Chapter 2— Decisions

I bolted upright with a huge gasp of breath, eyes frantically searching my surroundings. Chest heaving up and down in the near blinding light of the midday sun, realization slowly dawned on me that I was back in my own room. Not only that, but my muscles no longer hurt when I moved. Flexing my arms, I was shocked to discover that I was completely pain free. Stranger still, when I attempted to clear my throat it no longer felt like I'd gargled with sand. Struggling to make sense of it all, not to mention how I'd gotten here, I also found myself drenched from head to toe in sweat and utterly, utterly alone.

At least for a moment. Too bad it didn't last long.

I jumped when I heard my mom's persistent knock again. "Chaos, can you hear me?"

I flashed back to the dream, fingertips nervously skipping around my mouth to feel my teeth and sighed in relief. "No fangs, thank God!"

"Did you say something, Chaotic?" The door to my room swung freely open and in walked my mom wearing a pair of fuzzy rainbow colored slippers with her favorite bright pink bathrobe tied around her waist. The color hurt my eyes.

"Nothing," I lied. "I didn't say anything."

By the time she reached my bed, I had already scooted all the way up with my back pressed against the headboard. She sat down on the bed beside me, reaching to smooth a fringe of heavy red bangs out of my face like she used to do when I was little. Eyes full of worry, she murmured aloud more to herself than to me. "I didn't think you were ever going to wake up."

"How long have I been out?"

"I'm not quite sure. It feels like it's been forever," she admitted.

Shaking the remaining cobwebs from my brain, or attempting to anyway, I mumbled, "How did I get here?"

She gave a shrug. "One of our volunteers from the farm lives in Kalamazoo. He found you curled up in the middle of the road and called Chief Madden. He delivered you home safely. You've been out cold ever since." Fear strangled her voice. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know," I lied again, unsure of how much I was willing to share. Truth be told, I really wasn't even sure how much she knew about me becoming an angel. This didn't really seem like the right time to bring it up. Besides, the last time I saw her we were in Hell. I had to help her escape before Serenity could feed her to my friends. I never even knew if she'd made it to safety, until now. I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her tight. "I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again."

That right there was the God's-honest truth.

Neither of us said anything for a few frozen seconds. When mom finally spoke, she leaned away so she could look me in the face. The naked pain I glimpsed in her eyes matched the quiver in her voice. "I never wanted any of this for you, Chaos. You have to believe that."

I sat up a little straighter, swallowing past a lump in my throat. "I know."

She shook her head, giving my hand a squeeze. "No. I don't think that you do. I'm your mother. I should have prepared you. I thought not knowing what you were going to become would keep you safe."

"No, it's my fault," I insisted, taking all the blame. "I pushed you away. I thought I could hide what was happening to me."

She gave a laugh. "You thought you could hide the hole in my wall, and the even bigger hole you put in the roof of the barn?"

I gasped in surprise. "You knew about that?"

"It was kind of hard to miss."

Something suddenly occurred to me. There was only one way she could have known. The single word died in my throat. "Dad?"

She nodded as she prepared to surrender the truth. "You're father told me everything."

I tried hard not to look as surprised as I felt that they'd been keeping in touch. Even though I'd barely defeated my dad's attempts to gain dominion over the earth, I knew I would always remember the final words he'd said to me. "The heart you seek is with your soul."

Realization hit me like a punch in the gut. "He...he tried to help me. He could have easily destroyed me, but for some reason he didn't..." my voice trailed off in confusion.

Mom stared at me in shock. "Of course your father tried to help you. What makes you think he would ever do anything to hurt you? After all, this whole thing was his idea."

I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean this whole thing was his idea?"

Her lips quirked upward in a wistful smile. "I never told you the story of how I met your father. I remember like it was almost yesterday. Your father showed up out of the blue one day. It was right after my eighteenth birthday. I went to the annual Maple Syrup Festival in Vermontville with a group of girls from school. I saw him standing in front of the carousel almost as if he was waiting there for me. When our eyes first met and locked on each other, it was almost like...like..."

"Magic," I finished for her, knowing the feeling only too well.

"Yes, it was like pure magic," she repeated. "It was as if your father had his own gravitational pull. So strong was the need to approach a man I'd never met before, that I simply forgot all about my friends. He was easily the most handsome man I'd ever laid eyes on. I thought he was either an angel in the flesh, or maybe even Jesus in disguise. He had thick, wavy brown hair that framed an evenly tanned and sculpted face. Dressed in a dark colored suit,  I remember thinking that it was really expensive looking and perfectly tailored too, exactly the way a man should wear a suit. Not too tight-fitting or too loose either – just enough for me to tell that he was extremely well toned and muscular. But it was his smile..." Her voice trailed off with the memory. "His smile was the clincher that sealed my fate. The entire crowd of people gathered at the festival parted like the sea for Moses as he began to slowly move towards me. All of the girls were envious at the newcomer who for whatever reason only seemed to have eyes for me. I fell in love with him at that exact moment. There was never any doubt in my mind. And your father...well, he later told me that he'd fallen in love with me at first site too. We were inseparable from that day forward, and before we knew it we had you." Something like hope sparkled in her eyes. "Your father took one look at you the moment you were born and he knew. He just...knew."

I sat forward, eager to understand. "Knew what?"

"He knew that the fate of the world would ultimately come to depend on you. That's why he devised a plan."

I thought I already knew the answer, but I had to ask anyway. "What kind of plan?"

"A plan to help keep you safe. You just have to trust him, Chaos. Your father knows exactly what he's doing."

Her words felt like a slap in the face, even though I'm sure she didn't mean them that way. I swallowed hard remembering the curse Lisette put on me. Somehow I  found it hard to believe that being turned into a bloodsucking monster was all part of my dad's big plan to help me save the world, but I didn't say the words out loud. Thoughts drifting to Thomas and Vycandor, I couldn't help wondering where they were as a sharp rush of desperation curled my empty stomach.

Blood. I needed blood. Lots of it. Buckets. I craved blood like an addict craves drugs.

"It's because of me that you and dad can't be together," I mumbled, not exactly sure where I was going with the revelation. Hanging my head, I knew I was to blame. I was the reason my father had left. It was all so clear now. My life began to unravel as soon as I was born, and I was powerless to stop it. "This is all my fault."

"Look at me, Chaos," she said, placing a finger under my chin to tilt my head up. "I knew what I was getting into. Do you understand? Your father told me everything. My secret ability to manifest fire is the reason why he came looking for me. Somehow he knew a child born from our union would be the answer to saving lives, not destroying them. Trust me, there were so many times I wanted to tell you the truth. To warn you. But your father made me promise not to. He firmly believed that the less you knew about your true destiny, the better. And you know what? He was right. You did save us." She beamed proudly at me. "You saved us all." Pausing, but only briefly to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye, her voice cracked with emotion when she attempted to switch gears. "Enough of this sadness. Your home now. That's all that matters. It's time to celebrate."

My mouth fell open. "Celebrate? You can't be serious! How can you be in the mood to celebrate when millions of adults have been massacred by an invading army of teenage zombified forces. You were almost eaten by one of them, or don't you remember?"

Mom seemed to think about that for a moment. "Not everything that happened is your fault, Chaos. The rest of us wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you. We have much to be thankful for, especially today. Just try to remember that."

I flung my hands in the air. "Excuse me if I'm not in a rah-rah mood to celebrate after angelic warfare almost destroyed mankind." For a split second there I thought about telling her the truth. That the war between good and evil wasn't over. That Earth wasn't even close to being at peace. Why? Because a ravenous monster was lurking in our midst. That monster being me, of course.

"You get your stubbornness from your father," she admitted thoughtfully. "You know what else? You also inherited his insatiable hunger for drama." Standing up from my bed, she edged toward the door. "But, no matter how hard you try, nothing and no one is going to stop me from celebrating your safe return. Especially today."

I frowned. "Why, what's so special about today?"

Mom tossed me one of her trademark smiles that went all the way to her eyes. "Today is the day we get to carve our gobblers."

"Come again?"

"It's Thursday." She meant it as more of a question than a statement, waiting for me to play connect the dots. When I didn't, my blank stare must have spoke volumes. "Today is Thanksgiving, Chaotic. Now be a good little helper and get dressed. I'm planning quite the feast for dinner tonight and I can use all the help with cooking that I can get."

My frown deepened, remembering the grilled peanut butter and jelly debacle that almost burned down the house. "Mom, you know I can't cook."

"No time like the present to learn," she insisted with a wink.

I gave her my best eye roll. "Gee, I'm sorry. With everything else going on in the freaking world it hasn't left me much time to cultivate my meager culinary skills."

"Well, it surely won't kill you to try," she quipped, exiting my room and closing the door behind her before I had a chance to argue.

"Ugh!" Filled with sudden frustration that threatened to boil over, I reached across my bed for a nearby pillow to muffle a scream. Bringing it to my face, I inhaled the sweet scent of vanilla instead. The unexpected aroma brought back too many painful memories to count. Some old, and some not so old. Like the knowledge I was now faced with. Sure, learning how to cook wouldn't kill me. Never mind the fact that I no longer craved food. I craved blood more. A lot more. The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could either accept the fact that I would now and forever more be faced with the constant risk of death by starvation if I didn't consume blood to survive. Or I could give in to the ultimate temptation and turn thirsty drinker on the two people I loved most in this world.

Decisions, decisions.