“We’ll decide when we’re en route.”
“I may have a suggestion,” Evan added as he picked up the hospital room phone.
“Don’t say anything while we’re in this room. We may have ears listening,” Alik and Evan nodded knowingly to one another.
Mom’s suitcase was stuffed, so I dove back into the closet looking for bags I could fill with the remaining items. Finding what I needed, I rushed into the bathroom to gather toiletries. I jumped when there was a knock at the door.
Alik was there in an instant. “Who’s there?” he barked in a voice I had never heard him use.
“Cole! It’s Cole,” our friend’s voice was tense and out of breath.
Alik opened the door just wide enough to let our friend in.
“Would you guys quit doing that? That’s the second time in one day you’ve bolted from me and left me coughing in your dust! You’re gonna give a guy a complex you…” Cole stopped in mid-sentence when he saw Maze on the ground.
“What happened?” Cole’s eyes widened looking around at the bags being packed. “What’s going on?”
“Williams sent someone to break into mom’s room while we were…,” my voice caught in my throat. “…while we were outside, and he shot Maze. Mom’s okay, but terrified. I don’t know what stopped him from finishing what he started, but fortunately, mom doesn’t seem hurt,” I managed to say with only a half-dozen huge tears falling off my pale skin.
Cole had already hurried to Margo to look her over himself. “I’m so sorry Dr. Winter,” he said while gently holding her hand. “You must have been terrified. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay,” he said gently patting her tears dry with fresh tissues. “Dad’s going to be pretty upset when he finds out what happened. Between you and me, he’s pretty nuts about you, you know,” Cole spoke softly.
My brothers and I were rushing around, preparing for a hasty departure, but Cole was sitting very still beside my mom. He was just holding her hand and carefully fixing her blankets around the I.V. tube still dripping pain medicine into her vein.
Here I was worried about my own feelings, my coyote, my secret crush, and there was the sweetest boy I’d ever known who had nothing to gain from being around me or my family…and it was he who stopped to hold my mother’s hand. It was Cole’s appreciation of a human’s most basic needs that stopped me in my tracks. Was I really so selfish not to have seen my mother just needed to be held?
From the door we heard a series of beeps as Dr. Andrews entered the security code and burst through the door. “What happened? What’s going on?”
Part 3
Seasons Change
March 1st
Five months after the Winter family went into hiding.
Location:
Undisclosed
17 Casting Light
At 3:14am I woke from the same dream I’ve been having most nights and decided I needed to get up and brush my teeth. Not wanting to turn on the bathroom light, I stumbled to the sink, felt around until the familiar mushy toothpaste tube landed under my left hand, and the cylindrical shape of my automatic brush under my right.
Deciding I was still too lazy to flip on the light switch to see where the toothpaste was landing when I tried to squeeze it onto the bristles, I opted for tipping my head back and squirting some paste directly into my open mouth.
Ah yes, the cleansing beauty of toothpaste. I sighed deeply as I brushed my teeth. Feeling the bristles massage my gums helped me organize my thoughts. I know that probably seems weird to most people. But, that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not like most people. Heck, according to my little brother’s research, I’m not even human.
We’ll get back to that later. I digress; I was going to tell you about my dreams. So, in this one I’m able to fly. I know, not unusual for a dream. But, I don’t just fly; I can also throw streams of light from my hands as I’m battling a faceless evil. The light doesn’t come from me, in my dreams, but through me. It’s like I am some sort of angel of God, and I’m battling against demons.