How the Mighty Fall

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

When she stepped off the elevator onto the ICU floor, Astraea's eyes found and locked on Serena, who had tuned out the world for a journal. "Serena."

There was a moment before recognition flipped into fear.

She thought about Phrixus and his meticulous note taking. His manifesto was formatted like the script of a poorly written sitcom resembling a low quality reality show, the kind that was renewed for too many seasons past the first. Of course that didn't matter as much as its contents.

"Why are you here?" Serena's eyes were wide. "Does Phrixus know? Is he here?" Her shock fell second to wariness, neither of which Astraea could guess the cause. Except it was her.

"This is embarrassing." Astraea made sure she didn't get too close. "I won't be staying long, but I've been feeling really lost, and I thought it would be good to stop by. Figured I would check on you." Her eyes scanned every detail of the journal clasped in Serena's hands. "What are you reading?" She hoped it didn't sound as prying as it probably did. It was too random to tie into their conversation, and she was desperate.

Serena took a deep breath, running her hand across the cover. "It's one of Daria's journals. Uncle Peter requested I still work on sorting and condensing her belongings, a little every day. This morning, I found the box she kept them in. It's... heavy." She avoided looking directly at Astraea.

"Daria wrote about Phrixus, right? That's what you were reading."

A single nod. "If I had known, I wouldn't have started reading it. I thought they may have been from her childhood or teenage years or when she was in college. But something from the past 10 years feels too intimate and invasive. I wish I hadn't seen them, so I wouldn't know what I know now."

Astraea didn't move but noted every person around them, who all seemed to be minding their business. "I understand. I don't know what you read, but I would really like to talk to you about all of it. If that's alright with you." Her heart was erratically thumping. With every silent second, she fought an internal plea to leave.

After a minute that to her felt like ten, Serena finally met her eyes. "I don't know," she spoke openly. She was scared, and alone. There was a stranger in front of her. The façade may have been too deep to be forgiven and obliged.

Another awkward nod was delivered. "No problem. I'm going to leave then. One last thing: Phrixus planned a trip that passes through here with intentions to stop by, and has surely left by now."

"No," Serena grabbed her arm. "I can't face him."

A mixture of sympathy and pity colored her eyes before she could stop it. It was complicated, yes, but this doubt characterized the groundwork that demonized them. She couldn't ignore the pang in her heart and tightness of her lungs. "He is still your cousin."

"Tell me there is no part of you that is scared of him."

"I'm not scared of him." But her reasons why were unfair. She knew one day she would be stronger than him, and since they met she could in some form hold her own against him. And though she was often intimidated by his mannerisms, she had faith they weren't threatening. From the beginning, he was honest with her about who he was. Until she took it too far, she maintained a distance because she didn't trust herself. Hardly any of it was out of concern that he risked her safety. The opposite was true. "That doesn't matter anyway. You grew up with him, knowing the kind of person he is regardless of the shit. He is dealing with a horrific thing that he didn't choose, and he's stronger." She stopped there, because she was nearing territory she didn't completely believe in.

"You're not surprised by this. You know. Did he tell you? Are you the same?"

Hope of a well received confession and smooth transition into acceptance was just too much to ask for. The clock was running out and she was backed into a corner. Fighting her way out wasn't an option. What then?

She broke down. Standing in the middle of the hospital's overflow waiting room, she let go. Salty tears leaked from her eyes, snot ran down her cupid's bow onto her lips and chin. Her body wracked with sobs, shaking and heaving, gasping for breath. She wasn't strong and stopped pretending to be. It was untimely. Her grief had no place there, but she couldn't keep it in.

Serena was lost on how to react. There was no straight answer supplied to her accusation. People typically weren't prone to causing a scene in public from her experience. And she wasn't about to console a distraught person who frightened her. But if she couldn't look past the mutation in a vulnerable moment, she was unlikely to ever adjust.

Phrixus's cousin ended up sharing distant glances with the couple of heartfelt people who were looking at Astraea. When the meltdown subsided, each of the women experienced their own numbness.

The loss of composure and emotional low was extreme by every definition, but wasn't the specified criteria that would grant access to the higher power. It didn't take her more than a few seconds to realize that. But she didn't have time to dissect it. She sniffled and dried her face on her sleeves. "Will you let me explain?" In the event her offer was rejected, she decided she would leave the mess for Phrixus to clean up. Surely that would qualify a turning point loss. It guaranteed a breach of his newly bestowed trust with no room for redemption.

"Yeah." Serena looked around the waiting room. "We should go outside."

They walked out together, but Astraea made a point to walk ahead to avoid potential worries that she would attack from behind or from the side. She hadn't planned what she would say for this. She especially didn't anticipate instructing Serena to go back to Phrixus's parents' house.

"I don't want to see him right now."

It was funny, because Phrixus was far more put together than Astraea ever had been in front of their family. She tried to plead again. "It will be worse if he gets home and can't reach any of you. He doesn't know about your brothers and his dad yet. He will know something is wrong if he shows up to an empty house and unanswered messages. But if you're there and can offer just a bit of assurance they're fine, he will have to accept it and keep going. But he'll latch onto any reason to stay, which cannot happen."

Serena initiated walking. "Tell me what Aunt Daria was writing about." The journal was secured to her chest by both arms. The roaring traffic drowned their footsteps on the sidewalk.

It was speculation. She hadn't read the journal, but couldn't imagine what else would invoke the sheer terror that took over Serena's face while reading. "What did you read? It will help me figure out where to start."

Serena mumbled, "she described a monster."

She stifled a sigh. "Did she mention telling him they were sending him somewhere?"

Another nod. It confirmed, then, that his mom wrote about the day he was exposed. If it was any indication of what the pages between the first day and the eventual demonic description contained, there were no other parts to hide.

"Here's what I know, in as few sentences I can think of." Astraea gulped and licked her dry lips. "It's called a celestial mutation, and isn't genetic, contagious, or curable. When it is first activated during a significantly emotional event, energy is transferred." She thought about the sense of losing herself. "You're endowed with an inhuman range of abilities to develop under certain conditions, but at the expense of being forced to contain a darkness. If you misstep, you are submitted to destruction. There's no choice. The balance for receiving power is taking away something else. In this case, I would say it takes a piece of you and replaces it with a hungry shadow." She had never said it aloud, and never considered it separately from the higher power. The additional hunter tale had to be the deciding factor for Serena that her cousin wasn't demonic.

Wind picked up, blowing their hair in every direction. The temperature dropped. Astraea stopped walking. Her body tensed.

Serena reflected the alarmed state. "What?"

Phrixus never talked to her about what could happen if she admitted to the mutation. But if he never told anyone about it, he wouldn't have known it qualified as a rule the hunters had reign. But she wasn't prepared to face hunters, especially not without him and in the company of his cousin. "How close is the house?" If they were lucky, she could turn her phone back on, let Phrixus know the situation, and the two of them could handle it when he arrived.

"It's on the next block."

"Perfect. Run."