uniforms and rescue me from animal control’s lockup. I so wanted to bite the lunatic animal control guy who kept smacking my butt and calling me kitty. To which Gavin added, “Now you know what it’s like to want desperately to bite someone.” Har har.
Aside from Gavin, my only friend was LJ, if you wanted to call her that; friend, not LJ. Though she mostly hung with Emeria; LJ would come by when she tired of her, or when Emeria made her mad, which was just about every other day. I accepted the fact that I was the backup friend. It was better than nothing, I suppose, since Remi had put me on the Pay No Mind list.
I had developed a small tolerance for the otherworldlies who hung around Kheiron. “Yeah, that’s gonna come back to bite you,” Caius had warned. He didn’t even recognize the pun he’d made. My one qualm was their tendency to keep humans around as pets for a few days prior to dining on them. I’d see them hanging around the mansion, thinking they were all cool and emo, with no idea they were about to die.
I checked in on the Larsons sometimes. Sometimes I would shapeshift as “that silly cat on the porch again” or “that same blue bird that sits outside the kitchen window.” Other times I’d just leave my body and be invisible for as long as I could, so I could sit on the steps and listen to their conversations like I did when I lived there.
It had been a few days since I’d dropped in on them, so when Sergeant Mullane stopped by, I assumed he would be giving an update on the search for me. I’d always enjoyed his thorough and encouraging updates. He always made it seem like they were so close to finding me. His knock was typical, nothing urgent about it, so I decided to wait to hear the news rather than read his mind. It took the fun out of life sometimes if you always knew what someone was going to say before they said it.
Mrs. Larson walked to the door more quickly than usual. She was a slow walker, even more so since Dad had died, and then like an old lady after I ran away. This time, she was out of her chair as soon as she heard the car door slam outside.
“Victoria, Ken,” Sergeant Mullane sighed, as if exhausted from all the evil in the world, when he entered the house.
Mr. Larson got up from his La-Z-Boy. I adjusted my angle to get a better look at what was going on. I thought I’d picked up on something odd.
“Would you like something to drink, Rocco?” Mrs. Larson offered as Sergeant Mullane removed his hat, holding it close to his stomach. I had never really seen him without some sort of hat on: police, baseball, fishing cap, or whatever. He was kind of handsome in an old guy kind of way. I’d always wondered why he hadn’t remarried, and wasn’t all that clear on what had happened to his wife.
“No thanks,” he refused, looking from Mr. Larson, who had taken a seat back in the La-Z-Boy, to Mrs. Larson, who looked especially anxious and quite pretty that evening.
Mrs. Larson insisted on fussing over people. “Would you like to sit down? Can I take your hat?”
“No thank—”
“Victoria, let the man get a word in edgewise. Just let him say whatever it is he came to say.” Mr. Larson rubbed his forehead and braced for the news.
I wished I could tell them that I hadn’t really run away. They deserved so much better than Remi and me: two liars. All they did was love us, take us in after Dad died and Mom left us. They deserved to know the truth. Or some version of it. Anything but this. What kind of angels worth their wings would cause so much pain?
I wanted to show myself, to appear to them, but it was against the rules of Praefatio. Angels were not allowed to show themselves to humans unless they were in imminent danger or we brought a Divine message. I considered starting a fire, because then they’d be in mortal danger.
“We found Gabe’s Maserati.” He paused and looked from Mrs. Larson to Mr. Larson. Mrs. Larson’s face seemed permanently frozen in horror. She remained statue-like as tears streamed down her cheeks. Sergeant Mullane continued when Mr. Larson was obviously going to do nothing to comfort her.