Creatura (25 page)

I looked up at everyone’s face. Galen and Eryx’s eyes were focused on my arm in despair. Nyx was crying, but trying to hold her composure.

“It’s not working,” David urged Nyx.

“You don’t have much time, David. If the corrosion reaches her chest, she’s going to die,” Nyx’s voice was broken.

“I’m going to die?” I mumbled, looking at each of their faces. No one answered.

I always thought I would be afraid of dying. I carried that fear with me since I was twelve, after looking inside that coffin. But now that it was my turn, I was ready. This was the destiny that was written for me.

“I can’t do it, Mother. I have nothing to forgive her for,” David’s hopeless tone acknowledged my question.

If I was going to die, I needed to tell David I loved him. I owed him that much after all the emotional stress he had endured. I don’t know why I hadn’t told him before.

I glanced at my arm. The decomposition was at my elbow and the tingling had crept up near my shoulder. I didn’t have time to waste.

“David,” I called for his attention.

His desolate eyes rested on mine.

“I love you, David. I’m sorry for not telling you, but I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. I’m sorry I hurt you when all you ever did was love me. I need you to forgive me before…” I reached out for David with my left hand, “before it’s over.”

I could feel the tingling a few inches past my shoulder. Nyx pulled my blouse at the neckline exposing my collarbone and part of my shoulder.

“Forgive me, David. I love you,” I waited for his requite. I needed to hear that he loved me one last time.

“I do; I forgive you, Isis,” David uttered restraining his tears. “Forgive me for doing this to you.”

“Tell me you love me,” I requested.

“With all of my heart,” David whispered stroking my forehead.

I could no longer feel my arm, my shoulder and part of my chest. And then I felt it—a tearing of rigorous pain in the middle of my chest. I writhed in anguish, screaming at the top of my lungs. My whole body jerked and then there was darkness. The end was here.

Silence.

“It goes in retrocede!” Eryx cried, pointing to my arm.

David raised my body to a sitting position.

“Gemini, flush her,” David ordered.

Eryx and Galen set one of their hands on my shoulders and joined their free hands, palm to palm. Their lower arms formed an “A” between them.

A strange suctioning tugged the inside of my arm and hand, making my fingers twitch inward.

A black stream tunneled under the twins’ skin. The flow traveled from the hand with which they grasped my shoulders, then over their chests and to their raised arms. A deep plum colored ball formed between their palms.

Meanwhile, my arm regained feeling. The decomposition gradually was resurfaced by skin. At some point, my pinky was restored, and my senses started to recuperate.

The twins removed their hands from my shoulders. They lowered their arms and held the melon-sized sphere out to Nyx and David.

The ball was formed of coiled maggot-like creatures. Their little repugnant bodies squirmed over one another in a spiral motion.

David blew a gust of breath over the circular mass. The creatures ceased their movement immediately.

Nyx took the sphere and compressed it between her hands, then separated her lips. Low rattling hisses accompanied a black and pink serpentine tongue that slithered out of her mouth and wrapped the sphere. Her tongue rolled in a back and forth pace dissolving the ball of larva with a dense clear fluid. My weak stomach could not tolerate the sight or repulsive smell. I squirmed and turned away, gagging.

As I listened to the hissing die down, the shock of what had just happened sunk in. I realized I had been a hairline away from dying. I didn’t know if I was more disturbed by the near death experience or the family’s extraordinary exhibit. I allowed my upper body to fall back on the couch.

“Isis?” David sounded alarmed.

“I need a minute,” I said impassively, staring blankly past David and fainted.

Nyx was positioned at my side. She rubbed my arm soothingly as I came to.

“Well, you’re certainly a feisty little thing, aren’t you?” Galen grinned sitting across the way from David and me in the living room.

I couldn’t argue because I knew that was true about me.

“David must have done something very wrong,” Eryx added.

“He didn’t do anything,” I defended David.

“Well, if that is the way you express your love to him, I’d hate to see you express your scorn,” Galen laughed.

“We can leave this subject for another time,” David addressed the twins.

Nyx raised a cup of tea to my lips.

“I can sense you’re feeling better,” she said, setting the tea on the coffee table.

I observed her mouth as she spoke trying to catch a glimpse of her tongue. It looked normal enough now.

“You gave us all a very good scare,” she paused, taking my right hand to inspect it. “If Gemini hadn’t flushed the parasites from within you, this hand would have remained black and deformed; it’s a life penance. Thank goodness David pardoned you when he did.”

“Thank you for… ,” I swept all of their faces.

“You would have done the same. I’m sure,” Eryx replied. “But David is the one who deserves the thanks; after all, he is the one that saved you by acting with haste.”

“I am also the one that unintentionally sentenced her,” David creased his brow.

“But I slapped you,” I took the blame.

“Let there be no fault,” Nyx settled the subject.

In the frenzy of things, we had left David’s car parked on the curb in front of my house. Eryx offered to drive us back before my mother got home, but David insisted flying was much faster—driving back was my first choice. I thanked Nyx and the twins again for whatever it was they had done to spare my life.

“You should consider anger management,” Galen teased me as David and I stepped out the front door.

The flight home was easier on my stomach than the previous. I didn’t require any of David’s “assistance” to survive it.

“What if someone sees us up here?” I realized there was still daylight as we neared my house. Thankfully, my mom’s car wasn’t there yet.

“We’re not visible,” he was quick to answer.

“Not visible… like, invisible?”

“Camouflaged, actually,” he said, setting me down in my living room, “by the sky.”

“Oh,” I responded, not really sure how that was possible. Of course, by now, I realized everything was possible.

As David and I took a seat on the couch, we heard a beep coming from the inside of my book bag. I walked over to the recliner and reached inside the bag for my cell phone. The alert alarm indicated I had missed events: nine missed calls, nine voice mails, seven text messages—all from Gabriel. I dropped the phone back into the bag ignoring the missed events.

My head swerved in David’s direction. He was gazing at me in that way that made me feel like I was his Hope Diamond. I took a spot on the couch next to him.

“Today was the single worst day of my entire existence.” David held his head between his hands. “I had never felt more helpless or afraid than I did in those eternal minutes. If I would have lost you . . ,” he shook his head refusing the notion. “I would have ripped out my own heart.”

“I don’t want us to think about that anymore. It’s over now and all that matters is that we’re still together,” I said leaning my head on his arm.

“But I have to think about it, Isis. I’m the one that caused it,” he frowned. “Don’t you see what might have happened that afternoon if Gabriel would have struck me before all those people?”

The anxiety I had seen in David and his brothers that afternoon was now so apparent to me. They knew what could have taken place if Gabriel had decided to take a swing at David and accomplished it. There would have been no way to save him. Everyone around us would have witnessed the hideous parasitic larva devour him whole. The memory of the horrific flesh eating pests made my skin crawl. I shuddered as visions of my decomposed arm ran through my head as if I were reliving it once again.

I just realized it,” I said reflecting on the idea that I would have to find a way to end Gabriel’s aggressiveness toward David.

“What you must think of me now,” David’s face was stiff, “I am nothing short of a monster or a freak to you.”

“No,” I objected, “I don’t think any of that.” My hand cupped David’s face. “I love you.” The words came easily now.

David’s arms drew me close to him.

“You have no idea how I’ve longed for those three words to bloom from your lips,” he stated.

Our faces met in a flowing kiss. David’s hands lightly applied pressure to my waist setting my back on the couch. The warmth of his breath traveled along my neck. One of his hands found its way to the back of my knee.

The sudden stirring of a car’s engine in the driveway signaled my mother’s arrival.

“My mom’s home,” I warned trying to sit up.

David jumped off the couch and looked at me wide eyed. I saw the color dissipate from his face.

“Hi kids, sorry I’m so late,” Claire said, not noticing anything different. “The meeting went on and on,” She explained, letting the bun in her hair loose. “Let me freshen up and I’ll be right down so we can leave.”

Claire climbed the stairs and left us. David walked over to me and placed his arms around me.

“I would have been embarrassed to have been caught in such a compromising situation. Promise me you won’t ever kiss me like that again.” He tittered.

At the restaurant, about half way through the meal, my mother posed questions about David’s father. David told her that his father was a shoe sales man.

Claire’s mouth dropped.

“You don’t believe me,” he laughed. “My father—Alezzander—owns shoe manufacturing companies in Greece and Italy where my family has lived on and off through the years. Most of my father’s time is spent traveling abroad for business affairs.”

Claire was impressed. I could see her face light up more as David continued to tell her about all the countries he had been to. She was even more impressed when David told her how many languages he spoke—seven, including English and Spanish.

Then David did something that neither my mother nor I expected:

“Mrs. Martin,” he started, “I would like to ask your permission to court your daughter. Now, I realize that you may think my asking might be all too premature as Isis and I have only known each other for but a short period; however, I assure you that my intentions are good and sincere.”

As I choked on my lemonade, after listening to the first sentence of David’s speech, I wanted to protest. If the year had been 1823, I would have conformed to the time’s practices. However, being that Women’s Rights had been in effect for a while now, I would not have this. Plus, I was almost eighteen; I didn’t require my mother’s permission to have a boyfriend.

Mom softly chuckled at David’s charming speech.

“Yes, you may court my daughter, David,” she smiled, “That is just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ll have to praise Nyx on what a good job she’s done teaching you all this properness.”

“Well, actually, it’s out of respect for both the girl to be courted and her parents. It’s a very old custom,” David explained.

Seeing how pleased they both were with the dialogue and then appreciating the reason behind his petition, I reconsidered my objection. After all, it was ideally sweet of him to consider my mother.

I was shocked when, after David left us, my mother did not bombard me with questions. Apparently, David had done a good job of settling all her doubts with the whole “permission to court your daughter” thing.

I got ready for bed and remembered about all the missed events on my phone. There was no putting it off—I was going to have to deal with it now.

The voice mails all said the same thing: “Isis, I need to talk to you. Please answer your phone.” The text messages were basically the same also with the exception of two: “Who was that guy you were with?” and “Don’t I mean anything to you?”

I held the phone in my hand knowing I had to get it over with as soon as possible, but lacked a full proof plan to stop Gabriel from pursuing me.

If I told him David was my boyfriend, Gabriel would be tempted to pick a fight with David. Since Gabriel had seen David and I in what seemed like an intimate moment, I couldn’t lie and say we were only friends. I’d have to figure it out as I went along.

I dialed Gabriel’s phone number crossing my fingers and hoping he wouldn’t answer, but as my luck would have it, he answered. Loud music was blaring in the background accompanied by shrills and laughter.

“Gabriel?” I said after several seconds of the line being open.