Page 35 of A Sin So Pure

9

NORA

22 YEARS AGO

The rain battering the kitchen window doesn’t drown out the sound of my parents arguing in the living room. They think I can’t hear them—maybe because of the storm, or maybe because I’m supposed to be eating the peanut butter sandwich that they gave me. But the bread is stale, the walls of this old house are thin, and their voices carry through the sheetrock whether they mean for them to or not. I can’t help but listen.

“Evelyn, we should leave,” my father says.

“Pride’s coming, Adam. We have to have a little faith,” my mother replies.

“And if Patience finds us before then?”

“Then we fight. What other choice is there?”

Silence. Did they stop talking?

I slip from the kitchen chair, tiptoeing on the tile until I can peer into the living room.

The room is mostly empty, my parents having barricaded the front door and windows with whatever furniture they couldwhen we arrived at the safe house last night. Or was it this morning?

We’ve been moving a lot. It’s always dark when Mama pulls me from bed, and we can never bring much with us. I couldn’t even bring my stuffed cat.

She said we can’t cry about it because we’ll be in a better place soon.

The sky’s been crying for me; for days, a storm has grieved everything we left behind.

“It’s a good sign, Elenora,” she had told me as we trudged through puddles last night. The water had soaked through to my socks, making every step in my Mary Janes squelch. “Storms are omens of change. This one means that we’ll be back in Faerie soon.”

The sound of my father pacing back and forth pulls my attention. His hand runs over his jaw, scratching the short beard that’s grown thick over the past week. Where Papa is jittery, Mama is still. She sits on the lone armchair in the room, only her eyes sliding back and forth to follow Papa’s pacing.

“We could run. Try another human country across the sea. They wouldn’t bother trying to follow,” my father says.

“You don’t know him. Patiencewillfollow.” My mother sighs her frustration. “We agreed that this was the best option. It’s a fair trade since Pride needs?—”

A loud pounding sounds from downstairs and my parents freeze.

A moment goes by, barely a second, where nothing but the rain pattering against the windows can be heard.

Then another loud crack. The sconces on the wall flicker before going out. Now, the only light comes from the moon and stars, casting my parents as silhouette puppets.

“Mama?” I squeak, revealing myself from behind the doorway.

“Shit,” my father says. His eyes glaze over. They always do that when he uses his magic to calm me down. “They’re angry.”

My parents share a pointed look before my mother nods.

Papa shrugs off his jacket with a heavy sigh, revealing a chest holster with two guns strapped to his side. He takes one out and inspects it, sharp clicking noises ring as he spins the barrel. Whatever he does, the gun must quickly pass his inspection, because he hands one to Mama before coming over to me.

He grips me tight; the faint press of his lips on my forehead is a butterfly kiss, fleeting and full of love.

“Love you, baby girl,” he whispers against my hair.

“Love you more,” I reply on instinct.

It sounds like a goodbye, but I don’t know why.

He releases me, rounding the corner as another pounding comes from the floor below, the thunder before lightning strikes.

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