My shadow stretched out across Charice’s front door as I ascended the steps up her porch.

I paused for a moment. Today was the day I’d tell her my solution. I might have found a way to fix her situation. But I did not think she would like it at all.

I knocked on the door with one hand, and balanced the Chinese food in the other hand. I’d tucked the Dr. Pepper two liter in my armpit but it was slipping. Aromas of chow mein, broccoli beef, and orange chicken seeped into my nostrils, making my mouth water.

Charice cracked the door open. Her heart shaped face framed by lush brunette hair greeted me with a confused look. She was cute no matter what expression she made.

“What are you doing here? Are you crazy?”

“You don’t need to whisper. It’s only sunset.”

She opened the door all the way just as my stomach churned with a loud rumble. Charice could be categorized as petite. I’m no basketball player, but she still had to look up at me to meet my gaze. Despite it being nice weather, she wore an XL zip up hoodie. It was not a flattering look in the least. Still, she managed to pull it off. It seemed like she wore a backpack underneath the hoodie, but in actuality those were her wings. I forced myself not to let my eyes drift towards her back.

“Hungry much?” she said with a smile.

“Starving,” I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Help.”

She snatched the Dr. Pepper from me before it fell.

The house smelled like a mixture of corn tortillas and detergent.

“Laundry day?”

“It’s always laundry day,” she groaned.

“Parents?”

“Working.”

“No brother?”

She led me to a small dining table. “For the hundredth time, I haven’t heard from him or seen him in a few days.”

“So it’s NOT crazy for me to show up here?”

“No. It’s still crazy. Raza del Norte is out to get you. They just don’t know what to do with you.”

Over the aromas of food I detected her Britney Spears perfume mingled with hand lotion and shampooed hair. The scents mingled in my mind triggering feelings of happiness and giddy foolishness. I let myself relax a bit. The smell rising from the steaming food was even stronger, however. Charice set out paper plates and plastic utensils. I attacked the food like it would get up and run away.

“Fine, don’t even serve me. Rude,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. You’re more of a beast than the monsters you fight.”

I shrugged. “I’m a growing boy.” Then I changed the subject. “So, how are you doing?”

I legitimately wanted to know how she was doing. But I also knew that it would open up an entire can of worms, one which I would not need to speak much, only listen, thereby fulfilling my duty as a good listening boyfriend, and shoveling truckloads of food in my mouth, effectively serving two masters.

She started with surfacy stuff, telling me how she was keeping up with school despite the complications of “being out sick”. Abruptly she changed the subject. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what is Bob?”

“Bob who?”

“The little floaty guy.”

“Oh, you mean Rob. You’re kidding right?”

She batted her eyes at me.

I smacked my head. “Oh man. That’s right. You never had an opportunity to process all this crap.”

She shook her head. “No I didn’t. Obviously. I’ve been stuck here, dealing with my own problems. You only told me about the drama when your brother Gavin came to town and you two got mixed up with Justin last week.”

My brain spun, trying to track all the things I knew that Charice didn’t. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about you tell me how you even got into this mess in the first place.”

I took a deep breath and began with the family barbeque. I tried to keep things in sequential order, but she had too many questions.

“...so long story short, I met Rob the night before we went out to the Pho Noodle House.”

“And he was…”

“Homeless. I saved him from the first Sluagh attack outside of my job at the chiropractor’s.”

“And he’s indebted to you?”

“He implied he’s under a binding magical contract to be my servant for life, or until I die. But now that I think about it that might have been a lie just to get himself off the streets.”

“So leprechauns are real?”

I laughed. “Rob gets sooooo mad when people say that. He’s a shape shifting hobgoblin. Same difference I guess.”

“You have a magic cat and a magic dog?”

“Tain is just a normal dog.”

“And the black guy—Nathaniel?”

“Nehemiah.”

“He’s a wizard?”

“Yep. He uses Bad Luck. Which is like the opposite of my power, I guess.”

“Is that what Donn uses?”

I nodded. “Speaking of. How is your back?”

She got quiet. She knew what I really asked was how she was coping with her new wings.

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“It’s okay. A lot less sore now. I curled up in a ball for like a week and a half. My mom didn’t know what was wrong and wanted to take me to the ER a few times. I started getting scared too, but I didn’t want to make some poor doctor try and diagnose me. I still don’t think my mom knows what happened. I don’t know how I kept it hidden from her. There was blood everywhere in my room. And a few feathers fell out here and there. It’s so gross.”

I nodded as I stuck a big piece of orange chicken in my mouth.

She continued, “The entire first day after they sprouted, I just stayed in my room crying and freaking out. Thankfully my parents were working all day. I ate close to nothing for three days. Every time someone contacted me, I ignored them, which is why I didn’t return most of your calls.”

I put my chopsticks down and reached out and put a hand over hers. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”

She smirked a little, but her eyes watered. “I was so scared, I wasn’t sure if the wings were just the first part, or if it was gonna keep going.”

I hadn’t considered that, but it was the logical conclusion given what we had seen at Tech Duinn inside Donn the Red’s crazy bird tower. Putting myself in Charice’s shoes, I realized all the horrors that must have been playing out in her mind for several weeks once she knew what was happening to her. Due to the time difference between the Otherside and Earth, she had been stuck in a giant cage for a number of days and watched as helpless people around her transformed into hideous bird-like monsters. And now here she was, experiencing that same transformation but without the comfort of anyone to help her get through it.

I squeezed her hand. “You’re so strong. I don’t know how you went through that by yourself.”

She tsked as a tear ran down her cheek. “But I didn’t get through it. I’m still going through it. I can’t get Nehemiah’s words out of my head.”

She did not have to say them for me to know what she was talking about. I’d thought about it a lot over the last week.

Once Chaos gets ‘em, they’re gone, the wizard had said. There’s no coming back from that. They died the moment they were changed.

Now was a good time to let her know my plan for getting rid of the wings. “I don’t know if it will work, so try not to get your hopes up. But, Nehemiah uses Bad Luck. He draws from Chaos. Maybe he can draw the Chaos out of your wings, undo what Donn did, and remove them all together.”

“Not likely. Plus, I’d still have the scars on my back. I don’t think they’ll ever go away. I’ll never look good in tank tops or bathing suits again.”

I raised my eyebrows and grinned. “Well now, I doubt that.”

She punched my shoulder. “I’m serious. I’m just a freak now.”

“And what does that make me?”

“You don’t have it as hard as me Sean. Your powers haven’t transformed your body. They haven’t made you into some kind of half-human monster.”

“Maybe not my powers themselves, but this thing isn’t just some cute tattoo.” I lifted my t-shirt and showed her the Keening. “You think I can go shirtless anywhere with this nasty looking scar on my chest?”

“Yuck,” she said before she could catch herself. Then she saw the look on my face. “It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah right. Your gut reaction was disgust. It’s cool, I know it isn’t pretty. It’s a curse, a monster beacon. Not to mention it itches and hurts constantly and there isn’t any lotion or skin cream I can put on it to alleviate it.”

“I didn’t realize it was so big.”

I nodded and noticed she hadn’t touched any of the food. “You should eat something.”

She surveyed the food selection. “Thanks for buying all this for me. That was sweet of you.”

“Hurry, before I eat it all.”

She punched my shoulder then dug in with the chopsticks.

A text message pinged my phone. It was a group text from Barry and Chuck with me and Eddy thrown on. I groaned.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing. Just my friends from high school.”

“Barry and Chuck?”

“Yeah. They still want to hang out.”

“Didn’t you tell them you couldn’t?”

“I didn’t respond to the text.”

“You can face monsters in the night but you can’t answer a text?”

I shrugged.

“How come you don’t want to see them? Weren’t they your best friends in high school?”

I nodded.

“If you don’t want to kick it with them, just say so.”

I sighed. “It’s not that simple. I do want to kick it, it’s just…”

Charice’s big beautiful eyes bored into me, drawing the truth out.

“Barry and Chuck are already partially through college. They’re both on track to do awesome stuff with their lives. I’m still working at the janitor job.”

“That doesn’t matter Sean. They don’t know what you’re going through.”

“But I can’t tell them what I’ve been going through either. I’ll have to dance around the truth the whole time.”

“Just tell them…”

“See. There’s no way to explain it. Instead of telling them about hunting monsters, I could give them some excuse about hunting rabid animals, or doing sightseeing abroad. I’d just leave out the part that I’ve traveled to another world. But they’d want details about where I’ve been sightseeing. I’ll have to lie through my teeth. And they’ll know.”

I wished I could go out of state for the weekend. Maybe see my brother. My brother was the only one who understood what I was going through. I didn’t have to explain much to him. He got it. We both knew what it was like to lose family members, and both of them to supernatural forces. My chest stung. As much as I hated to admit it, I missed Gavin.

“What are you thinking?”

“Something my brother Gavin said last week. At the time I didn’t want to hear him, but he’s right. I’m cursed. We both are. You’re not going through this alone. We can go through this together.” I squeezed her hand again. “That’s why I’m fighting these things. If we don’t stop them, they’ll disrupt more people’s lives. And I have to figure out how to deal with it.”

One of her bangs fell across her face and I reached out and brushed it back behind her ear. Her eyes darted back and forth between mine. I noticed for the first time how long and thick her eyelashes were. I told her so. She blinked a few times blushing. I went in for a kiss and she didn’t back away. Nailed it.

“Chinese food breath,” she said after she pulled away.

“The best.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest. “How are you even still attracted to me?”

I leaned closer. “It could be worse. You could have been fully morphed into a cannibalistic bird. But you’re not.”

“Not yet.”

She may have been right. But I tried to look at the positive. “You can fly. How cool is that? Everyone wishes they could fly.”

“Not me. I always wanted to be invisible.” She continued. “I feel weird. I have so much energy inside, welling up, waiting to explode and I can’t get rid of it.”

I grunted. “Think of it like I do. It’s a gift that came with some drawbacks. I tried to ignore it at first. I thought I could continue on with my life as normal. I’m still trying to figure it all out. But now that I’ve accepted it, I’ve been able to harness it to help people. I was able to avenge my sister.”

“And piss off my brother’s whole gang. When you use your powers, Sean, people around you keep getting hurt.”

“There was no way around it. I was defending myself. They tried to kill my brother. It was me or them.”

She sighed. “I’m just worried for you.” She ate a mouthful of broccoli beef, then continued. “You keep getting into trouble. Look where you stand now with RDN. They’ll retaliate. I know they will. They have to, to save face. You’ve got to think things through.”

I scowled. “It was my only option at the time. You weren’t there. But now, in those types of situations, you can help me.”

“No. I’m not using my wings.”

I threw up my hands. “Why not? You’ve got nothing else to lose. You don’t even know what you’re capable of. Look at me. Are monsters fighting me? Sure, but I’m not getting worse. I just deal with it. Make adjustments. I’m still figuring it out. We can figure this out together.”

The booming of a bass subwoofer and the rumbling of the muscle car engine cut Charice off. The sound drew near and then stopped as if it was a car parked right outside the house.

“Justin? I thought he was gone.”

Charice went to the window. “Oh great. Not him. I hate that guy.”

I looked over her shoulder out the window and saw an ivory ‘69 Buick Riviera.

I recognized José as he exited his car. Where Justin was short and stocky, José was like a stretched piece of Laffy Taffy. Taller than me, built with lean muscle. Tattoos crawled across his skin covering almost every visible inch of it. He dragged on a cigarette before tossing the butte to the street, not even bothering to put it out. Blowing puffs into the air, he made his way up the driveway to the house with a cocky, pants-sagging swagger.

I reached inside myself for my Good Luck, ready to go full Goku on this fool.