"JEREMY!"

The voice careened through the house. In his upstairs bedroom, Jem winced. Mom. Must have seen the car in the driveway. She didn't sound happy.

Pounding on the stairs let Jem know she was on her way. She burst through the door like a tsunami.

"Jeremy William Parson! What happened to your car?"

"I got hit on the way back from school. I was waiting to tell you when you got home."

"Oh my God! Are you alright?" The anger dissolved into an expression of concern. She swept his head into her hands and searched his eyes. Jem instinctively pulled away, but the corner of his mouth curled up into a smile nonetheless.

Rachel Parson was a bubbling well of boundless energy. Cortez shouldn't have been looking in Central America for his fabled fountain of youth; he should have steered straight for the sleepy suburbs sprawled west of New York City. She was a caricature of the working mom: Stern, but caring. Thoughtful, but scatterbrained. Originally Polish somewhere down the line, but now just a vague blend of Caucasoid tendencies rolled into springy brown curls and pale skin that took on the shade of boiled lobster after ten minutes in the sun.

Rachel Parson didn't walk; she bounced. The only time Jem had ever seen the spring fade from her step was when his father had died three years ago. More than anything, that's what had scared Jem. The sadness of loss was present – more than present, some nights – but seeing the change come over his mother had hit him right in the gut. Like an ice cream cone melting on a summer day, his mother had wilted. Slumped. Dragged in the mornings and retired in the evenings before the eight o'clock shows had time to finish.

The constant, unfailing pool of vitality had withered and dried.

But of course, time dulls even the sharpest wounds. She'd gotten better. They all had. Jem, just turned fourteen, had been on the brink of understanding the meaning – the real meaning – of death, but it wasn't until the year after that he'd fully come to terms with the fact that his father had been swept off the sidewalk by a drunk driver and was never, ever coming home again. Until then, the encompassing feeling was one of temporary absence. A long vacation. He'd never even seen the body. When it came, the permanence had hit hard, but it also swept away Jem's regret and inexplicable guilt and gave him a chance at a clean start. After a year of night, the sun had finally poked its nose over the horizon and brought some light back into the Parsons' lives. It was a thin, pale light, but anything was better than the darkness they'd trudged through.

Ashley, his then-eight-year-old sister, had bawled on cue, gone to bed red and puffy-eyed with the rest of them. Jem sometimes thought she had a better understanding of it than either he or their mom, as precocious as she was. Whether by virtue of her younger age or her superior grip on the situation, she'd been the first to recover. And when Jem came around, they went to work on their mom.

Slowly but surely, Rachel Parson had refound her spark. Laughter crept back around the breakfast table. They could look each other in the eyes without being reminded of the man who just wasn't there anymore. Rachel stopped setting a fourth place at the dinner table, an unconscious habit that had infuriated Jem with the implications it wrought.

As a family, the Parsons had stumbled, and they had held their feet.

Jem was grateful for the change. Now, when he thought back to his dad – the baseball games, the hunting trips, the secret late nights watching horror movies after his mom had gone to bed (she didn't approve of the violence) – it was with a warm fuzz of happiness. The edges were still tinged with regret, but just the edges. He'd been a great father and a supportive, positive husband. The memories were what mattered.

At the moment, though, Rachel Parson was beyond bouncing – she was caroming.

"Where did it happen?"

"Thank God you were wearing your seatbelt."

"Who was he? Was he hurt?"

"Did you call the insurance company?"

"I should call the insurance company."

The questions and statements ricocheted around the room like shrapnel. In between bursts of enemy fire, Jem managed to relate the whole story. By the end of it, Rachel had calmed down to a mild jitter.

"Well, the important thing is that you're okay," she summed up with a tone of finality. It was over. The magnanimous Mom had given her blessing.

"Is Jem in trouble?" The question came from a cascade of sandy blonde hair poking around the doorframe.

"Ash, please honey. Give us a minute." Rachel, disapproving of the interruption.

"Ooooh, he's in truh-bull!"

"Am not. Mind your own business half-pint," Jem rebutted.

"What'd ya do? Skip school?"

"Ash. Please!"

"Okay, mom. Can you make me a sandwich?"

"I absolutely will not," said Rachel pleasantly. "There's deli meat in the crisper. Now scram."

The blonde tangles disappeared and Rachel turned back to Jem, a half-cocked smile poking into her cheek.

"Jeremy, honey. I am glad you're okay. Let's just hope the insurance will cover the whole cost. You know how..."

"I know, mom," Jem said gently. Rachel worked two jobs. Money was tight. Auto repairs were right below gold-filigree jet packs in the family budget.

Rachel changed the subject.

"So, I hear you have a date tonight."

Jem sighed. There were no secrets in this house.

"Ashley tell you?"

"A little bird," Rachel cheesed. "Come here, guy."

Jem leaned in and let his mom wrap him in a bear hug.

"How about some sandwiches?"

After dinner was a whirlwind of preparations. Jem had his date. Ashley was going to a weekend cheer camp the following morning. Rachel flew between the two, a ball on a string.

"Ash, have you even started packing?"

"Mommm! When have I had time?" The preteen wail filled the house.

"You've been home all afternoon. Now, here...no, fold the shirts. Like this."

"You're wrinkling my skirt! Please tell me you're not wearing that!"

Jem glanced up in the foyer mirror at his sister's shocked face.

"What's wrong with it?"

More like what isn't! You look like a hobo!"

"Like a hoe-boe!" Jem mimicked. Ashley had just recently begun treating every sentence that left her mouth as if it were the most important thing in the world. Each last word was invariably an extended span of adolescent angst.

"Mommm!" Jem winced at the decibels.

"You do look a little...bummish," Rachel said slowly.

"Bummish?"

"Untidy."

"That's the point."

"Well, would it kill you to comb your hair? Wait, Ash, those socks aren't clean."

"It might."

"Might what?"

"Kill me."

"That I'd like to see. Ash! What's all this?" A conglomerate of makeup applicators spilled out of a lavendar zip-case and onto the living room carpet.

"I need those!"

"Absolutely not. We've talked about this, Ash. No makeup until you're thirteen. Where'd you get these?"

"It's not faaiiir!" Ashley wailed, a picture of life's injustice.

"Where?" Rachel wouldn't be moved.

"Anna." Sullen.

"Well you just tell Anna to keep her hussie-paint to herself."

"Mom!" Ashley was aghast. Jem guffawed in the mirror.

"Well, you know what I mean. Give them back." Rachel scooped the brushes and disks of skin-tone powder back into the zip-bag and tossed it into Ashley's pink suitcase.

The whirlwind flew into the night. Outside the house, Jem and Ashley and Rachel could be seen flitting back and forth through the windows. Yellow light spilled over the hedge border and kissed the edge of the lawn. Across the dark expanse of yard, to the left of the concrete path that led from the front door to the street, a line of juniper bushes separated Château Parson from the neighboring lawn.

Behind the shrubs, two dark shapes waited patiently. A muted green shimmer outlined the edges of the black hoods that were pulled tightly over their heads.

As one, the two hoods turned toward the street, where a pair of headlights was slowly pulling along the curb. The lights blinked off and the engine died, leaving only the soft click of its cooling cylinders in the stagnant night air.

For awhile, nothing else happened. The sedan remained dark. The two watchers didn't twitch so much as a finger. If they needed to, they could stand still as statues for the rest of the night, through the day, and through the next night.

From inside the house, the shrill tittering of an eleven-year-old girl drifted into the outside stillness. It was followed by a deeper bark of laughter as Jem joined in.

The shapes in the bushes heard, but did not look.

The car's front fender was crumpled. It could have been abandoned. Even the engine clicks had died out.

A pealing scream from the lit house. This time the watchers did turn. Just a fraction, mostly eyes. In that split second, a muted thump rolled across the lawn. Eyes snapped back to the car. It was still, dark, unchanged.

But the watchers knew.

With no visible signal, the shape nearest the road slipped away and appeared at the end of the row of junipers. A red sportscar turned onto the street and sauntered slowly past the house. The shape ducked behind the bushes, but in the glare of the oncoming headlights, he'd seen: The rear door of the parked sedan was slightly ajar. It had been hidden from the watchers by the body of the vehicle.

As the taillights of the passing car disappeared down the street, the dark shape stole along the curb to the nose of the sedan. A mottled blue hand appeared from within the folds of the robe and rested on the car's dented hood.

Through the conductive metal, the watcher read the Infiniti's electronics like a book. The interior lights had been switched off so that they wouldn't luminate when a door was opened. Same for the beeping alarm that sounded when a door was ajar. They'd been given the slip.

Inside the house, a door banged. Someone screamed.

The dark figure ignored it and continued scanning. Something was out of place. There. Wiring that didn't belong. A circuit board. Timer. More wiring, leaving the timer. Connected to–

"Osudite."

The whispered curse stood on its own in the taciturn darkness for one hushed breath before the night burst into flaming brilliance. The fireball of the exploding car engulfed the cloaked shape and sent metallic shards screaming through his body. He fell to the ground in a heap, flames licking the fabric of his robe.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 7!