An uproar from the bookstore proper interrupted Rayne and Xelan’s conversation. A firm knock on the storeroom followed.

Xelan cracked the door, and Tameka blurted, “Rayne’s brother is out here unconscious.”

Rayne’s brother. Her family. “Is Jack okay?!”

Her guardian rushed to stop her from moving. “No—No. I have to see him!” On unsteady footing, Rayne attempted to hop away and groaned. Xelan reached her before she could hope to see Jack. To her astonishment, he threw her able arm over his neck and squatted to her height.

“We both know you were going with or without my help. At least this way, I won’t have to fix as much later on.”

Rayne sighed. “Thank you.”

“Are we good, now?” Tameka asked, wagging a finger between the two of them. Hope lit the beautiful features of her face.

Rayne groaned, again, saying, “It’s complicated, but yes. Please…”

Xelan took a step, and Rayne wanted to die. Nothing would keep her from her brother. Unconscious meant alive. Alive gave her hope. At a painfully slow pace, they made it out of the storeroom with Tameka in tow. Pablo and John’s eyes roved over Rayne. Shame flushed her cheeks. She couldn’t make it. It was too far.

She opened her mouth to say so when she heard, “Where’s Rayne?!”

Struggling to stand, she called, “I’m here. I’m in the break room.”

A mixture of voices followed from around the corner.

Sagan cried, “Don’t move yet!”

Kyle said, “We haven’t found the wound.”

Wound? “It’s not my blood.” The stony tone of Jack’s voice chilled Rayne. Blood?

When he barreled around the corner, both siblings took their time examining the other. Each one with eyes growing wider and chests heaving as the adrenaline escalated.

Jack wore a white XL tank top on his slender frame. It was soaked in bright red blood. Not his. Rayne’s brain shorted out and wouldn’t let her think of whose it might be. His baggy jeans were soaked heavily in the crimson liquid. His normally pristine sneakers were stained brown with it.

Before she asked him what happened, Jack covered his eyes. Emotion and exhaustion racked his body until his athletic frame crumpled to the floor. He croaked, “What happened to you?”

Rayne’s heart broke along with everything else. There was no better time than now to tell him the truth. She licked her busted lips and said, “Listen, Jack—”

He interrupted her in a strangled voice. “Mom and dad are dead.”

All the air rushed out of the room. Rayne’s entire world came crashing down around her. Every well-honed muscle in Xelan’s body tensed against her as if sensing her torment.

Rayne’s voice cracked into a teeny whisper, “Momma?”

Tears gathered in Sagan’s wide eyes. Her mouth set in a thin line.

Kyle looked at his shoes and kept his face hidden behind his hair.

Tameka stared at Xelan with apprehension.

No one could save Rayne’s parents. It was her responsibility to keep them alive. Four years training for an oncoming apocalypse and the first opportunity to talk to her mom about it came too late.

A primal sound tore from Rayne’s throat as Xelan helped her to her knees and guided her head between her legs. Jack broke down, the sight of his big sister’s grief was too much for him to bear. Sagan and Tameka reached for Rayne, trying to prevent any further harm. Lynn tended to her brother.

All that noise consumed her, but the sound which pierced through the din was John’s voice. He asked, “What about our parents?”

Everything went still, including Rayne. They exchanged looks.

John asked again, “Would they kill our parents, too?”

She wanted to be selfish. She wanted this moment to grieve for her parents, alone. Singularly. Without interruption. But it was a good question. What about their families? And Jack?

Rayne had to be strong for them.

The chilled floor cooled her forehead, made hot with her agony. The day weighed heavy on her bones, leaving her muscles too fatigued to carry them. Tears, salty and warm, streamed rivers through dried blood and soot crusted on her face. There were so many tears in the last eight hours. Every single one of them were bequeathed to her by Nox’s design. A gift—a trifle compared to what must come.

Rayne unfurled, begged her muscles to carry her leaden bones once more, and conceded to face the burden ahead. In a firm, clear voice contrary to the raging, grieving howl only moments before, she said, “Tell me everything.”

The chair Xelan placed behind Rayne was generic, hard, plastic. Mustard in color. But to her, it was an entreating throne.

As she searched Jack’s hazel eyes, he listed to the side. Sagan and Andrew rushed to him.

Xelan gently chided Rayne, “Stay in the chair. We have him.” He turned to the others, saying, “Let’s all have a seat and listen.”

John started, “I only want to know about my parents.”

“Hush,” Lynn hissed.

Jack slouched in the chair Xelan provided him. Generic, plastic, and blue. “I skipped school,” he started. This wasn’t a total surprise to Rayne. Ever since Jack was removed from middle school for his low performance and placed in a disciplinary charter program, he’d given up on his education altogether. “Momma,” his voice cut out like bad cell reception. “She didn’t feel good and decided she was going to the shop later. Dad wasn’t home from work, yet. I went behind the house to smoke a cigarette.” He hinged forward until his elbows rested on his knees as he held his head.

Kyle and Sagan exchanged glances. Tameka peered at the floor with grave intensity. Andrew stared at Jack. Without looking, Rayne knew Xelan was watching her. His eyes bore into the side of her head. The others behind her, she could only imagine their measure of apprehension.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

After a pause so long it was painful, Jack finally confessed in a small voice, “I should have stayed with her.”

Rayne broke from her chair to her little brother’s side. Others bolted to stop her. This was her baby brother. The same boy who was scared of worms. She used to tear them apart and try to smear them in his hair when both of them were blond and cheeks full from baby fat. The one who begged to learn to ride a bike at the same time as her because he was terrified and sad she wouldn’t play with him anymore if she was a big kid. Who broke her heart when he couldn’t read the card she bought him for his 12th birthday. Who grew up too fast and asked his friends to jump him into their “gang,” so he could fit in. And who to this day still called her when he got into trouble and needed her to pick him up from the side of the road.

Enveloping Jack in her good arm, both of them a gory mess, Rayne whispered against his hair, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

He wept against her shoulder.

It was one lone moment of grief. Rayne guessed the rest of the story, but there was something she needed to know.

“Jack.” She swallowed a dry lump in her throat. “Jack, was there some kind of message in the house when you got back to it?”

He lifted his phone, coated in blood. Rayne took it from him, asking, “What am I looking for?”

Jack’s voice squeezed from him when he said, “Pictures.”

The phone almost fell from her hand as if it had suddenly caught fire. He took pictures of the scene to bring to her.

Tameka volunteered, “I’ll look at them.”

Xelan jumped in. “I think it would be best if you didn’t. I’ll look.”

“I got it,” Rayne cut them off. “I gotta do this.” If she couldn’t do this, how could she look her friends in the eye if they returned from their own homes with a similar story? The Icari knew their mark. Knew where they lived.

The first image appeared on the screen. The front room of their home was painted in crimson. Every wall, the floor, and the ceiling were soaked in her parent’s blood. No bodies. Drawn into the blood on the wall opposite the door was Pretiosum Cruor. The image burned into Rayne’s retinas. She gazed down at her brother. “I’m so sorry,” she croaked.

Jack shook his head. “Keep going.”

Hesitant, a craggy lump clung to her throat again as she swallowed. “Water. Please.”

Xelan’s heavy boots stomped to the sink in the break room.

Rayne closed her eyes and desperately tried to ignore how much they sounded like Nox’s boots during their earlier battle.

The cool glass nudged her hand.

She opened her eyes and stared up at the ten-inches accounting for their height difference. Nox’s familial revelation earlier really dislodged the foundation of her trust in Xelan. He was Nox’s brother. This was true. But her guardian working against humanity? That was impossible. Why not just kill her? Xelan had plenty of opportunities.

Like now, with the water. Rayne raised the glass to her lips, their eyes locked. The tension mounted not only between them but within the entire room. Her friends craned their necks or wiggled to the edge of their seats, ready to pounce. Giving over to faith, she closed her eyes and sipped.

The water scaled the soot, smoke, and dried blood from her mouth and throat. Overwhelmed with gratitude for such a small luxury, Rayne drank every drop and handed the glass back to Xelan. His eyes were warmer than usual, and the lines around his them were softer than before.

Their audience released a collective sigh of relief. Well, almost all of them.

“We’re not pissed at him anymore, I take it?” Kyle harrumphed.

Tameka rolled her eyes.

Sagan elbowed him. “Do you really think now is the right time to talk about this?!”

“Well, when will we talk about all this?” he asked a not-so unreasonable question.

“After,” Rayne said. Xelan handed her the phone with sympathy drawn in the tight line of his mouth.

Jack rested. His eyes were wide and unblinking, as if he were boring an escape from this reality into the floor.

Rayne grimaced and returned to the Blackberry. The next room was the kitchen. Utterly clean. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: fruit basket, bread box, pot on the stove, presumably for mom’s soup. Wait. She tried to zoom in. The pixelation obscured the details.

“Next pic,” Jack instructed in an eerie, hollow voice.

Rayne peeked at him. She did not want to select the next photo. His knee bounced with such ferocity that the chair chattered in rhythm.

Next picture. Rayne was uncertain what was in the image. Zoom. Sideways. On the other side of the counter was a bulky object she couldn’t make out. Something pooled from it…

Jack said, “It mom’s body.”

The phone seared Rayne’s hand. She dropped it. Almost kicked it away from her. She stumbled with clumsy limbs. Trash can. Just make it to the trash can. Do not disrespect her parents by vomiting all over their bookstore. Sagan rushed the trash can to meet her halfway in the break room. Rayne lost all the water in the black trash bag. Her best friend held her hair back from her face. Sagan’s cool hand grazed Rayne’s injured temple.

The break room exploded into an uproar.

John announced, “I’m going and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Kyle asked again about trusting Xelan the same time Lynn asked John, heavy on the sarcasm, “And just how do you think you’re getting there?”

“I don’t know, Lynn. I’m worried about my parents, too.” Pablo’s reasonable tone cut through the chaos.

Tears stung the corner of Rayne’s eyes, and she wondered how she was hydrated enough to cry anymore.

Xelan cleared his throat and said, “There’s more.” He looked over Jack’s shoulder at the phone in his hands. Please, no more pictures.

“Who’s Celindria?” Jack asked.

Sagan’s eyes widened beside Rayne, who stilted back from the trash can. How does one explain to their brother they’re the reincarnation of an ancient hybrid of two inexplicable races, and the alien race’s leader blamed the descendant for casting the aliens back to their homeworld? Oh, and it’s not been a relevant issue for eight thousand years.

Jack said, “The message in the picture says, ‘Find Celindria.’”

“That piece of shit,” Tameka cursed.

John mumbled, “I’ll turn you over, myself, if someone doesn’t check on my parents, soon.”

Lynn slapped him, and the clap thundered through the break room.

Kyle shouted, “Fuck!”

Lynn left John and Pablo on the couch and stood beside Andrew. Pablo glanced from her to Rayne, and then to John. He also stood up and walked over to Sagan.

The entire room stared at John, except for Xelan. Earlier today, they’d accused him of betraying his trainee unit, collaborating with his race to destroy the humans, and setting said unit up for eradication. Faced with those accusations, he hadn’t snapped at anyone. He didn’t scream back. He responded with the patience and grace of a several-millennia-old being.

With Xelan’s back to Rayne, he faced John. She stared at Xelan through a haze like heat rolling off pavement in the desert. The energy swirled the air surrounding him. His body trembled under the halo. Atramentous. His fists clenched at his sides, straining his arms, and pulling the coil tighter and tighter. Would it break loose?

John was the only one with a decent view of Xelan’s face. Injured and sprawled on the couch, he stared at the Icarus with pitiful vulnerability in his wide, brown eyes and a tremor to his jaw. The cushions were a lifeline he clung to in terror.

After sixty seconds in eternity, Xelan spoke in a voice layered in three pitches his normal tenor, a high alto, and a deep baritone. “Betraying any member of this unit is an act punishable by banishment or even death. So say your oath.”

John whimpered.

Xelan continued, “Let me remind you.” Rayne tracked his movements as he disappeared and reappeared so close to the younger man that Xelan’s coat brushed his leg as it settled.

Rayne knew John hadn’t track his movements when a scream burst from him and he shriveled back into the cushions.

Xelan towered over his heaving body, saying, “The only reason you’re alive is Rayne asked me to train your inconsequential ass.”

One painful, stilted step.

Xelan leaned into him. “You were in the right place at the right time.”

Another excruciating step. When will walking stop being painful again?

He went on, “If I had my choice out of the two extra trainees to keep around—”

Almost there.

“—I’d prefer Nikki.”

The walk across the room spent the last of Rayne’s energy reserves. She brushed a hand down Xelan’s arm. He bolted a foot off the ground and spun on her. The shift in his eyes made her gasp.

Mark a small victory for startling him later. Rayne didn’t have enough time to gloat. She said, “Don’t cause them… to lose their—” The floor flopped to the ceiling, and leaden weights shackled to her legs. Xelan caught her with a tenderness she recognized in him after particularly strenuous training sessions. “—trust in you, again.” Her able arm turned to jelly. “Spare. John.” Her eyelids were so heavy. They didn’t want to open anymore. Her faded hearing caught shuffling around the room, taps starting on a faucet, and a door opening.

As her hearing slipped away, the last thing Rayne heard was a voice layered in three pitches whisper, “I got you.”