Page 2 of Mortal Shift
“Then that just proves how little you know!”
“The darkness is coming. The darkness is coming!” Her voice rose to a wail, and I snarled at the cop.
“Stay back before you make her jump.”
He looked torn for a moment but relented with a nod.
“Like I said, I just want to help.”
“And likeIsaid, you’re not.” I tuned him out. I didn’t have time to argue, it was getting windier by the second. And I knew from experience, the darker the night got, the more she’d freak out. “Mom? Mom, it’s me. Cali. You’re going to take my hand and come down from there, remember?”
“Cali?” She blinked at me, and the band crushing my chest lessened, letting relief flood through me.
“That’s right. It’s Cali. It’s me. Let’s get you inside, yeah?”
She raised one hand and trailed her fingers down my cheek, then gave me a small, sad smile.
“It’s too late. The darkness is here.”
And then she closed her eyes and tumbled backward.
“Mom!” I lunged forward, snatching at her hand as it whipped away from my face. I snagged her wrist and latched onto it. The building momentum of her fall dragged me off balance and a yelp burst from my lips, then something grabbed me from behind and hauled back. Someone.
“Not me,” I snarled at the cop through gritted teeth, clinging to my mom’s wrist with everything I had as she dangled over the edge of the roof, and feeling her sliding slowing, painfully, inexorably through my fingers. “Her!”
His hand reached past me and latched around her wrist beside mine, and with a grunt, he pulled back. We shuffled back together until, inch by inch, we dragged her onto the rooftop.
I fell back, landing on my ass, and lay there a second, panting through my mouth. She’d tried to kill herself. Not just ranting, or crying, or rocking in a corner in the bathroom. She’d tried to throw herself off the top of a building. And would have succeeded if it wasn’t for—
“Thank you,” I gasped to the cop. A cop. Had actually helped. I think I was in shock. I sat up and turned to him in time to see him pull my mom’s hands together in front of her and snap his handcuffs around them. “Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Easy,” he said, raising one hand in what was probably meant to be a placating gesture, while the other held one of her wrists. “I’m just making sure she can’t hurt herself.”
“She was fine until you came up here!”
It was a lie and we both knew it and I didn’t care. That was my mom he was slapping in cuffs like she was some sort of criminal. Since when was it a crime to be scared? She’d never tried to hurt anyone.
“I’m guessing she hasn’t been fine for a long time.”
I swiped dampness from my eye with my palm. Fuck, when had I started crying?
“She’s just had a bad few months, that’s all it is,” I told him. That wasn’t all it was. Years. It had been years. When I was a little kid, she’d been okay. A bit unusual, sometimes, maybe; a little more distracted than the other kids’ parents. But she had a lot to deal with—she was raising me, by herself, always looking over her shoulder for something, though she’d never told me what. It was normal that she’d be distracted—who wouldn’t be? But as I got older, it got worse, and by the time I hit my teens I was caring for us both.
But that wasourbusiness, not his.
“Just let her go, yeah?” I said. “Please. She hasn’t hurt anyone.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. She needs help. You both do.”
“We just need to be left alone.”
He shook his head and thumbed his radio. “Jumper secure. Transporting to ER for a chapter 51.”
“Chapter 51?” My heart squeezed. A psych evaluation. One she couldn’t pass. “No. You can’t. They’ll lock her up in some mental hospital.”
“It’s for the best. She can get the help she needs there.” He glanced over at the ledge and frowned. “You must work out a lot.”
“Huh?”
