Time - Chapter 7
We drove through the night. Veronica repeatedly asked me where her mother was, but I just couldn’t—every time I tried to tell her the truth, a lump lodged in my throat and forced me mute.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
We drove through the night. Veronica repeatedly asked me where her mother was, but I just couldn’t—every time I tried to tell her the truth, a lump lodged in my throat and forced me mute. Eventually, Veronica must have realized that her mother wasn’t coming with us. Perhaps she recognized the blood on my pants, or the fear in my eyes, or the pain on my face at the mention of Becky. Whatever the reason, she settled down once we reached Utah and let the car lull her into a fitful sleep.
What the hell was I doing? By any metric, I was kidnapping Veronica, and now I had taken her across state lines, making myself a felon. If a police officer pulled me over, they would see a girl that wasn’t related to me and the residuals of her mother’s blood on my hands. They would arrest me, and Veronica would tell them where she lived. The murder would be all over the news by now.
This was why you’re not supposed to make connections, Lizzie. I was supposed to keep my head low and leave a place before I caught feelings. That had been my motto and kept me safe for the past decade, and now, in one day, I’d abandoned everything I believed, all for a little girl and her fae mother.
I didn’t know for sure Veronica was fae. Rick was fae, and all three of them had the necklace, but there’s all manner of reasons why somebody would want a little girl like that—a prophecy girl who was supposed to save the world.
It wasn’t lost on me that our fates were similar, and I didn’t believe in coincidence. Maybe Veronica’s destiny was intrinsically linked to mine, and every mile I drove toward Bronard was one step closer to a rendezvous with the inevitable conclusion of my story and hers.
You should just leave her on the side of the road or drop her at a fire station. They would find a home for her. She’s adorable, after all. Who wouldn’t love her?
I shook off the thought. No, she would tell them where she’s from, and then they would bring her back and—there was only one person who could keep her safe, and it sure as shit wasn’t me. And I didn’t know how to contact Kimberly except through my mother.
Kimberly had saved hundreds of fae over the years. She would know what to do. Junebug would know what to do. Papa Carl would know what to do. I bit my lip to avoid crying, but deep tremors fiercely shook through my body and tugged on the steering wheel until I had no choice except to turn off the road into a rest area. It wasn’t much more than a bathroom with a couple of vending machines.
I wiped the last of my tears from my face, then shook Veronica awake. “Hey,” I said in a whisper. “Do you have to pee?”
“Mommy?” she replied, bleary-eyed. When her eyes focused on me, her face dropped into a scowl. “You’re not Mommy.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Do you need to use the bathroom?”
She yawned. “Yes.”
I unbuckled her and pulled her out of the car. She didn’t try to tug away from me.
“I’m not kidnapping you,” I said as we washed our hands in the bathroom sink. “I want you to know that.”
“That sounds like the kind of thing a kidnapper would say,” she replied, looking up at me as I handed her a brown paper towel.
“You’re not wrong,” I said. “Your mother—she taught you well, but I’m not kidnapping you. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From bad people.”
“Do the bad people have Mommy?”
I sighed. It was time to tell her the truth. It wouldn’t be any better hiding it from her only to hear it from somebody else. I needed to stop being a chicken and bite the bullet, whatever the cliché was.
I sat her on a bench outside after buying her a bunch of sugary candy to help ease the pain. I turned on the lights to the car, so we could have some illumination. The night was bitterly cold. I hated deserts. They didn’t retain heat during the night, and yet they sweltered in the day.
After Veronica had eaten half a bag of Skittles, I spoke. “Your mother loves you very much. Did you know that?”
She nodded. “I know. She tells me all the time.”
She would never tell her again.
“The bad men. The ones chasing you. They…they hurt your mommy, Veronica. I tried to help her—to save her—but—but—your mother died.”
It started slow. She cocked her head to the left, then to the right, before blinking several times, trying to process what she just heard. The realization of my words seemed to hit her in waves, lightly at first and then crashing upon her with greater and greater force until the flood of tears was so great that I thought she might drown under them. I was ill-equipped to deal with children, let alone grieving children. I had survived by bottling up my emotions about everything and everyone I met. In the face of strong feelings, I turned the other way.
There was no turning away from this—Veronica’s poor life had been changed forever. The two people who had protected her were dead, and all she had left was me.
When she stopped heaving tears, she slid her arms around me, hugging my stomach. She didn’t speak for a long while, and neither did I. She simply cried into my shirt, and I rubbed her back, trying to comfort her.
“I’m going to take you somewhere you can be safe,” I said, finally.
“I want my mommy.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know, but—well—you know you can’t see her again, right?”
She sniffled. “I’ll see her in Heaven.”
Maybe. “Not for a very long time, sweetheart, but I’m sure she’ll be waiting to welcome you when you die—which won’t be for a very, very long time.”
She squeezed me tighter. “Because you’ll protect me.”
“I’ll take you somewhere where you’ll be safe,” I replied, correcting her. “My friend will know what to do to protect you. She’s a real badass.”
“A…badass?”
“That’s right,” I said with a smile. “She’ll know exactly what to do because she’s done it so many times before with so many other kids just like you.”
“How do you know?”
I pulled the black opal necklace that I kept around my neck. It was the only thing I’d kept from the past I worked so hard to distance myself from because I was a hypocrite. “Because she helped me.”
Veronica pulled her necklace out from beneath her shirt. “Just like mine!”
“That’s right, and my friend is going to help you, just like she helped me.”
“She sounds nice.” She nodded with determination. “Not mommy nice, but nice.”
“She’s something, all right.” I chuckled. “And you know what else? I’m going to introduce you to a woman who’s gonna love you so much.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because you are totally loveable.” I gave her a little squeeze. “And for another thing, she’s my mom, so I have some experience with her.”
“That sounds nice, I guess.”
“I know it’s not perfect, kiddo, and it’s not your mom, but it’s still gonna be great, I promise.”
“Pinky promise?” She held out her left pinky.
I hooked it into my finger and closed it tight. “Pinky promise.”
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.