Natural Selection (19 page)

From somewhere deep inside, I found a
reserve of strength and was able to hold myself up, but I still
wasn’t ready for the reality of the situation. I took a step back
but didn’t attempt to leave my brother’s arms, gathering calm
around me like a cloak. Keeping his arm around my back, I stepped
so I stood next to him. I lay my head on his shoulder and surveyed
the scene around us.

Sariah was holding our nearly
inconsolable mother with her chin resting on her copper hair. I
remembered my mother holding me that way so many times. Crooning
softly, Sariah swayed kissing the top of her head and rubbing her
back. My heart broke all over again. How were we going to go on?
How could there ever be joy again? I looked into my mother's eyes
and felt a little stab of fear at how blank and dead they were. She
didn’t move. If fresh tears didn’t keep pouring out of her, I might
have worried she was gone too. Would she ever recover from this
loss, or would she be an empty shell without him? Grief threatened
to overwhelm me again, but I shoved it down, clinging to the
strange calm like a drowning man to driftwood.

Nate stepped in the door, and I
couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He looked so helpless, like
he wished there was more he could do. He’d been at our house plenty
over the years and knew our father well. I was sure he felt the
loss sharply—even if it was different his grief was as real as
ours. My family would get me through this—I knew that. Looking at
Nate now, I thought about what it must have been like for him to go
through it alone when his parents died. This must be bringing back
so many painful memories for him. I gave him a watery smile which
he returned. His hand stretched towards me for a moment before
curling into a fist and falling to his side.

Monica made a chuffing noise, snapping
me back into the moment. We didn’t have time to grieve. We had to
finish what we came here for. I used the eerie calm to focus on
what needed to be dealt with. Evelyn was still unconscious in the
other room. Her psychotic mother had blood running down her face,
and she made noise like she was choking on it. One of us needed to
check on Peter to see if there was anything that could be done for
him. And we had to figure out what to do about Dad.

I knew we couldn’t leave him here or
let some stranger take him away to be mutilated and filled with
chemicals. The thought of his body being preserved unnaturally made
me ill. I wouldn’t allow it. I wondered how Gaia were supposed to
be buried, but quickly dismissed it knowing my mother was in no
condition to explain. Right now we had to set a stage for the
humans, so the Enforcers wouldn’t get involved. With a glance to
all the tired, defeated faces I realized no one else was going to
take charge. Taking a deep breath, I let myself feel one last pang
of sadness before shoving it all down.

“
Nate, Xander, you take
Monica into the kitchen. Find the zip ties she’s so fond of using
and fasten her to one of the chairs. Sariah, you need to get Mom
home. She’s a mess, and I don’t think she has the strength to deal
with this. I need to figure out what we’re going to do about Dad’s
body and Mr. Matthews.” My sister looked at me with pride in her
eyes. She nodded and bent her head to speak to Mom. I watched them
shuffle out of the house with a lump in my throat I couldn’t
swallow. Unable to stand the sight of his lifeless face, I covered
my dad’s body with the blanket off the couch—pain threatened to
explode my chest.

My brother hefted Monica over his
shoulder and Nate opened drawers in the kitchen. I glanced around
the living room at the mess, books and trinkets tossed about
carelessly. Thank God it was all superficial.

My eye fell on a strip of
paper on the floor. My body went numb as I slowly walked across the
living room towards it. My hand was cold as I picked it up. I knew
what it was the moment I saw it, but it wasn’t until I held it in
my hand that I truly believed it. Sariah primped and posed for the
camera as I craned my neck trying to see what was happening beyond
the camera. It was the pictures from the photo booth. I wondered if
my nosiness might have saved my life. My face was mostly hidden by
my hair and Sariah. Had she known my face wasn’t clear? There was
no way she truly believed the photo hadn’t printed. I could only
imagine the emotions Mrs. Matthews felt as she grabbed the strip of
paper, but Sariah would have
known
. So why didn’t she say
something? Trying to shake it off, I tucked the pictures into my
pants pocket.

Kneeling next to Peter, I checked his
pulse. It was weak and thready, but there. The urge to kick him was
strong, but somehow I resisted. I looked around trying to figure
out how to explain what happened when my eyes fell on the outlet
just above him. “Which of you boys knows something about
electricity?” I asked. Xander raised one eyebrow at me. His mouth
twisted as if he was trying to figure out what was going on in my
head. Nate’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, as if he was worried about
the dark places my thoughts had gone. Their expressions made me
laugh, but it sounded hysterical even to my own ears, so I choked
it off. “I think I know how we’re going to sell this to the cops,”
I told them with a smirk.

IT TOOK A lot more work to stage the
scene than I thought it would. Before we could even think of that,
we had to get my father out of the house. Nate and Xander wrapped
him in the blanket I had lain over him and slowly carried him home.
I whispered a quiet prayer that no one saw them in the early
morning light. It was definitely a good thing Evelyn lived so
close! With one last look at their departing backs, I went into her
bedroom.

She didn’t look quite as gaunt as
before, and her skin looked a little less waxy. I tried to rouse
her again, but she didn’t respond. Turning from the bed to survey
the room, I placed my hands on my hips and pursed my lips. A quick
note saying that she was running away would keep anyone from being
too suspicious. She often threatened to over the years—between the
groundings and the push for social perfection from her mom. Once
when we were five we decided to run away together. We made peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches and packed our pajamas in my Hello
Kitty backpack. We spent three hours walking around the block
because neither one of us was allowed to cross the
street.

With a sad smile, I pushed away the
memories and tried to harden myself. Was Evelyn still my friend?
She murdered people, but I saw the hatred in her mother’s eyes as
she charged at us with that knife. If our positions were reversed,
how much differently would things have turned out? I didn’t think I
could kill somebody, but how much of that was the way I was raised?
My mother’s belief in the sanctity of all life had always been
stressed to us. It seemed odd to me that she wouldn’t let me kill a
daddy long legs that was crawling on me. But in hindsight, it made
perfect sense. But how much did that influence my
opinion?

I wondered what it must have been like
for Evelyn to think Otherworlders were evil. If I hadn’t learned
all I had in the last few months, I would have automatically
assumed we were. But witches had to know better, didn’t they? Had
Mr. and Mrs. Matthews knowingly deceived their daughter? Or did
they honestly believe they were saving the world one monster at a
time? And if she truly thought we were all evil, why had she
protected me? No matter how much I thought about it, I was just a
dog chasing its tail, my mind pointlessly turning in
circles.

Shaking off the troubling thoughts, I
began to move through the house putting everything back where it
belonged. Nothing could be out of place or the police would not buy
the scene we were about to set. I righted houseplants and swept the
dirt, placed books back on the shelves and straightened pictures on
the wall. As I worked, I noticed the blood stain on the area rug
where my father died. Kneeling beside it, I tried not to weep and
fingered the irregular edge. The grief was overwhelming. I couldn’t
cope with it, so I tried to focus on the task at hand. I finished
picking up then stared at the area rug with its heartbreaking
stain. Obviously I couldn’t leave it there, but what to do with it?
Before I could make a decision, Nate and Xander came back. I can’t
imagine what was on my face when I looked up at them, but suddenly
Xander was on his knees by my side with his hands on my shoulders.
His eyes met mine, and I saw a trace of the sadness that
overwhelmed me every time I let my guard down. I sighed and glanced
at the stain. He pulled me to my feet and led me to the
kitchen.

There was silence as he and Nate
rolled the rug up. I grabbed a rag to wipe the blood that had
seeped through to the floor below. When the thought of whose blood
I was casually mopping up started to rise, I stomped it down
violently. The time for grief would have to be later. I was
determined not to lose myself in it. Stepping back to look at the
spot, the linoleum looked bare. We couldn’t leave it like that. If
I remembered right, the old one was sill rolled up in the basement,
so I went in search of it.

I came back upstairs with the rug
tucked under one arm just as Monica began to rouse. Fear squeezed
my chest as I desperately glanced around for the boys. I caught a
glimpse of someone moving outside. I went the window to see Xander
and Nate with somber faces as they stared blankly into the flames
coming from the yard waste barrel—too manly to cry but too sad not
to. Seeing no site of the rug in the house, I assumed they decided
on a more permanent type of disposal. As Monica regained
consciousness, her head whipped around so she could stare at me.
The blood that poured from her nose had dried on her face, making
her seem more malevolent. She kept waving her head side to side,
reminding me of a cobra about to strike. Her eyes seemed to look
right through me, and I felt my toes curl as I repressed the urge
to shudder.

“
You think you’ve won,
don’t you?” she said to me in the same tone she used to ask me if
I’d like lemonade. This time I did shudder. “I don’t know what you
think you’ve accomplished, but you will pay. You and all your
unnatural brethren will suffer before I'm done.”

“
What makes me different
from your own daughter, Mrs. Matthews? How is what I do any less
natural than what your daughter does? Or what your husband
does?”

Monica laughed, the sound making the
hair on the back of my neck stand up. “If it weren’t for you and
your kind, there would be no need for them to do what they must.
They exist to protect the world from you!”

“
You’re the only one in
this room who’s committed murder.” I said, forcing a careless
shrug.

Monica snarled at me, and I turned my
back on her despite every nerve in my body telling me to keep my
eye on her. I went into the living room and spread out the new rug,
nodding at the effect of it. The sound of Monica fighting her bonds
came from the kitchen, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back in
there. I fussed in the living room, attempting to delay the
inevitable as long as possible.

The sound of movement behind me made
me spin around ready to defend myself despite the fact that I had
no real idea how. I almost sobbed in relief when I found myself
facing Nate, his brown eyes full of emotion. Taking his hand, I
felt sadness, anger, fear, and—protectiveness. Nate wanted to
protect me? My heart fluttered. I knew he would feel it too, but I
didn’t care. Nate took a step closer to me. His finger hooked under
my chin, and I felt something else from him that mixed with my own
emotions. I welcomed the longing wanting to feel anything besides
for overwhelming sadness and fear. His face leaned closer to mine.
A movement behind him caught my eye, and I pulled him out of the
way as Monica swung the leg of the chair at us. There was no time
for me to react before she crumpled to the floor. Evelyn leaned in
the doorway with one hand thrown out toward her mother. I nodded my
thanks to her and she gave me a weak smile while a fat tear
streamed down her cheek.

Between the three of us, we finished
cleaning the house pretty quickly. We sat silently on the couch
with Evelyn curled up in the chair near the window with a cup of
tea waiting until it was late enough to stage the rest of the
scene. The day was already cloudy, but I had Nate encourage the
storm we could both already feel coming. I was a little worried
he’d overdone it as thunder rumbled in the distance. There was no
turning back now. Xander grabbed the aluminum stepladder out of the
shed and leaned it against the side of the house away from the
road. He cleared a section of the gutters, so it would look like
Peter had been cleaning them when lightning struck his ladder and
threw him. None of us liked the idea of throwing him like that when
he was already injured, but the thought of the punishment the
Enforcers would inflect on us steeled our spines. I worried another
bolt of lightning would probably kill him, so we decided Xander
would stand invisible on the roof a few steps away from the ladder,
then drop him as Nate struck the ladder.