Before Lisa was out the door leading to the outside world, Raziel was at the bedroom door with Albaer, “It’s over.” Raziel said through the door, and it opened to allow her through. She turned to the side and slid into the room to lay Albaer down, he was breathing lightly, barely audible even to the delicate hearing of either of the sisters.

Lialah put a hand on her sister’s back, “Things will work out for us.”

“Ever the optimist.” Raziel replied without looking over at the radiant, innocent, angelic face. “But we can’t risk optimism here. That’s dangerous. We got lucky once, we can’t count on it happening twice.”

Lialah‘s spirits went up despite the seemingly dire tone of her pessimistic sister. “How long do you think it will be before he wakes up?” She put a hand over his chest to feel his heartbeat. Even at rest it was many times the speed of her own.

“It won’t be long, but it’s better for him to rest longer.” Raziel said and covered her sister’s hands with her own, his heartbeat was heavy to her touch, strong, if slower than hers. She could feel it even through her sister’s hand. She glanced away, toward the way out of the room and the apartment they were forced to share.

“I wonder what it feels like to be possessed.” Lialah mused, “To be like a puppet on strings…”

“I asked my teacher about that once, he said there was nothing but white light and a buzzing sound, a blankness, like a dreamless sleep.” Raziel remarked, then brought her hands together in a sharp clap and a fangy grin, “Now I’m going to get back to reading this stuff and-”

“Is it the game guides to Hylarim again?” Lialah asked with a knowing smile that was wiped away when her sister denied it with a shake of her head.

“No, I’ve been reading all about these electronic systems and computers. I’ve even been tinkering with Albaer’s stuff, I’m getting pretty good at it. Plus, I’ve now managed this.” Raziel stood up, babbled a few syllables in the guttural language of demons, and her horns began to fade, and then her skin began to go from red, to a lighter tan shade.

“Your eyes are still red.” Lialah said, and Raziel shrugged it off.

“Nothing some color contacts can’t fix so there is no sense in wasting mana.” The demon replied.

“And the wings?” Lialah asked, waving toward those.

“A little more work, that’s all, a few more nights of his body and some more sparring between us, then?” The demoness snapped her fingers, and struck a pose with one arm up and the other waving up and down the length of her body. “I’ll be ready to disguise myself as the beautiful, the exotic, ‘Isadora Blackworth’, one of his online friends. His mother took me in as an act of kindness due to a difficult home situation. And you,” the demoness put her hand on the pale shoulder of the angel, “my dear Lialah, can be my sister Karen.”

Lialah crossed her arms and stared deep into the smiling eyes of her sister, and at the spreading grin over the demoness’ face as she tried to keep from bursting into laughter.

Lialah made her answer abundantly clear, “Do you think I’ve learned nothing about this world since coming here, did you really think I would fall for that? No. Under no circumstances, none whatsoever, will I ever take the name Karen.”

Raziel let her hand fall away from her sister’s shoulder and clutched her gut as she bent forward while she broke down laughing.

Lialah tried not to smile, and wasn’t very successful. The deep, rich, full laughter of the demoness had been too often rare for her to not savor it when it came. But she tried, her lips fighting against her will until the smile began in earnest, and she flung up her hands in dramatic despair. “You’re impossible!”

“And you love me for it.” Raziel said when straightening up.

“No, I’ll take ‘Alessandra’.” Lialah insisted.

“Oh, alright. Fine! Call yourself whatever you want.” Raziel quipped and then left the side of the sleeping Albaer to sit down at the computer. She went to a free education website and began to stream videos of computer repair.

“I plan to.” Lialah retorted and snatched up the controller to stream a forensic drama. The familiar ding of her selections rang predictably from the television, and within minutes Lialah was engrossed in the scene of a body discovered by fishermen, and the case began.

“Humans make some of the best entertainment.” Lialah said and sitting cross legged on the floor, she leaned forward to catch every subtle nuance of the male and female detective team.

“Uh huh, they do. But I prefer their video games.” Raziel said as she clicked through the slide show that the video linked her to.

“Interesting, but not for me.” Lialah passively disagreed and watched the story unfold, and for a little while there was quiet between them, if not their chosen ways of passing the time.

Albaer woke up when the other two had already gone to sleep. It was pitch dark in his room but he could hear the gentle sounds of their breathing on the floor a few feet from them. His dreams relived it all, through his own eyes first, and then… after she emerged… confusion. ‘Only what I could hear, no sight… but what I heard?’

He drew his legs up to his chest, never in his life had Albaer felt more like a small boy, even when he was a small boy, than at that moment. He lowered his head between his knees, ‘Bastards… bitches and bastards… assholes… I was being good! I was putting up with all the abuse, all the punches… all the kicks, all the pain, because I was the son of the guilty bastard… the only guilty one and he ran away from his obligation! I wanted to prove I was the Good Son, the Good Boy, the Good Man… but fathers, mothers, the ones who sneered at me and didn’t care when they saw me limping… the ones who whispered ‘Bad Seed’ and ‘Son of Evil’ whenever I passed… They were guilty too! I didn’t do anything! They did!’

Everything heard howled like a gale force wind, a hurricane of pain and the weight of the days since his father’s arrest and suicide battered him like a tiny ship in a stormy sea. ‘It was all for nothing! All for nothing! I was never the bad one! I never had to suffer! Mom never had to suffer! I have to tell her the truth… and Lisa knew… though maybe she didn’t know that I didn’t?’

One thing was sure, one thing was absolutely and totally sure, ‘My mom couldn’t have known, I have to tell her.’ He thought, ‘Even if she’s asleep…’ Albaer told himself.

Disturbing her rest was probably the worst thing he could do to the hard working woman, but this was an exception. First however, he had to calm himself.

He took slow, measured, even breaths. His pounding heart was so forceful Albaer swore he could hear it in the darkness. He slid off of the bed and set his feet on the floor, slowly standing and reached for his cell phone. It had no value anymore except as a flashlight, nobody had called for over two years now.

But still he kept it charged. He unlocked it and turned the face away and let the dim white light help him guide his steps.

The light caught Raziel and Lialah, though they slept in separate bags, they were inseparably close. A flash of envy stabbed through him. ‘If I had a sibling, this might have all been easier.’ He thought, but then imagining two enduring what he had rather than himself alone, made him rethink his desire.

He did let the light linger on them, they were impossibly beautiful in his eyes, which was more the pity that they were dependent on him. Had they not been? He set the notion aside, it was enough to look at them with the tenderest trust that he could. And then take one long step over their sleeping bodies to reach the door.

He turned the knob with a click and stepped out, briefly flipping the phone face up to check the time again. It was well after two in the morning and he nodded, confirming his decision to himself.

Albaer then flipped the phone around to focus on the cream carpet and walk the short, dark hallway to his mother’s room.

He knocked a little bit, but heard nothing inside.

He reached for the door knob and tried it, the knob turned. ‘Unlocked.’ Albaer thought and lightly pushed the door inward toward the room.

He went over to the bed, the light guiding him over the carpet until he was at her bedside, he sat down and put a hand on her head, he stroked the head of his sleeping mother.

“Mom… listen… I found something out today… L-Lisa, you remember her of course. She… she came over. She told me things, things I didn’t know. I thought that to be good, to prove that I was good, I couldn’t defend myself. I thought… so many times, ‘This is what you get.’ And that I deserved it. I thought that was why nobody would help… why nobody cared. But, listen, don’t say anything.” He said when her face turned toward him as he caressed her cheek, he swallowed hard. “Just listen, I know not only that I’m not the only bad one, I’m one of the few good ones. I’ve been letting some bad people blame me when I shouldn’t. I know, I know how important it was for you that I be a good boy, a good son. But I can’t do it your way anymore. I’m tired of getting hurt. I’m tired of feeling ashamed. And I don’t have to anymore, do you understand, mom?”

She lay quiet, silent. He was fairly sure she was pretending to be asleep. ‘Just deal with reality, mom! I can’t do this alone!’ He cursed in his head.

“I’m going to defend myself… I promise I won’t start any fights… that’s good enough, but I won’t let people do whatever they want anymore. I guess… I’ll just have to hope you understand that.” Albaer said, and glanced up to see two outlines in the darkness, winged shadows.

Alarm shot through Albaer like lightning as he realized it was Raziel and Lialah. ‘Are they insane?! What if she wakes up and sees them?! What if she really is awake and only faking it, and sees them?!’ He wondered and shot to his feet, blocking any view his mother would have of the entrance to her room, he pointed past them, telling them to go.

They did, immediately.

“Goodnight, mom, I love you. Even if this doesn’t make you happy, I’ve got to do this.” Albaer said with a sad shake of his head, then picked up his phone and made his way out of the room. Closing the door behind him with a click, and returned to his own quarters.

Albaer gave both a glare in the dark, knowing damn well by now that they could see him flawlessly. He closed his bedroom door with another click and gave a rough, hoarse whisper, “I told you two to never do that! Never go in there!”

“Ah, w-we’re sorry. We heard you, so we were worried.” Raziel said, “She didn’t see a thing, I promise.”

“R-Right, it’s fine, if she had, she’d have reacted.” Lialah said and took Albaer’s arm to guide him back to his bed.

“I-I guess, I guess it was strange of me to do that, I just needed to talk to her, she’s so tired… working all the time… I just needed my mom for one minute… I-I assume you heard everything?” Albaer asked.

Raziel pressed him down to a seated position, and Lialah went and fluffed his pillow. “We did, and we agree, you have a right to be safe… I of course think it’s silly to not defend yourself, no matter whom you’re related to… but you thought you were doing the right thing. If you change your mind, you should change your actions.”

“You’ve had… had such a rough day, Albaer, I know this is a lot to take in, a-a few more hours of sleep will do you good.” Lialah said and put a hand over his forehead and drew her delicate fingers over his eyes as Raziel pulled the covers over him again.

“I guess, and as long as she didn’t see anything… but just don’t let it happen again.” Albaer replied with a yawn.

“Of course not.” The angel and demon said as one.

“She’s a beautiful woman though, isn’t she, it’s no wonder she and dad got together.” Albaer said with pride.

“She’s unlike any wife I’ve ever seen.” Raziel said with a little smile in the dark.

“She is something else.” Lialah agreed with tiny nods. “But you need your rest, Albaer.” She urged.

Albaer nodded, and then Lialah whispered a few rapidly said syllables. For good measure, she uttered the word in his tongue, [Sleep]. Albaer began to breathe in and out in his slumbering rhythmic pattern, and Lialah then grabbed her sister’s arm and yanked her away from the bed.

They rushed out of the room, closing the door without even making a click, then returned to the room of Albaer’s mother. The door flung inward and Lialah fumbled for the light. Raziel closed the door before the light could break the hold of the darkness over the room.

It blinked on, bright as day, and there was Albaer’s mother.

“H-How long do you think she’s been dead for?” Raziel stammered.

“If forensic shows try to be accurate? Months? Maybe years.” Lialah guessed when they looked down at the desiccated corpse. The body had been thoroughly dried out, the limbs stiff against the body, the eyes were gone, hair still remained which must have been a vibrant wheat shade of gold when the body was still alive. The skin was wrinkled and muscles shrunken almost to nothing, but the cause of death was clear as day.

The noose was still around her neck, though the rope had been sawn through. Around the room were various air fresheners and oils to eliminate any lingering odor.

Whatever the real timeline, one thing was absolutely clear to both the angel and the demon… the inhabitant of that room had not left it in a long, long time. When they traded a glance at one another, both Raziel and Lialah recognized that they had the same understanding.

‘We are not the only ones in this apartment who need help.’

They swallowed, hard. Slowly they withdrew from the room, but neither could shake the feeling that the eyeless sockets of Albaer’s mother were watching them as they left her alone again to return to her lonely son.

-End-