Chapter 33: Chapter 33

Irene returns home, trundling inside with two large brown paper bags in her arms. Akin jumps into action and hurries to her, relieving her of half the load, and she settles the other one on her hip.

“Thank you, Akin, it was getting ~so~ heavy.”

Mia comes in and takes the other from her grasp, transporting it into the kitchen.

“By the way.” She dumps it on the island counter. “I called Aries. He’s also on his way.”

Irene frowns at her. “Really?”

Mia nods dramatically. “He’s super possessive of her, so I thought he’d want to know.”

“I’m going to call Opal’s parents later and—”

“What are you going to say? And just in case, please say she’s sleeping over. Get them to say yes,~ please~. After what just happened, I doubt she’s in a hurry get back home.”

Irene gives her an intolerant look. “I’ll see what I can do, and after I’ll get a start on supper since we have ~more~ guests.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Uh-huh.”

Akin and Mia flee the kitchen and they re-occupy the living room, settling on the adjacent couches.

“What a mess,” he mutters.

“I’m telling you, it’s her parents. They’ve always been strict with her. Insufferable, more like.”

Akin rests against the seat, staring back at her with a lightbulb look.

“Do you remember that time we went over to her house for the first time? Mrs. Chiang got us donuts and chips, but made Opal eat celery sticks. She’s like the Asian Yolanda.”

Mia throws a pointed gesture at him. “Exactly. She’s a control freak. And I think it’s just her…Mr. Chiang is actually really nice, and actually congratulates his daughter’s wins.”

A wistful look blooms on his face, growing in harmony with a smile.

“You know, every time someone would ask about my soccer or they would comment about my performance. I automatically act on the evasion. I know I’m good, but I also know I can be better.”

Mia listens avidly, lifting her legs to cross them on the cushion.

“Opal hated that. She said modesty will get me nowhere and I should take pride in my accomplishments.”

Akin shimmies up, sliding his hands in the one big pocket of his hoodie.

“But when I compliment her, or anyone showers her with praise, her response is just as meek.

“And it had me thinking…the reason why I was so hard on myself was the hope that if I was good enough, maybe my dad would attend one of my games.”

“He has never seen you play?”

“Never.”

“Akin…”

A hard knock jolts her chest. ~Aries~. Mia smiles at Akin remorsefully and gets up and goes to the front door.

She opens it and Aries rushes inside like gale-force winds, unstoppable and quick, weaving past her. She nods, accepting the abruptness and closes the door behind him.

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs, sleeping.” Her eyes dart to the plastic bag in his hand. “She needs it. And what do you have in your goodie bag?”

“Methadone, buprenorphine, and some bupropion to help her come off cleanly from whatever she took. And deal with any withdrawal symptoms.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that Opal’s sister wasn’t the only doctor among us?”

He scoffs and pivots. She grabs his burly bicep to stop him.

“How do you know that stuff? Did you know she was using?”

He looks her dead in the eyes and says, “No.”

He has an undeniable resolve, but there is something he emanates, like a radio picking up the frequency of another. She cannot tell how or why but she knows he’s lying, though he seems incontestable.

Mia crosses her arms, cross-examining him with a distrustful expression.

“You told me you’d never lie to us.”

His gaze slips away, and he rakes his hand through his hair, dark waves rippling.

“It’s not my truth to tell. I thought it was a once-off thing. Turns out I was wrong and I’m going to deal with it.”

“She doesn’t need to be scolded, Aries.”

“I’m not her father.”

Her eyes divert back to the bag. “But how do you know how to treat it?”

“Experience.”

“Your own?”

“I don’t do drugs,” he says flatly.

“Who said anything about doing them?” she says, speaking in a hushed tone. She strolls up to be right under his nose.

“You drive a mad expensive car, but you live in the Badlands. You dropped out of school to work for minimum wage at a warehouse that you claim to be employed at.

“However, it can never get you that ride, even with a lifetime on the job.”

A smile splinters his face. “You should talk to Russo about hooking you up with a job as a detective. You already got the interrogation part on lockdown.”

“If I can put two and two together, don’t you think the five-o will?”

“Then why ain’t I in jail?” He drops his face so their noses are an inch apart. “It’s not about what you know. It’s about what you can prove. And the only one in my business is you.”

Aries swivels around and walks into the living room. Akin stands up and they come together to do a bro shake, ending with a hard clap on each other’s backs.

Aries reverses and occupies an armchair in the corner, placing the parcel at his feet. Mia shuffles in and sits where she was, trading a faint smile with Akin.

A distant clangor of pots being drawn from drawers can be heard in the kitchen as Irene prepares dinner. A moment later, the living room fills with the sound of her chopping onions on a wooden cutting board, hard and fast motions.

“Did her parents not notice anything off about her?” Akin asks to end the silence.

“Drugs take a while to kick in. It’s not an instant reaction.”

“No that, before. They didn’t see the signs like stress, mood swings or any shady behavior?”

“All the Chiangs care about is results,” Aries says acidly. “Especially her mom. She’s toxic. She pitted Opal against her own sister by constantly comparing them. Now she only sees her as her rival instead of a sibling.”

Akin releases an astounded whistle.

“That’s deep, man. And messed up. No wonder she was always fussy about everything, her grades, even though she’s a straight-A student.

“And her music, even though she was the only advanced pianist of her age group since elementary school.”

“Yeah,” Mia hums thoughtfully. “I used to be so excited to come show my parents my report card when I got Bs and Cs. Opal threw a fit when she didn’t get all As. I used to find it so annoying, but…now I understand why.”

“How do you think we should approach the topic?” Akin asks in his game voice, slanting over to set his forearms on his thighs. “Since we’re all here, we might as well make this an intervention for her.”

“We don’t want to make it feel that way, though,” Mia proposes. “We just need to give her space and let her talk when she’s ready.”

Aries huffs at the soft-touch sentiment.

“You have something to say?” Mia asks.

“This is not the time for sugar-coating.”

“Should we ambush her instead?”

“How about you say nothing?”

Everyone’s eyes snap to Opal in the center, closest to the staircase. She is cocooned in Mia’s blanket, her bun is disheveled, eyes blood-shot red and she appears as if she had endured a tussle with death and won.

Opal nears the living room, gripping the blanket, shivering even though she isn’t cold, suffering a hot, head-splitting headache.

“I don’t owe any of you an explanation.”

Mia’s brows raise dangerously. Aries signals for her to keep silent. Akin says nothing.

They all watch as she unlocks the sliding door and drags it open, escaping out of the slim gap. Aries rises and follows her out, sliding the door shut behind him.

Opal staggers to the railing, a memory eclipsing her vision. “This is where we took the picture with Erin…and Keila.”

“I’m not here to talk about that.”

Her face sours, her dull eyes intensifying her glower. “Are you here to reprimand me?”

“You looked me in my eyes and lied to my face. You said you had nothing on you, which is why you wanted to meet Eli at the den for a reload.”

“Ya, ’cause you never lie, do you, Aries?”

He goes up to her and grips her frame, stealing a sharp breath from her. She stares at him wide-eyed, fear flaring within her and he can see it clearly. He loosens his hold but holds he does.

“Why?”

“You know why?”

“An energy stimulant, right?” he says, recalling her words. “To help you work faster, work harder, sleep less. All for what? To get kudos from mommy?”

Opal tears her gaze away, tears prickling her eyes.

“Is being on the honor roll and being a star pianist not good enough for you?”

“‘Good is never good enough,’” she exclaims, quoting her mother, “‘when you can be great. Opal, you are not enough.’”

Held-back tears polish her eyes with a glossy look.

“Don’t give me those Bambi eyes. ~Enough~?” He repeats with disbelief. “You’re not something that can be measured. You’re so much more than enough and you don’t have to prove that to anyone.

“You are too extraordinary to be put into a box that your mom’s trying to shove you in.”

Tears leak from her eyes and she uses the blanket to wipe them away quickly.

“You have the power to be anything you want. So don’t limit yourself to what your mom wants. It’s not her life, it’s yours.”

She nods timidly, looking at the ground to hide her red and puffy eyes.

Aries lifts his hand to tip her chin, inclining her head.

“You are extraordinary. Life ain’t about grades and scores. Everything you need is already what you got.”

“It just sucks,” she confesses, his words kindling a fire in her that her mother’s words doused. “I just wanted her to be proud of me, like she’s proud of~ her.~ That’s all I ever wanted.”

Aries nods understanding, dropping his hand away. “I feel that. Thought there was something wrong with me that my pops just left me like I was trash.

“But unlike him, your mom does care about you. I can’t blame you for feelin’ that way, but people are screwed up by nature. Sometimes good intentions can be corrupted by bad methods.”

Opal waddles over and wraps her blanket-shrouded self around Aries. He responds by enveloping her with an all-encompassing embrace, held by strength and comforted by his warmth.

Mia and Akin watch the soap opera from the other side of the glass. Mia pushes herself up, giving him a look, then exits. Akin follows and together, they glomp down on the entwined pair.

Mia rests her head on Opal’s back, hugging her from behind. Akin has his hand secured around Aries’s shoulders and his other around Mia.

A long while ensues but they eventually break apart.

Aries backs away to lean against the railing, folding his arms, muscles bulging through his long-sleeve top. Aries hoists himself up to sit on the head of the railing, and the girls stand idly in front of them.

“Any secret stashes we should know about?” Akin questions.

“I took all of them this morning,” she admits. “It was the last batch, I swear. I was stressed about the stuff I had to do which I ~still ~haven’t done.

“And I gulped them down in one go. It feels like King Kong is pounding on my head.”

“I have something for that,” Aries notes.

“What happens now?” Mia asks.

“I can’t go home, not like this. If I have to deal with my mom…I’m going to snap.”

“You won’t have to. My mom spoke with her and arranged an impromptu sleepover.”

“If she stays here, then I’m staying,” Aries states like it’s non-negotiable.

“Well damn, I want to join the sleepover, too.”

“Just like old times,” Mia says with a nostalgic smile. “Come with me. We’ll bring in the mattresses.”

Mia and Akin head off, while Opal and Aries return to the living room and he administers the medication for her, aiding with the dosage.

When the other two come back, they shove everything aside, pushing the couches back and moving the coffee table to the front to make space in the middle for the mattresses.

Mia goes upstairs to retrieve pillows and bedding to outfit them with fresh sheets.

When twilight arrives, dinner is ready and they seat themselves at the table to feast on Irene’s hand-prepared dishes: tortellini carbonara, pork chops with parmesan sauce, and a ham and cheese pasta bake.

They dine and chat over the scrumptious meal, laughing and exchanging stories—how a family should be.

~It’s so easy with them,~ Opal thinks. She feels more at home with them and one with herself in the company of those who aren’t blood than those that are.

There are no hard-lining questions about academic progress, veiled insults because she never met the standard and scrutiny of every little thing. It’s another kind of freedom.

After dinner, they all pitch in cleaning up the kitchen. Opal is taking it easy, still recovering, so she sits at the counter. Akin washes, Aries dries and Mia puts away, an efficient system that fast-tracks the process.

When they finish, the girls disappear upstairs to change into pajamas. Mia slips on one of her father’s oversize t-shirts and her own shorts. She lends Opal a twin-set satin pajamas that Irene gifted her but she just never wore it.

Opal and Mia descend the steps, talking, but their words stutter to a stop. Akin is shirtless in nothing but his gray sweatpants, his body carved from black diamond.

Aries’s ivory silk skin is a striking contrast, half-naked in black joggers, his sinewed chest and arms pared to perfection.

“Aries, my man,” Akin says, nudging him pointedly. “I think we’re a bit too distracting. Ladies, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, I have no problem sleeping in my hoodie.”

“Oh, please,” Mia says, resisting a smile. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

She strolls forward and glimpses Opal’s astonished expression.

“Not what you think.” She bends over to collect a few pillows and blankets and casts them on the couches. “You know the house rules, boys on the couches and girls on the mattresses.”

“Rules when we were kids,” Akin emphasizes.

“It’s because we’re not that we have to obey them now more than ever.”

Opal drags herself to the right side of the mattress and collapses, taking a pillow and raising the blanket to her shoulder.

Aries claims the couch on the right and Akin occupies the one adjacent to him.

Mia dallies off to switch off all the lights, then moves to plop down beside Opal, facing the sliding door with her piece of the blanket drawn to her stomach.

“I was so sure,” Akin begins, staring at the ceiling. “That I was never going to speak to you guys again. I didn’t like it, but I came to accept it. And now look. I did not see this coming. That we would be together again.”

Opal snuggles deeper onto her side, facing Aries. And he observes her somberly.

“I hoped that we would,” she whispers.

And she’s the first to fall asleep. The others soon follow, drifting away to a dreamscape, where terror awaits. Because chaos slumbers beneath the veil of calm.

^INTERLUDE: A Brush with Death^

^EIGHT YEARS AGO^

Erin strolled through the expansive space of an ornamental garden.

She found an elaborate bench and sat on it with her hood still drawn. She didn’t plan to come nor was she planning to come alone; she was merely guided by instinct to a place where she could find refuge in.

The Sporkah materialized in front of her. It knew she was in his world the moment she breached.

Erin kept her head down, not saying a word, but the Sporkah could feel the palpable anguish she was radiating, nearly overcome by suffocating human emotions.

A raw-boned hand reached for her, gaunt fingers placed under her chin to raise her face. A gust of ethereal wind blew off her hood and exposed what she had been hiding.

Her one eye bruised with a painful, hideous purple-black, matching the discolored patch along her jaw. The one eye redder than the other.

Erin didn’t tell him what happened. She was going to show him.

She opened up her small hand. And the Sporkah placed its hand in hers, steaming with shadows, mortal flesh binding with immortal shadows.

Erin placed its hand on her chest and held on it. The Sporkah could see everything, accessing a vault of good and bad memories, her worst ones are dedicated to the same person.

The Sporkah saw Leonard.

***

Leonard’s car peeled off the curbside, and he shot down the road, cutting another car off in the process. They honked at him and he flipped them off.

He made his way out of the central business district and drove out of town, having to penetrate thick forestry to return home.

The dense copse of trees was like nature’s awning, shielding road users from harsh sunlight, even on the days when it’s needed most.

The deeper Leonard ventured, the darker it became. Fog seeped out of the forest floor, skulking out to observe its prey, ambushed by a sudden avalanche of spook-gray.

It was eerily silent; nothing but the purr of the engine could be heard. Leonard decreased his speed, his vision greatly obstructed by the hoary haze.

The deathly vapor licked at the car with a thousand tongues, warping nature by using its spineless tentacles to consume everything.

It drifted and ghosted, glided and dangled. It enrobed everything it could. Nothing was spared. It snared every stone and tree without mercy.

There was something ominous about the fog.

Although its gossamer-effect bore its delicacy, it packed a punch far above its weightlessness. It suffocated everything in its delight, like ghostly ropes strangling every tree and thicket in a maze of mist.

Suddenly, the tide receded, the fog fled backward as if summoned somewhere else. Leonard accelerated, desperate to escape.

He glanced at the rear-view, the cloud of mist splitting away. He shook his head and focused back in front of him.

But a new peril was on the rise. In the distance, something rose up from the center of the road. It was like hell-black mist surging from the sides, soaring up as shadows coalesced into a raw-boned form.

The being ripped off its mask and the unfathomable horror caused him to veer of the road, slamming into a trunk of a tree.

But that was not what killed him.

***

Erin came through the front door.

Katherine rushed to the entranceway to meet her, blinding herself to the sight of her battered face, though she attempted to hide it with her hoodie.

It was no longer going to be a problem since the one that caused it was no more.

Despite his many afflictions and the agony he caused them both, she still felt as if she wanted to cry. It was a grievous reminder of how she lost her late husband, and now another.

“Where have you been?”

“Playing with Mia.”

Katherine was too overwrought to verify her claim.

“What’s wrong?” Erin asked, eyeing down her harried-looking mom.

“Leonard…”

“I didn’t say or do anything to make him angry,” she lashed out. “Anything I do upsets him—”

“He’s dead,” she interjected.

Her words died in her mouth.

“What?”

“I just got the call now…he was in an accident.”

Thoughts clamored in her mind—dark thoughts. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, he was the only one on that part of the road at the time of the accident. On-scene officials said from the tire tracks and that it was on a straight road. They don’t understand how or why he just swerved off the road.”