THE TRAGIC + DIVINE, Book 1 Page 15

  “Do you need a ride home?” I signed. Mitch’s face brightened and nodded. “Come on,” I waved him over.

  After Mitch helped me tie down his bike in my trunk, he led me to the outskirts of Dixon into the countryside where we drove by cow pastures and small farms. Throughout our drive, Mitch kept a hand out enjoying the afternoon breeze. I watched in awe as he embraced the wind like a beaming child. Although Mitch was a grown adult in body, on the inside, he was young like Peter Pan. I suddenly became jealous of his joy. I wanted so badly to be a kid again, to replace my worries and fears with happiness. I wanted my innocence back.

  Mitch signaled for me to pull over on the side of the road near a woodsy trail. I glanced around confused; there weren’t any houses nearby. The road was desolate.

  “Where is your home?” I signed to Mitch.

  Mitch pointed into the woods. I sat in my car momentarily confused. Mitch lived in the woods?

  He got out of the car and untied his bike. Following after him, I helped Mitch unload his bicycle off the ‘Stang.

  Mitch raised a finger like a light bulb had gone off in his head. He reached into his front pocket and handed me a piece of fresh lavender. I smiled, took the flower and inhaled its sharp scent. I wondered where Mitch got the lavender; I always thought it couldn’t be grown in Georgia because of the humidity. Mitch waved goodbye, as I waved back something strange happened. A sudden sense of peace overwhelmed my senses followed by the smell of lavender and chamomile. When I looked up, Mitch was gone.

  ☩

  There was a police car parked in the driveway when I reached my house. My mother was speaking to officer Brian Taylor, a tall, lean man with a military buzz cut in his late twenties; the officer who arrested Priscilla on numerous occasions for running away.

  I wasn’t sure why my mother had called him until I drove past the neighbor’s shrub that obscured the garage door. In big bold red letters, someone had spray painted ‘Quill Lover’ with a heart around it. I slammed on the breaks; my eyes glued to the message.

  Mason.

  I warily stepped out of the car unsure of what to expect. Across the street, the neighbor’s nosy, judgmental eyes felt like daggers on my back.

  “Donde andabas?”

  Shit. I hated when my mother spoke to me in Spanish. It meant I was in trouble. My mother fixed her angry eyes on me waiting for an answer.

  “I was looking for a job,” I said.

  Sensing the tension between us, officer Taylor ripped out the police report and handed it to my mother along with his card.

  “Call me if anything else happens.”

  “Thank you,” my mother replied taking the card. “I will.”

  As the police car pulled out, my mother turned to me with a menacing glare. “What’s going on?”

  I shook my head and hugged my elbows. “I don’t know. I’m as confused as you are.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” she screamed. I looked around embarrassed by the show we were putting on for the neighbors. I clutched my backpack and ran inside.

  “Please tell me you are not involved with those…creatures,” my mother demanded as soon as we stepped through the door.

  “I’m not,” I said. I wasn’t lying. Nothing was going on between Milo and me.

  “You know she is,” Paul said. He was leaning into the living room door frame chewing tobacco holding a clear plastic bottle full of brown spit. Gross. “This is the same crap Priscilla did.”

  “Paul, stop.” My mother warned.

  “Don’t tell me to stop,” Paul argued back. As their argument escalated, I heard the house phone ring. I rushed into the dining room and picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “He—hello?” A familiar voice said. “Alexis?”

  “Who is this?” I asked alarmed.

  “It’s Priscilla.” Her voice was low and controlled.

  Startled, I almost dropped the phone at the sound of her name. The last time I spoke to my sister was seven years ago right before she ran away. Whenever she called the house to check-in, she always spoke with my mother. I ran to the back of the house.

  “Is it really you?” I asked in a low squeal.

  She laughed, but her voice was shaky. “Yeah, it’s really me.”

  It felt so good to hear my sister’s voice again.

  “Where are you? How come you haven’t been home?”

  “Listen, Alexis, I really don’t have a lot of time to talk,” she interrupted. “I just wanted to call and check-in, see how everyone is doing?”

  My smile vanished. I was disappointed by her hurried tone. What was so important in her new life that she couldn’t talk to her family for more than five minutes? Or call more often? Or visit?

  “We’re fine,” I said in a dark tone hoping Priscilla caught my disappointment.

  “How about you? How have you been? Are you still planning on running off to Los Angeles next year?” she asked.

  My lips involuntarily curled into a tiny smile at the thought. “I’m working on it.”

  “And Isaac?”

  Loud, beeping echoes coming from the phone cut my voice. It sounded as if Priscilla was pressing the phone keypad.

  Beep, beep, beep…

  “Hey, do hear that?” I asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “That beeping sound,” I replied.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Priscilla said quickly.

  At first, the beeps were random and sporadic. But then they turned into a continuous rhythmic sequence of three quick beeps, followed by three longer beeps, then three quick beeps again; beep, beep, beep—beeep, beep, beeep— beep, beep, beep.

  Strange, I thought. Where have I heard the sound?

  “Uh, I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon!”

  “Wait,” I said. The only sound left behind was the dial tone. Priscilla’s abrupt goodbye had the hairs on my neck rise so high, it sent tiny waves of alarm to the pit of my stomach. Why was Priscilla in such a hurry?

  I dismissed the thought and walked back to the living room where my mother and Paul were still arguing. Paul flicked his eyes at me then pointed at my shirt.

  “I mean, look at her, she’s practically begging for it, wearin’ that tight shirt exposin’ her chest.”

  My eyes almost bulged out of my head. I skimmed over my v-neck shirt. What was Paul implying?

  “It’s true. She’s angel bait. I bet you anythin’ she sneaks him into her room the way Priscilla used to.”

  I was so mad that I didn’t think through what I said next, “Screw you!”

  Paul reached for my arm so fast, I didn’t have time to flinch. He gripped it hard, growing numb with every second that flew by. “What’d you say to me?”

  “Let me go!” I yelled trying to shake him off.

  Paul pushed me onto the couch, I gasped in shock. Tears welled in my eyes. I turned to my mother who just stood by as it all unfolded before her. She didn’t even bother to interfere.

  “Are you going to let him do that?” I cried out to her.

  “You both need to stop this, right now!” she yelled.

  “You let this girl get away with murder. What she needs is a good ass-whoopin’,” Paul said sliding his belt off.

  I shot up from the couch, tears spilling down my cheeks, then ran out the door to my car. Backing out of the driveway, I drove over the speed limit without a care of whether I got pulled over. I hated Paul with every single cell in my body. I was resentful towards my mother for allowing Paul to treat me this way. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t suffer from Paul’s abuse. When I was a kid, he cornered me inside my closet and whipped me with a thin tree branch after I accidentally broke one of his sunglasses. The next day at school, one of my teachers asked about the bruises on my arms. My mother’s threats to send me to a group home with the promise I’d never see her, Priscilla and Isaac again floated in my mind as I lied to my teacher and claimed I’d gotten hurt playing soccer.

  I drove witho
ut direction for about thirty minutes until I decided to cross over to the opposite side of the railroad tracks to what was considered the ‘bad’ part of Dixon where the government apartments were located.

  It didn’t take long for Julian to open the door, eyes widened by my unexpected visit. He wore a Tiffany blue satin floral robe with house slippers.

  “Alexis.” Julian’s eyes raised with surprised. “What are you doing here?” His grandmother, Mable, didn’t like Julian having friends over.

  From the other room, I heard Mable yell, “Julian who is it?”

  “It’s just a Mormon!” he hollered back.

  “Tell ‘em were not home.”

  Julian’s expression switched from surprise to concern when he noticed my red, puffy eyes. “Oh, girl, what happened?”

  “Paul.”

  “That bastard again? Come inside,” he said getting out of the way.

  You wouldn’t think Julian’s apartment was so lovely on the inside given the location of the apartment complex and the worn- out condition of the exterior. His grandmother Mable had beautiful antique furniture that was handed down to her by family, the real stuff made of wood. Once I was in the comfort of Julian’s room, I noticed a bunch of small plastic bags filled with white dust on Julian’s bed. It didn’t take me long to figure out what they contained.

  “You’re dealing?” My eyes widened.

  Julian placed a finger over his lips motioning me to be quiet. “Don’t look at me with those judgy little eyes!”

  Julian closed the bedroom door. “Not everyone has a cushy lifestyle with a big bank account to fall back on.”

  “I don’t have…”

  “Girl, not you. Everyone else who is filthy rich in this town.” Julian delicately placed the tiny bags inside a shoe box. Taking one, I examined the thin crystal-like powder inside that resembled white glitter.

  “What is it?”

  Julian cast a nervous glance at his bedroom door. “If I tell you, promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “Dawn.” Julian glared at me.

  I frowned then zipped my lips. “Promise.”

  “You are looking at the ashes of a dead angel,” Julian said with mysticism in his voice. “It’s called Angel’s Ash.”

  I tossed the bag on the bed utterly disgusted. “That’s a dead angel?”

  “Not all of him. Just a tiny piece.”

  “That’s gross. Why would anyone do that?”

  And when did Julian start selling drugs? Ever since I could remember, Dawn, Julian and I were so close there wasn’t a secret we never told each other, other than Priscilla of course. I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt Julian didn’t confide in me sooner. It made me wonder if Julian was snorting this stuff.

  “This shit right here”—he lifted a small bag admiring it— “will get you so high you’d think you’re in heaven. I’ve heard, anyway,” he said calming my suspicion. “It’s an up and coming drug. Rare and very hard to find. I wouldn’t be surprised if, by this time next year, Angel’s Ash was the hottest drug on the market.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “My dealer.”

  “Obviously. I’m not stupid. How did your dealer get it?”

  “Girl, I don’t ask questions. I just take orders, move the stuff, and get paid. People gots to work around here,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “You should understand that more than anyone else.”

  “I get it, but—”

  “Why this?” I nodded.

  “Because…people in Dixon are racist, homophobic assholes, that’s why. No one wants to give me a job because they think I got AIDS or something. My meemaw can barely make the rent on this place with social security. If it weren’t for me, we’d starve to death. I’m all she’s got.” Julian’s face suddenly became heavy with sadness. I felt so bad he had to go to extreme lengths to make money.

  Julian had a tough upbringing. He was the youngest out of four brothers. Both parents were drug addicts who sold drugs out of a run-down motel on the outskirts of Dixon. The Flaim’s living situation got so bad that the boys ended up in foster care. Eventually, the brothers were separated because the state couldn’t find a family who would take all four. When Julian turned fourteen, his grandmother Mable took him in.

  I didn’t know Julian was going through such a tough time in his life. I’d been so fixated on my selfish problems, I never once asked Julian how he was doing.

  “I’m sorry, Julian,” I said giving him a tight side hug.

  He perked up then patted my arm. “Don’t be sorry, girl. I ain’t.”

  “Wouldn’t the angels get pissed if they found out you were selling their ashes? Doesn’t that, like, put a target on your back?”

  “There’s a risk with anything you do that’s illegal. I’ve been lucky so far.”

  “If this stuff really gets you so high, why aren’t people going around killing angels for it?”

  Julian scoffed. “Probably ‘cause no one knows how to kill an angel.”

  Angel’s Ash. Who was the mastermind behind the wonder drug? Who would go to great lengths to kill an angel just to sell its ashes?

  We spent the rest of the night watching funny movies and eating popcorn. I told Julian about the garage door, Dylan cheating on Dawn—a subject he advised me to stay quiet about on account Dawn probably wouldn’t believe me, I told him about Milo and Stone Mountain.

  After Julian fell asleep, I tossed and turned on the bed thinking about my sister. I found myself wondering who Priscilla’s angel boyfriend could be. Was it Eli? Maybe. Dylan, definitely not. Priscilla wasn’t into arrogant fucktards. Lee, Trent? Milo? The thought depressed me. Julian’s cell phone suddenly went off blaring a Rihanna song. “S.O.S. please someone help me…”

  Who could be calling this late? I thought. I looked down at Julian who was sleeping on the floor next to me, he had on a satin sleeping mask embroidered with a pair of lashes.

  “Julian,” I whispered as I tapped him on the shoulder but got a snoring reply. He took melatonin before going to bed, he was completely knocked out.

  The phone kept blaring and I had a feeling it was his drug dealer. I sank back into bed covering my ears to muffle the ringtone.

  “S.O.S. please someone help me…”

  For some reason, the strange familiar rhythmic sound from earlier came to mind…beep, beep, beep—beeep, beeep, beeep—beep, beep, beep.

  Where had I heard it before?

  I sat up straight when it hit me. I grabbed Julian’s cell phone from the bedside table, punched in Julian’s password, which was the last four of his social, and Googled S.O.S. The first result that popped up was a brief summary of its meaning:

  S.O.S. is the international distress signal for help transmitted in Morse code characterized by a sequence of three short clicks to represent the letter S, and three long clicks to represent the letter O.

  My face went pale. Priscilla was asking for my help, and I was too stupid to recognize it. Was she in danger? I tried to convince myself Priscilla was fine, I mean, she went this long without showing up in a body bag. What sort of danger could she possibly be in? My thoughts danced to the rhythm of the S.O.S. message. I knew I was lying to myself. Something didn’t feel right. Something in her rushed tone told me otherwise.

  I got out of bed careful not to step on Julian who was dead asleep on the floor surrounded by pillows. I tip-toed out the front door, grabbed the walkie out of my car, then sat in an old wicker chair on the porch.

  I stared at the walkie for a few minutes, sitting alone with only the chirping of crickets to occupy my thoughts. What would I say to Milo if he answered my call? Was he awake? It was well past midnight. Turning the power dial on, the loud crackle of static made me jump. What do I even say into the walkie? I didn’t know walkie lingo.

  Pushing the talk button, I said a lame ‘hello,’ and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  I pushed the button again, “
I know you’re there.”

  After a few minutes of silence, I tried one last time. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

  This is so stupid. Irritated and losing my patience, I tossed the walkie across the front yard. As the walkie hit the grass, I heard Milo’s voice.

  “Can’t stay away from this ‘pig’, huh?” I heard him smile.

  I cringed. Milo just had to rub it in, didn’t he?

  Turning around, I stomped over to the front lawn and picked up the walkie. I hated that I was going back on my word. But I had to shove my pride aside. I had to talk to him, I needed to go back into his world to search for my sister because I knew deep in my gut she was there.

  “Can’t sleep,” I responded. “You’re the only person I know who’s up so late.” I felt like such a liar.

  “Excuses, excuses. Just admit it, you wanted to talk to me,” Milo said with skepticism.

  There was a tiny part of me that wanted to talk to him, the other was determined to find Priscilla at all costs, but I wasn’t about to feed his ego.

  “So how was your night? Up partying all night, I bet?” I sat up crossing my legs.

  “Is that what you think I do?”

  “Yes. Tell me, how is your liver doing?” I asked my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “My liver is just fine. Thanks for asking. Our organs don’t deteriorate the way humans do.”

  “Must be nice,” I snorted. “You don’t have to worry about dying.”

  “Immortality is not as appealing as you may think.”

  “You’re joking, right?” I said walking back to the porch. “What is so bad about living forever?”

  There was a long pause before the walkie came back to life. “Death.”

  I frowned. “But you just said—”

  “Human death.”

  Milo was talking about the death of his human friends, human lovers perhaps? Girlfriends? I dropped my shoulders saddened by the thought.

  “You can feel emotions like us.” I stated.

  “And lust. Just in case you were curious.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I shook my head. “This entire time I thought the angels were emotionless creatures who preyed on young women.”

  “We don’t prey on women. They look for us.” He had a valid point. “But you chase after them.”