Chloe's Guardian (The Nephilim Redemption Series Book 1) (17 page)

CHAPTER
18

Michelle was screaming. Or maybe it was her own voice. They were upside-down. They were spinning over the cement barrier between lanes. They were headed into oncoming traffic.

Michelle doesn’t have her seatbelt on
. She always had to be told twice to do it. And Chloe’s wasn’t on either.
We’re both going to die
.

Their feet were over their heads, but neither of them budged from their seats. Pressure pressed down all along Chloe’s body, keeping her from crashing around inside the car.

The spin finished and the car righted itself in the air. It crash-landed hard on the opposite side of the interstate, facing the wrong way, but upright. The car jolted and bounced down the shoulder while it made a horrendous metal grinding noise.

After the last big jolt, the force holding her let up and Chloe’s body rebound only a little. She bumped her head against the edge of the window. No worse than a love tap. The car finally stopped.

Michelle was still screaming. Chloe grabbed her hand.

“Are you okay? You’re okay, Michelle. It’s okay. It’s okay,” she said over and over.

They sat on the shoulder, facing the wrong way. Chloe tried to get her brain around what they’d just done.

Michelle was crying and shrieking.

“Something was lying on me,” Chloe said. “It held me down. I think it was an angel.”

“We almost died,” Michelle screamed.

“We didn’t. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Oh. My. God!” Michelle panted.

“Michelle, try to take a breath. You’re okay. You didn’t hit anything, right? Are you hurt?”

“No,” she wailed. “Pressure. Held me down. What happened?” She was hysterical.

“Michelle, look at me. Stop screaming. We’re okay. Really.”

Michelle locked her eyes onto Chloe, like she was her connection to survival. The shrieks slowed into jerky sobs, then deep sighs and hiccups. They sat holding hands, whimpering and shaking. Chloe didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t think.

Knuckles wrapped on the window. “Are you okay? Miss, are you okay?”

A police officer stood at her window. His car with blue and red lights flashing on top was pulled up along the front end of their car, which pointed the wrong way, blocking the oncoming traffic from the left lane.

Chloe fumbled to find the window switch, but her mind wouldn’t work right. After she locked and unlocked the doors and moved the side view mirror, she put her foot on the brake. That was stupid. She turned off the fan. The engine was dead.

The cop knocked again on the door. Chloe couldn’t think straight. All her thoughts were churning, trying to figure out what had happened. Her hands and feet went through a series of automatic movements, useless and illogical.

She finally gave up on the window and opened the door.

“Are you all right, Miss?”

“I think so,” she answered looking at Michelle for confirmation.

“And your passenger? Is she okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I think so,” Michelle said with a shaky voice.

“We’re fine. We’re both fine. Fine. Yeah.”

“Did your airbags deploy?” he asked as he peered inside around the door.

“No, no. They didn’t,” she said. “Wow. I can’t believe that just happened. I don’t know what happened. We were just driving, then suddenly. I don’t know.” It was all a nervous twitter. She couldn’t control anything.

“I saw your vehicle flip over the barrier. Looks like you blew out a tire there,” the cop said as he inspected the back of the Jeep, which tilted toward the blown tire.

“My mom’s going to kill me. She just got those tires.”

“Why don’t you step on out then,” he said to Chloe.

She opened the door the rest of the way and lowered herself down onto her legs, which were more like soft, fresh Play-Doh.

“So go ahead and tell me what happened,” he said.

“Should we call Mom?” Michelle asked, leaning over into the driver’s seat and speaking with a voice that wasn’t her own.

“Yes. Go on ahead and let your mom know what’s happened and our location. That will be fine.”

“I don’t know where we are,” Michelle said. Her voice cracked and quivered.

The cop told her which mile marker, which direction, and which interstate. Fortunately, she remembered how to push the speed dial for Mom.

While Michelle was on the phone, Chloe described to the cop what she remembered. They worked on some paperwork together and Chloe sat in the back of his cruiser. She got a ticket for not wearing seatbelts. But the cop kept saying how lucky they were, that it made no sense they got out without any injuries.

The tow truck arrived and loaded the Jeep. And their father came because their mom’s car was on the back of the tow truck.

When they finally arrived back home, Michelle got out of her dad’s red Prius.

“Thanks for the lift, Tony,” she said and slammed the door. She went inside without waiting for Chloe.

Chloe got out with hope she could make it into the house without a lecture. She opened the back and helped Benji, who’d spent the night with their dad, out of his car seat.

“Come on, Baby. Let’s go,” she said.

He carried his crocheted hexagon blankie. She wrapped it around his head to keep it off the ground.

“If I didn’t have a meeting I can’t miss, we’d have a word, young lady,” her dad said.

“Thanks for picking us up. I’m sorry to bug you,” Chloe said and closed the door. She took Benji’s hand and carried his backpack in the other.

He yelled something more at her through the closed window but then gave it a rest and left.

Inside, her mom was sitting forward on the edge of the couch, dressed and made up like it was a Saturday night.

“Isn’t your father coming in?” she asked when Chloe closed the door and set down Benji’s backpack. “I've held a casserole for him in the oven.”

“Of course not, Mom. He’s never coming in. You have to accept that.” Too much stress kept her from protecting her mom from the truth.

Her mom rose from the couch without a comment and went to her room. The door clicked shut without her even asking how they were doing or what shape the Jeep was in. The chasm between them was too wide for Chloe to reach across. Maybe she would never be a decent mother to them, maybe she would pathetically hold out forever for a man who obviously didn’t love her, or maybe would take too many pills and deal with it that way. But Chloe couldn’t fix her. She could barely hang on herself.

“Oh, I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Michelle shouted at their mom’s closed door. She dug through the fridge and put the makings for a salami and cheese sandwich on the counter. “I just sailed through the air at ninety miles-per-hour, saw my life—my very short, unfulfilled life—flash before my eyes, had something lying on top of me—maybe it was even a guardian
angel
because no one
else
cares about me—crash-landed in oncoming high-speed traffic, broke the axel on the car I was hoping would be mine when school starts, and had to be brought home by my ex-dad. So don’t worry about me. I’ll handle all the damage this trauma brings me when I’m in counseling at twenty-nine and can’t keep a relationship or job or—”

“Michelle. Stop it,” Chloe said. “You’re not the only one with a tough life.”

Michelle glared at her. “Shut. Up. If you hadn’t…whatever it was you did, none of this would have happened.”

Chloe picked up the phone to call her boss. “If you say any more to Mom, I’ll take my Uggs back.”

“Nuh-uh. Deal’s done. They’re mine. Even if you kill me, these are coffin shoes. They’re comin’ with me.” She held up one leg, turning it side to side to admire the boot.

The doorbell rang.

“Now what?” Chloe snapped.

Michelle ignored both Chloe and the door and ripped open the salami container.

Chloe pulled open the door.

Like a giant Golden Retriever, a body jumped onto her and wrapped both arms tightly around her.

“Cello, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Kaitlyn?” Chloe tried to pull back to see if it was really her, but she wouldn’t loosen her death grip.

“I got here as soon as I could. I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“So late? I just got back.”

“I called two days ago and your mom said, or I think she said—I always have trouble tracking with her—that you were in trouble, that you weren’t doing well. When I asked if I could stay with you for a few days, I thought she said it would be okay. I came straight from the airport.”

“She forgot to tell me. But I’ve been pretty busy, getting mugged, flying with demons, getting stranded in D.C., totaling Mom’s Jeep this morning.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” She finally let go of Chloe. “That sounds just rotten. No wonder you aren’t doing well.”

So like Kaitlyn not to even question about the details. Like the demons, for instance.

“And all that hadn’t even happened yet when you talked to Mom,” Chloe said.

Kaitlyn waved at the cab driver to bring up her things.

“You just came in a cab from the airport?”
Unbelievable.

“He’s great.” She picked up her viola case from the porch. “It will be good to spend time together. You can cry all you need and I’ll paint your toenails and we’ll eat lots of green olives. They’re good for the constitution. And they taste good. But you can have all the red middles.”

She took her bag from the cabbie and handed him a wad of cash. “Thank you, Ikrimah. Tell your family hello for me.”

“Goo’ bye,” he said in an Indian accent, then gave a shallow bow and returned to his cab.

“You know him?”

“Oh, yes. I rode all the way from the airport with him. He’s wonderfully nice. His wife is pregnant with their third baby. The first two were twins, Neeta and Maya. They are almost two. Neeta is talking so Maya doesn’t think she has to. His wife, Avani, is on bed rest. I think we should go visit her and take her sandwiches. How can you be on bed rest with two almost-two-year-olds?”

Chloe put her arm around Kaitlyn and led her into the front room. “Sure. We’ll see what we can do. I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” Kaitlyn said. “I would have come sooner if I’d known. I can visit Aunt Bev later. You should tell me next time you have demon trouble. I have some remedies.”

Chloe put Kaitlyn’s belongings next to the couch. “Do you mind sleeping here? Nana’s house is pretty crowded since we moved in.” Chloe pointed to the door off the right of the front living room. “That’s Nana’s room. Mom’s is back behind the kitchen. Michelle and I share a room upstairs—more of an attic really—and Benji is basically using the alcove up there like a room. We only have one bathroom.”

“I can sleep anywhere. The porch? The garage? Do you have a hammock? That would be nice—to sleep under the open sky.”

“I think there’s just the couch. Um, I’m scheduled to work tonight, but I need to call my boss to cancel.”

“Oh no. Don’t cancel because of me. I will come and help. I can start painting your toenails tomorrow.”

“I was going to cancel anyway. I need a night off.”

“Yeah, with her tough life and all, ” Michelle said in a snarky voice and squeezed past Chloe and Kaitlyn with a sandwich and chips and settled onto the couch in front of the TV.

Chloe called her boss and told him she wouldn’t be able to work her shift that night.

“I was in a car accident this morning—no, I’m okay. And last night there was some trouble on the way home—those guys that robbed the store—I sorta got mugged—it worked out, yeah. Thanks. I just need to be home tonight.”

After listening for a long time, she said, “But he left early. It’s wasn’t my fault his relief never showed up.”

She listened some more then hung up.

“All set?” Kaitlyn asked.

“I just got fired,” Chloe said in shock. “He said since I’m under twenty-one and can’t sell alcohol and was there alone, I could have caused him a bunch of trouble.”

Chloe couldn’t believe it. She’d been canned. She’d held down the store during a robbery, then suffered the gang’s revenge, and she was getting sacked. She should have been getting a medal. And a bonus. And a promotion.

You’re not worth a promotion.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled.

Kaitlyn jumped. Her expression was confused and hurt.

“No, no. Not you. I…I was talking to myself.”
Or to whatever keeps sneaking into my head.

Kaitlyn took her hand and led her to a kitchen chair to sit. “You need to rest. I can see the strain in your eyes.”

Chloe tried to shake off the emotion that was suffocating her. She dropped her chin into her hands on the table top.

“Next week when we go to Brazil, you will get away from everything for a while,” Kaitlyn said.

“I can’t go. My dad won’t let me. I’m grounded for the rest of my life.”

“Then I won’t go either. I’ll stay here with you.”