Surreal Ecstasy (19 page)

"Why didn't you guys tell me
this in the first place?"

"We don't talk about
ourselves. It's not the way we were brought up," Ree answered patiently.

Dess sat again on the mattress and
searched my face, making sure I was comfortable before she began her story
matter-of-factly. "Our mom's family owns the company. Mom and her sister
started the company after their mother, our
abuela
, came here from Mexico."

"Later, our dad helped them
expand their company to include salsa, frozen burritos, things of that nature,"
Ree said, continuing his family history. "He also wanted to grow the
business to include food from the Philippines, his country. But they never got
around to doing that."

"May he rest in peace,"
Dess added, sounding uncharacteristically respectful.

Ree looked at her, and they
exchanged brief, sad glances.

"I'm sorry about your father,"
I said, still at a loss for words.

No one said anything.

They're still the same goofy Rios
twins, I thought, encouraging myself. You can talk to them.

"So, who runs the company and
the restaurants?" I asked after an uncomfortable silence.

"Well, my mom and my aunt both
run the manufacturing plant, but it is really my aunt, Tía Luna, who does the
day-to-day stuff. My mom started the restaurant about seven years ago, so she's
focused mostly on that. My cousins run all the restaurants, except for the one
we run, in the valley." Ree went to the fridge to get some more juice. It's
a good thing he was rich; he could afford to replace all the juice he'd been
gulping down.

"Our family takes turns
running it every year. It's fair that way." Dess found an orange sitting
on my countertop and tore into it.

What was it with these people and
oranges?

"How soon can you move out?"
Ree asked, winking at me and chugging down his juice at the same time.

The twins helped me submit my
30-day notice to Ethan, who seemed none too pleased that I was leaving. I told
him I'd be out of there a lot earlier than 30 days, probably closer to two or
three at the most, especially since I didn't have very much furniture.

We spent the weekend packing. I was
burning with curiosity as to why they didn't live in a fancy penthouse in the
richest part of Seattle, complete with butlers, maids, and chauffeurs. They
could have one of those beautiful apartments that had floor-to-ceiling windows
with a breathtaking view of the skyline and the Space Needle.

So I asked them. And they had
different answers.

Dess apparently didn't like being
around those type of people—something I should have already guessed. She liked
people who were 'real,' not people who kissed her ass because they thought her
money would rub off on them.

Ree liked the independence and
reality of living wherever he wanted instead of being sheltered away like some
rare species. He wouldn't mind settling down somewhere really nice, he
explained, but that would be more necessary when he had a wife and kids.

"W
hy
do you work?" I asked Dess. I had gotten quite used to being around the
twins and their half-sentences and other incomplete forms of communication.

It was Sunday. Dess had gone home
on Saturday night after a full day of packing, bringing her car home with her.
Ree spent the night with me. Sadly, because I was so exhausted from the weekend
in general and from all that had happened, I fell asleep early without any more
of that amazing action he and I experienced together on Friday night. But it
was still exceptionally thrilling to sleep right beside the most wonderful,
beautiful man in existence, my famous angel millionaire, being able to reach
out and feel his perfect, smooth skin, and feeling his warmth all night.

Better still was when I had been
lucky enough to wake up and see his perfection barely-dressed and in my bed,
just asking to be attacked. I'd already been starting to thirst for his touch,
but I'd figured there'd be plenty of time for that after I'd moved out.

Dess sighed mockingly as she
continued to pack my vanity stuff in a box. "You're beginning to sound
like my mother," she whined. "Only
she
pesters me because she
wants me to work in the family business. I work to forget about… things that
happened in L.A."

I looked at Ree questioningly,
expecting him to elaborate. He didn't. Instead, he looked at Dess in a way I
had never seen before—like he was actually worried about her.

"You can tell her, Dess,"
he said quietly.

Dess laughed humorlessly. "And
lay out more family garbage for her to see? No, thanks."

"Well, we know everything
about her, for the most part," he argued. "Me especially. And now
that she realizes who we are, she'll probably find out anyway."

She sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I
know." Dess stopped and looked at me, almost looking like the shy girl I
first met at work not too long ago. "A couple years ago, our sister was
killed in a drive-by shooting."

"What? Oh, my god. I had no
idea, you guys. I'm so sorry." I felt horrible for pressing the subject.

"It's okay, Morgan. You didn't
know," Ree said calmly, taping up my box of paperbacks. "Estrella,
our sister, was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she should
not have been talking to or hanging around those people. They were gang
members."

"That's the main reason why I
moved here," Dess went on. "My mother believed that my only choices
were to either work at the restaurant and live with her where there was a lot
of security, or move to a low-crime neighborhood out-of-state until things died
down."

"And
that's
why you
moved to Washington?" I asked incredulously. I never would have guessed
that. I'd thought she had maybe been tired of L.A. and wanted to experience
something new.

"We have an aunt that owns a
Filipino store in downtown Seattle, and though we have family in different
places everywhere, Dess thought this would be a nice change of pace from
high-stress L.A. living," Ree explained.

Dess added, "And Lynnwood
seemed nice and quiet, close enough to Seattle that I could get there quickly
if I needed to. Then, as you know, Rios followed me out here to bunk with me
for a little while."

"Why didn't you just move with
her to begin with?" I asked him.

Ree blushed a little and said, "I
was, uh, in a relationship with someone and didn't want to leave the area at
the time. We broke up a few months ago, and my mom got hysterical out of
nowhere, screaming that I was going to be the next to get shot. I have no idea
why she would think that, but in the end the only way I could calm her down was
to be on the next plane to Seattle. I suspect she might have wanted Dess and me
to be together."

"Did they ever catch the
person that did it?"

He shook his head sadly.

"And that's the person your
mom thinks is after you now?"

"Maybe," Ree said under his
breath. Dess had begun noisily taping the box shut and stopped paying
attention.

"God, I'm so sorry, Ree."

"Don't worry about it, Baby,"
he said, kissing my forehead. I was starting to realize that was his go-to move
when he wanted to reassure me.

I looked down at the kitchen
utensils that I was packing, unsure of what I should say just then. I really
wanted to ask more about Estrella, but seeing as how it was an obviously touchy
subject, I left it alone.

The twins changed the topic pretty
quickly and chatted together while we continued packing up my stuff. I watched
Ree out of the corner of my eye, reflecting on this amazing soul I had come to
know, a soul that somehow had always been part of my life, whether I was aware
of it or not.  

He always insisted that I didn't
make him up, yet he had all the traits I'd ever wanted in a man. How was that
possible? I regarded him like an exquisite work of art, almost afraid to touch
him but once I did, it was almost impossible to stop. I wanted his body to be in
contact with mine on a consistent basis, because it was the only thing that
felt right. I smiled to myself suddenly, floored by the realization that he
perceived me in the same sacred way.

When he paused and looked my way, I
admired his perfect, expressive eyes and the lips that I did not even know
existed a few short months ago—lips that seemed to speak the answer to all my
life's worries.

Lips that I could kiss, adore, and
look at for the remainder of my stay on this planet.

Chapter 13

"Well, that's pretty much
everything," Dess stated proudly.

We looked around the small room.
Nearly everything was in boxes. The only real furniture I had was my mattress
(I never had a frame for it), a small dresser drawer, and a folding chair. I
walked over to the dresser drawer to make sure it was empty.

Nope. I still had a bunch of stuff
in there—frames that held photos of my parents. I sighed, not wanting to really
display it but not wanting to throw it away either.

Watching me, Ree suggested, "If
you take the entire drawer, we can just pack it that way like a box. Let's just
put some newspaper between all the frames and other stuff to prevent anything
from breaking." I had no problem with his reasoning and took the drawer
out completely, placing it carefully on the floor.

Ree came over with a newspaper he'd
bought earlier just for the express purpose of packing my miscellaneous crap. I
told him there was an easier way to do this, but he stubbornly insisted this
was the best way. I mentally shrugged and let him do it his way.

He took part of the front page and
began to crumple it up, quickly doing a double-take at something he saw on it
and straightening out the page.

"What is it, Ree?" I
asked him, approaching him cautiously. Dess probably also noticed something was
off and crept up on his other side.

He said nothing but continued to
straighten the page, pointing to an article. Apparently a few people from a
gang had been killed this week.

Scanning the article over Ree's
shoulder, Dess shook her head. "Don't worry, Rios. I don't believe it
either. This area doesn't really have gangs. If it did, it really, really won't
be like the gangs from back home." She clapped an open palm on his back.

"I'm sorry," I chimed in.
"I know how you guys must probably be sensitive to gang violence."

Ree shook his head. "No, that's
not it. Look, ladies, I'm reading through this and I'm telling you, this is not
gang violence. The police think the victims were gang members because they all
had the same tattoo—a small, red sideways number 5."

"Okay, so? What am I missing?"

"I, too, fail to see the logic
of your ways," Dess said, craning her neck to get a better look at the
accompanying photo.

"There's something else I
never told you," Ree said to Dess. Then he turned to face me. "And something
you might be interested to know."

Dess made a
tsk
sound and
looked at her twin. "What's with all the secrets, dude? 'Fess up."

Taking the article with him, he sat
on the edge of the mattress. "This one was meant to protect you, Dess. I
apologize for keeping these secrets from you, but things get complicated when
you factor in the whole LGA thing. I knew, but couldn't tell you, even though I
helped you cover it up." He looked at Dess pointedly. When their eyes met,
he looked at the tattoo inside the crook of her arm.

She gave him a quizzical look and
lifted her arm in the air, inspecting it closely as if it weren't her own. Not
understanding, I remained quiet, hoping it would all be explained to me soon.

I watched Dess as she closed her
eyes and took a breath, muttering, "Shit. I should have been told about
this, you know."

"I know, Dess. You have no
idea what it was like growing up like me, having to choose everyday whom to be
loyal to—your family, or your supernatural bosses."

She sighed and turned to me. "When
Rios and I were little, we would always talk about a birthmark I had, right
here." She pointed to the tattoo on the inside crook of her right arm—the
round, intricate symbol that I still didn't understand. "Back then, we
thought it was a sign from God."

"What did it look like?"

"It was a small, red, sideways
number 5. I used to call myself
Secret Agent Five
when I was little."

"Secret Agent Fi—" I
stopped short. "The victims of these killings. They have the same
markings."

Ree stood up again, crumpling up
the article and stuffing it inside the drawer. Dess continued to shake her
head, staring at her tattoo. "The 5 birthmark is what marks all the
Slates. It is an unforeseen side effect which is the direct result of these
antiquated gods butting in on human affairs. No offense intended," he
added hastily to Dess.

She said nothing but shook her head
again, looking unhappy.

He tousled her hair. "Dess,
you know I love you, but these are key pieces of information that I was
entrusted with from the beginning, once I got old enough to remember the LGA
primary objectives. It was necessary to keep it all to myself so that I could
remain focused on my task—er,
tasks
at hand." He snuck a quick,
affectionate glance at me.

"So why are you telling us
now?" I asked him.

He shrugged, possibly trying to
make it seem more nonchalant than he felt it was. "The game has changed
now. Now we're aware of the presence of a couple of the Melted. I also have a
feeling that since Dess has begun her Unveiling—at least to the point where she
remembers her real name, Lachesis—more demons will come to Lynnwood, almost
like sharks following a trail of blood in the ocean. But I don't think the
Melted can narrow down who a Slate is without the birthmark and thankfully,
Dess covered hers up years ago."