilty for scaring her… it sent a thrill through me. For the first time, I was the one protecting her . I was the thing that kept her safe, not the other way around.
So I asked my father to get a second opinion on my lungs, and he found a doctor who prescribed steroids to help strengthen them .
Then we got older, and she started… blossoming.
It was almost overnight that she started…
I don’t know, having boobs and her hips were wider and her thighs…
I loved them. They reminded me of when Galvina made my cookies, and the dough spread in the oven.
I even started calling her that, Cookie .
She thought it was because she always stole mine but… no.
Mom started limiting her snacking when we were around thirteen.
She was no longer allowed to wear skirts unless they were the uniform ones for school and when we attended events because the way her thighs jiggled was “embarrassing” to her image, she was made to wear long dresses.
She was still beautiful but now it was more of a quiet, resilient beauty.
The cello became her favorite thing in the world once she mastered it. It didn’t take long. There were maybe six weeks of screeching coming from her room. Three broken cellos from when she’d get angry at it and smash it to bits. But once she got the hang of it, she really got the hang of it.
Soon we were going to her first chair recitals. Then her solo recitals.
She was incredible, spending weeks in Japan for the summer then out to Paris, London. She was gone for entire summers, no doubt being her adventurous self. Staying out of trouble. It seems she was only a hellcat here. With us.
Her rounded cheeks slimmed down, her face edgier and sharper. She walked with a stoic elegance, a quiet confidence that was so becoming of her, that she made my heart drop and kickstart every fucking morning we bumped into each other in the hallways.
Dad caught us wrestling one time when we were fourteen.
Nothing major. She wanted to learn a few self-defense poses in case guys at school got handy even though she was already pretty scrappy.
Cookie had me pinned to the ground, laughing when dad caught us.
He sent her to her room without dinner and gave me a weird look… a knowing look.
Soon, her laughter was less heard around the mansion but when she did laugh, it was because she was at school. With her friends. With mine. And I wasn’t the only one who started noticing how gorgeous she was becoming .
My friends started noticing, and Dad’s friends did, too.
So I had to get stronger. I had to work out harder. Lift heavier. Be faster.
It was that same summer when Dad was having a meeting in his home office. I knew these men but not really. They only came around sometimes. They weren’t his usual clients. They didn’t greet us the way his clients did. They were solemn and kind of creepy.
I was doing my thing, heading to the pool, walking past his office, the door barely open enough as though someone had closed it but it didn’t latch all the way shut.
“She’s gonna be a fucking beauty, that one. I mean just look at her mother. Christ, Monroe. She got rid of the braces, growing a nice rack…” I heard and stopped in my tracks immediately.
“That she is, Prescott. But you know arrangement negotiations don’t start until she’s at least sixteen.”
Arrangement negotiations?