Rodrigo woke to a bare foot kicking him in the chest. He shot up to look at his attacker, only to find Carlito sleeping upside down next to him. Yesterday’s trauma either made him forget or not want to sleep in his bed in the guest room. Jett was already gone from the top bunk, possibly out with Emelina doing the Christmas shopping she mentioned.

As he went into the bathroom to gargle with some mouthwash, seeing his reflection stopped him dead. The dark blue flecks in his hair had developed into immediately noticeable streaks. Rodrigo wasn’t particularly attached to his black hair, but he didn’t enjoy calling attention to himself, either. Worse, if Resent’s presence was somehow permanently altering Rodrigo’s body to resemble his own, were his eyes next?

Thinking about their argument last night, though he was sick to death of being controlled and bullied, he may have overreacted somewhat to the prince’s latest ridicule. His bigger concern was how that would impact their strange partnership. If the demon was conscious, he was unusually silent.

After nudging Carlito awake, Rodrigo went to the guest room next door and knocked, figuring they and Raquel could have breakfast together. A couple of thumps later, she opened up. Her eyes were red from crying, and she had a busted lip. He gently grabbed her chin in his thumb and index finger, turning her face from side to side. There didn’t seem to be any other bruises. Not visible ones, anyway.

“Where is she?” Rodrigo demanded, doing a poor job of concealing his anger. His mother had done worse to him frequently, but she never laid a finger on Raquel or Carlito. And to risk doing it under his aunt’s roof. He wanted to stay calm, but he could already feel his heart pulsing through his entire body.

“She’s in the kitchen, but she isn’t herself,” Raquel said, her voice quavering. Great. Not even noon and his mother had been drinking. “I-I told her a little about what happened yesterday. Not about you, but about that t-thing, and she just lost it.”

Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Carlito shambled out into the hallway, and within seconds of seeing the dark intensity on his brother’s face, judged the situation appropriately. He pulled Raquel into Jett’s room, closing the door. Rodrigo could hear the television turn on, then steadily increase in volume until he could clearly make out SpongeBob chanting, “I’m ready!”

Rodrigo wasn’t. He paused, shutting his eyes and counting down from ten. If he approached her as he was, he wasn’t sure what he might do. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the kitchen. “What did Raquel do to deserve that?”

His mother spun, and with her glassy eyes, it was obvious right away she was wasted. “When did it become your b-business how I discipline my kids?”

“You beat on me and that’s one thing, but Raquel and Carlito have always been off limits. So, what happened? Miss having easy access to your favorite punching bag the past few nights?” He wasn’t yelling, yet he couldn’t help his aggressive tone. “Emelina’s not gonna let you get away with this.”

“Shut your damn mouth! You’re just full of lip lately. Think a few whacks here and there is a beating? Adorable. And that selfish cunt won’t do a thing. She puts up a saintly front, but when you actually need her...” Her slurred speech trailing off, Miriam squinted at the top of his head, as if trying to bring a blurry image into focus. “Now you’re doing whatever you want with that hair of yours. Reminding me more and more of your goddamned father every day.”

Rodrigo clenched his fists. “That’s another thing. I heard you’ve been taking the cash he’s been sending me for nearly three years now. Where is it?”

“Ed-Edward’s money is mine. Count your blessings I give you lunch money, you greedy little bottom feeder!” He was stunned she didn’t deny it.

“I finally understand why Dad left. It had nothing to do with us. It’s you. It’s always been you!” Rodrigo flinched at the unexpected hurt in his mother’s eyes. He knew he had overstepped, but he refused to apologize.

“You know what, I’m done,” Miriam muttered as she grabbed a chef’s knife from the dish rack. “If that monster doesn’t want to raise his bastard...”

“What are yo—” Rodrigo yelped as she stabbed him in his left arm. He lurched back, clutching his bleeding wound. The pain was nothing compared to what he had endured from the creature, but the contempt on his mother’s face stung deep. He had always known she disliked him, maybe even despised him, but drunk or not, he had no idea she would go this far.

“So, you want me dead, huh?” Rodrigo asked, not meeting her gaze.

“You were a mistake. One that should have died in the womb.”

Rodrigo took a shuddering breath. That his mother felt this way about him brought on a mix of depression and exasperation. What had he done for her to hate him so deeply? Or was it something Edward had done? Not for the first time, he wondered if he was the product of an affair. He almost asked her, but part of him was too scared at the possibility there was no rational reason behind it.

“What did you do with the money?”

Miriam had the briefest look of remorse, but then snorted with laughter. “What do you think? I spent it trying to make more. Most of that money’s long gone.”

Thousands of dollars a month on drinking alone seemed far-fetched, but bring gambling into the mix and it added up. Rodrigo glared at her, mirroring her hatred. “I’m taking Raquel and Carlito, and we’re getting the hell away from you.”

“Oh no, you won’t!” She raised the knife dripping with his blood and rushed at him.

For the first time in his life, hitting back seemed reasonable. Justified even. But he was still hesitating when Resent took control.

“Enough,” Resent growled as he caught her wrist in his hand and crushed it. The knife clattered to the floor as she screamed. Rodrigo prayed Raquel and Carlito wouldn’t come downstairs right now. The demon flung her to the kitchen floor. He looked down at her with his cold purple eyes like she was a cockroach.

“Finally,” Miriam said, struggling to her feet. “About time you showed your true colors!”

Resent sighed as Miriam snatched a frying pan off the stove and tried to bludgeon him over the head with it. He sidestepped and backhanded her, knocking her into the sliding glass door. The sound of it shattering was like a gunshot as she plunged through it and fell to the grass in the backyard. With her eyes shut and her face covered in small bloody cuts, for a horrifying moment, Rodrigo thought she was dead. Resent went over to her and pressed his fingers to her neck. “The wounds are superficial. She’ll live.”

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With that, Resent returned control. Even knowing how much she loathed him, Rodrigo couldn’t help feeling relieved. And yet, despite having proven he could yesterday, he’d done nothing to prevent the demon from retaliating against her. He hadn’t uttered a single objection. “Um...thanks.”

“Think nothing of it. I simply couldn’t bear another second of that hag’s drivel.”

“I’m, uh, sorry abo—”

“Don’t go regretting your actions from yesterday now. If anything, they made me gain a smidgen of respect for you. What you should be concerned about is your current predicament.”

Rodrigo massaged his temples as he tried to consider all the angles. If he told Emelina that Miriam had attacked him first and with the bloodstained knife corroborating his story, she’d naturally want to see the stab wound, already knitted closed. She might give him the benefit of the doubt and kick her sister out, letting them stay here. But devout Catholic that she was, what if she discovered Resent, an increasingly open secret? Rodrigo couldn’t handle being shunned by the only adult in his life worth a damn. And if she called the cops, social services could split Miriam’s children up. That would happen over his dead body. They needed to leave.

Even knowing his aunt and cousin could burst through the front door any second, Rodrigo rinsed the knife in the sink for a full minute to make sure it was spotless. Then he furiously scrubbed at the stain on his sleeve with a soap-covered sponge. Finally, he returned the frying pan, now with a loosened handle, to the stovetop.

With the kitchen less resembling a crime scene, Rodrigo went out into the backyard. Surrounded by a tall, tightly-spaced wooden fence and with the windows in Jett’s room facing the street, he should be out of anyone’s sight. He slipped one of his mother’s shoes off and snapped the heel, placing it near what was left of the sliding door. He hoped to make it seem like Miriam had drunkenly fallen through.

Seeing her laying there looking battered, yet strangely peaceful, his guilt began to eat away at his resolve. What the hell was he doing? She may have just tried to murder him, but she was still his mother. He couldn’t leave her out here in the cold, hoping Emelina returned soon enough to help her.

Rodrigo slid his phone out of his pocket, intending to call an ambulance, when an authoritative voice behind him said, “Freeze.”

His heart leapt into his throat as he dropped the phone. He raised his hands in surrender before the slightest motion could be misinterpreted as resistance and he ended up shot in the back. He hadn’t heard sirens, but between their yelling and the explosion of glass, it made sense a neighbor had called the police. Without so much as a paper cut on him, no one would believe he wasn’t the aggressor. It was over. He was going to rot in juvie while his ticking time bomb of a mother recovered, and vented her ill will on Raquel, and eventually Carlito.

No. Resent wouldn’t allow himself to be detained. Neither would he.

Half-feral, Rodrigo slowly glanced over his shoulder, then nearly collapsed with relief as the tension left his limbs.

Adena was leaning against the fence, wearing a black leather jacket with a heather gray fur collar and cuffs, cargo pants, and combat boots. The dark colors she dressed in contrasted starkly with her white hair and porcelain skin. “I didn’t think you’d be so happy to see me.”

“I thought you were five-o. You scared the crap out of me.” Now that the panic of being caught was dying down, Rodrigo reminded himself he was dealing with someone infinitely more dangerous than a cop. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Relax, I’m not here to cause trouble. On the contrary, I figured since the days are counting down, I should fill you in on some things.” She was pacing the backyard, her eyes downcast and shifting from thing to thing, even glancing into the kitchen. With her boot tip, she adjusted the angle of the shoe to better line up with his mother’s unconscious body. “Of course, I wasn’t expecting you to be so preoccupied.”

“How much did you hear?” Rodrigo asked, his face heating at the thought of her standing in a corner, invisible with her mask on, since the argument began.

“You understand this little fiction you created doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, right?” Adena asked, countering his question with her own. “Your mother has a broken wrist and a bruised cheek. There are drops of your blood on the linoleum. And the spray of the tempered glass shows she struck it with more velocity than tripping over her own feet would’ve generated. Even a particularly incompetent detective would see the signs of a struggle.”

“It was self-defense,” Rodrigo protested childishly, alarmed by how many small details he’d missed. He didn’t bother mentioning Resent, imagining how well ‘the demon did it’ defense would play in court. “You think I planned any of this? I’m winging it here. She—”

Adena held a gloved hand up. “Stop. I don’t care and you’re wasting time. We can’t afford for you to spend the days leading up to the invasion in jail because of a crisis of conscience. If she regains her senses while we’re still standing here, I’m going to have to kill her. I assume you don’t want that, or you’d have done it yourself. So, come with me.”

“Where to?” Rodrigo asked, trying to keep the chill out of his voice from how offhandedly she proposed homicide. It wasn’t paranoia if each encounter only made you more suspicious of the person.

“For a drive to start. We’ll talk more in the car.” Adena paused. “If you bring your brother and sister along, she’s more likely to pursue you, you know?”

If he left alone, Miriam would probably see it as a blessing to finally be rid of the family’s black sheep. But Raquel and Carlito’s safety was the biggest reason he never seriously considered running away. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no way I’m leaving them here.”

Adena rolled her eyes. “You do enjoy making things difficult for yourself. Fine. Tell them I’m taking you all shopping to make amends for the house. Don’t let them see any of this and make sure they leave their phones. Hurry it up.” She jumped and effortlessly pulled herself over the fence with a strength that belied her willowy frame.

“Do you trust her around them?” Resent asked.

“Trust isn’t the word I’d use, but she has answers we need.”

“Hmph. So be it.”

Rodrigo wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. Was Resent actually willing to accept a decision he made without complaints? He headed back to the kitchen and went over to the fridge, pulling out an ice tray. Popping out four cubes, he wrapped them in a dishcloth and went upstairs to Jett’s room. He handed Raquel the ice pack to reduce the swelling of her lip and turned off the near-deafening television, which neither of them were watching.

“That sounded real bad, bro. I’m used to her screaming at you, but you were yelling back this time,” Carlito said. He hoped the TV prevented them from hearing the conversation in detail.

“I know. She’s sick again, so she went to sleep.” Rodrigo knew he’d have to come clean soon, but he wasn’t prepared to ruin their image of the only parent they had left. They all needed fresh clothing and only he overheard Emelina’s plans, so the shopping trip made a believable excuse for them to leave the house together. “While she gets some rest, we’re going shopping.”

“I need some new clothes, like, right away,” Raquel said. “But with what money?”

“It’s on Adena’s dime. Her way of trying to say sorry, I guess. Oh, and we’re going phone free today so we’re not distracted. I’ll bring mine only for emergencies.”

The words felt ridiculous tumbling out of his mouth, and his siblings exchanged a knowing look. If his shouting match with Miriam wasn’t telling enough, that piss-poor excuse confirmed something had gone wrong, even if they couldn’t deduce the extent of it. Still, they took their phones out and left them on the dresser. He was halfway out the door when he turned back, remembering the drawstring bag under the bed. With all the drama he’d already brought to Jett’s doorstep, no reason he should have to dispose of Rodrigo’s bloody clothes as well.

As Rodrigo led them downstairs to the front door, he reconsidered upending their lives for the second time in under a week. But the fact was, staying here would be dangerous for everyone involved. Especially for his mother, if she ever hurt Raquel or Carlito again.