The girl, who had spoken, had an unreasonably high-pitched, and nasally voice. It kinda reminded me of a squealing pig. “Well, what do you know? It’s Josiah. Didn’t I tell you it was a good day to visit Luna, Brae?” The man with her grunted in admittance. “Tell me. Why did I get a letter from The Hunters saying that today was the day I could finally have you back? How the hell does Jordin know everything?” So I wasn’t the only person who’d gotten a letter from The Hunters, but who was Jordin? More importantly, who was this woman?
“You know, I’d never forgiven you for leaving me. Maybe Jordin was sick of you because she must’ve known that I wanted to kill you if she knew everything else.” Kill him? Look at her, I thought to myself, there is no way she can kill Dad. She’s no bigger than me. I laughed quietly to myself. “What’s so funny, little girl?” I grimaced at her; I wasn’t a little girl. “I’ll answer that: Nothing. There’s nothing funny at all about JoJo leaving his wife a week before the wedding, and him leaving his little brother to take care of the entire family and the aftermath of his disappearance. We thought you were dead you stupid son of a bitch.” Dad did that? No, I couldn’t believe it. He was the most responsible, and dependable person I knew.
“You didn’t do that stuff she’s saying did you, Dad?” He looked away from me. Avoidance. He had done it. I wasn’t sure if I knew who he was anymore. I stood up and leaned against a nearby tree, facing away from him.
“You didn’t tell your daughter that? Wait, since when did you have kids, JoJo? Did you leave me because you got someone knocked up, or is she one of Jordin’s pets?”
“Stay away from her, Layla.” Dad said, ignoring her questions. “What did you guys do to yourselves?” He asked, eyeing the pair speculatively.
“Jordin is totally full of shit, JoJo. She wouldn’t tell me where you were even though she obviously knew, so we joined The Slayers,” she trilled.
“How could you be one of them? After what they did on Mara and Sela? How could you?”
“Babies taste particularly sweet,” she said, licking her overtly red lips.
Her male partner said, “Stop toying with him, Layla. We all know that you were, and always will be jealous of Jordin.”
“Shut the fuck up, Brae,” she said, sending him a scathing look.
“You know them?” I asked. They were not the kind of people I imagined as Dad’s friends. PTA parents, soccer moms, and sleepy night-shift interns seemed like they would fit the bill.
“They were my family, the people I was closest to before you and Aiden came to me. Come over here, Asha,” he sighed. I sat down next to him and saw an ageless pain in his eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen this way, ya know?” He chuckled humorlessly. “Forget everything I said about Mara.”
“But you promised-” He couldn’t do this to me now. Now that my day of freedom was within arm’s reach, now that I was physically and emotionally ready to leave and try to start a motherless, pain-free life.
“I‘m not incapable of lying to you,” Dad said. “When you wake up, go look for Aiden. I told him to stay close, so he will find you soon. Promise me you’ll remember this: Don’t let anyone figure out what you are, and stay with Aiden. Repeat it back to me.”
“You’re not making any sense, Dad.”
“Do it, Asha.”
“Whatever. I promise I won’t let anyone figure out what I am, and I promise that I’ll stay with Aiden. Happy now?” My mind was whirring with thoughts of Aiden, Mara, and Dad’s lies. “Dad, what about Aiden? He’s expecting me! I can’t leave my only real family. What were you thinking?”
“Aiden is here. On Luna. He never left.” He was on Luna? I couldn’t believe it. How could he have kept my brother from me? Dad knew how much I loved Aiden and how I had cried myself to sleep for months after he left. Tears were collecting in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
“I’m sorry, and I love you,” Dad said. I grimaced and turned away from him. What kind of parent breaks promises and lies to their kids? I asked myself. A shitty one like him apparently.
Suddenly, I felt something cool graze the delicate skin of my neck. A sharp, unrelenting ache pulsed through my body. My mouth opened and closed repeatedly. The pain was so bad that I couldn’t even scream. My brain was mush; I couldn’t form any words. I looked to Dad for help, but he was meticulously cleaning his teeth with his tongue. He brought his wrist to his polished teeth and with a grunt bit off a hunk of his own flesh.
Dad grabbed the back of my neck and pushed my lips against his wound. I struggled to keep my lips closed, but some of the liquid seeped in between them. The all-consuming pain was bursting through my veins with every beat of my heart. When the clear fluid touched my tongue, the pain was suddenly nonexistent. I feverishly gulped down a few mouthfuls without thinking about what I was drinking.
Layla was hovering over us in the next second. She shoved Dad away from me and pinned me down. Even though I knew it was futile, I tried to kick, spit, and claw my way out of her grasp. Anything to bring back that sweet, pain-numbing liquid.
“Awww, JoJo. Now why did you have to go on and do that? My boss will be furious with you. If I let you live, that is. On the other hand, Jordin will be quite happy. What a good little lackey you are.” She let me up to go and ruffle his hair. I’d never seen anyone treat Dad with anything but respect.
Her shrieking laughter from across the clearing reminded me that I was free to move. I was done trying to fight her; she was obviously much stronger than me. I hadn’t even left a mark on her frigid skin.
The pain was coming back slowly but surely, so I decided to take inventory of my injuries while I was still sane. There had to be several for this amount of pain. I was surprised that I kept my head; Dad’s calm façade was wearing off on me.
I rubbed my neck in an attempt to quell the acute burning there. It didn’t help in the least. My hand stilled as it grazed the deep puncture wounds. I could feel the blood spurting through my fingers, its hot thickness turning my white sweatshirt a sickening red. That was my breaking point.
“Dad! Dad, help me!” The girl, Layla, turned to me and burst into a fit of giggles.
“She’s so adorable when she‘s not trying to gouge my eyes out.” She turned to the man with her, who just stood and stared. “Can we keep her?” she begged.
“She isn’t a dog, Layla.”
The pain morphed into something so much worse. It felt like my flesh was bubbling on the inside; it was too much for me to handle. I slumped over, and noticed that their black robes had menacing but controlled flames licking at the bottom. The flames didn’t seem to be bothering their owners at all. They left a trail of death behind them every time they moved. The throbbing began to spread through me like spilled black ink on white parchment.
“Please, I’ll do anything. Just make it stop.”
“If Brae won’t let me keep you, I’d be happy to put you out of your misery. Let me just finish up with your daddy. Now JoJo,” she said turning to Dad, “what you did isn’t allowed by The Slayers. Turning a child against her will? What a shame.” She punctuated her statement with a flurry of disapproving tongue clicks.
He sat silently, patiently waiting for more dribble to spill from her mouth. “What happened to my LaLa? The one I loved? I was going to come back to you soon, so we could get married like we planned.”
“Well it’s a little late for that, don’t ya think? I’m not your LaLa, and you’re not my JoJo. Not anymore. Jordin took you away from me. We were supposed to start a family, you and I. We would’ve had a beautiful little girl just like this one.” She patted my face with hands like bricks and smiled mirthlessly. “Jordin ruined all of it. Worst of all, she forced me to do this to myself. Look at me, Josiah. I want you to see what you two have done.” She pulled back her hood and showed two eyes, black as pitch. Her blonde hair was limp and stringy, her face gaunt. The hollows beneath her cheekbones and eyes made for a sickening play on light and shadow.
Her horrific state didn’t make me feel for her. The only thing that registered in my mind was the feeling of no hope for me. I was surely taking one of my last breaths, and I didn’t want to waste any time thinking about that woman whom I had no ties to.
“And all for this little whore and her brother,” she wept. “I’m done with him Brae.” She pulled up her hood, and slumped against a tree. Her shuddering sobs resounded through the clearing like sonar bouncing off of cave walls. A bit later, I noticed that there were no tears coming from her eyes.
“Bro, is that you? I didn’t notice you under that fucking death mask,” Dad said, the swear sounding odd in his calm cadence.
“You’re not my brother anymore,” Brae replied. A black light shot out of his eyes and went into Dad’s.
“What are you doing to him?” I tried to scream, but my inquisition came out as nothing more than a whimper.
“We’re giving him what he deserves. Your daddy has been a bad little boy. Haven’t you my beautiful JoJo?” she crooned from her slouched position against the tree. I watched with perverse fascination as Brae’s jaw stretched and his teeth, like sharp knives, sank into Dad’s neck. Dad smiled at me with a faraway look in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, at least. His entire neck was inside of Brae’s mouth, but Dad never tried to fight him off.
“Dad,” I shouted even though he was close to me. “Dad, get him off of you.”
Dad grinned wider and said, “It’s okay, Asha. He’s my brother. He would never hurt me.” His voice was light and sounded odd, almost like he was reading a fairy tale. Considering the situation, it made me shudder with apprehension. Whatever that black light was, it had made him stop fighting.
My knees trembled as I tried to stand up; if he couldn’t fight back, I was going to have to do it for him. As I took a step closer to Dad and Brae, my legs collapsed. I cried out in horror and pain. I just couldn’t do it; I was going to have to watch my dad be killed and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “Stop,” I cried out again. I had to do something, anything to help him.
“Shut up, you stupid girl,” Layla said from her position against the tree. “There’s nothing either of us can do now.” Was she feeling the guilt? The guilt of ordering her fiancé’s brother to kill him? She had better be feeling something. If she wasn’t, and if I had the strength, I would’ve definitely beaten her face in. Even if she did feel guilty, she still deserved to get her face beat in.
“He was my father,” I said to her. “He took care of me my whole life, and you killed him you psychotic bitch! He was going to come back to you; he said so himself. He still loved you, Layla. How could you?” She just cried harder in response. I hoped that I was making her feel even guiltier; I hoped that the pain was eating away at her inside like it was eating at me.
I shied away from the gruesome sound of Dad’s flesh being ripped apart. It reminded me of the high-pitched keen made by scratching a chalkboard combined with the sorrowful protest of metal being bent against its will. I expected to see bucketfuls of blood on the ground, but all I saw was a shimmering, transparent liquid like the stuff I drank from his wound. All of a sudden, I was extremely thirsty like someone had poured salt down my throat. I crawled towards the pool of liquid and drank. It seemed like my thirst could not be slaked.
I felt horrible for doing that; I didn’t want to do it, but I was just so thirsty. Warm tears spilled onto my face like a torrential downpour as I continued to drink. It felt like I was killing him by drinking his life fluid, but I just couldn’t stop myself. The tears dripped into my mouth and onto my tongue, tainting his blood with the saltiness of my tears.
When Brae saw me drinking, he kicked me in the stomach, and I flew across the clearing. My back slammed into a tree, and I slowly slid down it. I had no strength left in me to fight, so I just watched him drink that delicious substance. Soon there was no more fluid in Dad’s lifeless body. Brae yanked with his teeth, ripped Dad’s head off, and let his body fall like a sack of rocks.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said, turning to me.
No. No. No, I tried to scream. Nothing came through my lips as I struggled to stay conscious.
“Leave her be,” Layla said. Her voice was quiet, but it rang with power. It sounded like she knew she was better than he was and used her authority whenever she could. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, and the change is starting.”
Then for some reason she sneered at me. She probably hated me for taking away her JoJo.
“I thought you said that you would kill her,” he said.
“You idiot, I only wanted to get a response out of J-” She stuttered when she tried speaking his name. Good. I hoped she’d choke on it and die.
“Layla?” Her eyes met mine. “Can you do something for me?” I tried to set my voice into a sincerely pleading tone. It was quivering from the pain; it sounded like I was on the brink of tears.
“What do you want you goddamn house-wrecker?” Her lip curled in distaste. It was like my very presence left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Go crawl under a rock and die.” I smiled with the last of my energy. She grabbed my face with her calloused hands and pulled me up, so I was standing in front of her. Her black eyes pierced into mine with such ferocity that I began to shiver from the hatred they held.
She bared her fang-like teeth and said, “I’ll be seeing you soon.” Black spots began to dance across my sight. Dramatically, she swept away. I’m going to die, I thought. I’m going to die and I’m alone. When they were both gone, my senses began to fade. Soon all was dark.
Asha is in real trouble now, I can sense. The story started like something else and has become this. That's why I am loving it.
