Page 23 of Lightning Angel
“Don’t worry. She’ll listen. She’s not heartless.”Likeyouwould have been,she added in her mind, but refused to voice it. Alexa wasn’t one to step on someone who hadfallen already.
“Please don’t hang up on me,” Melissa pleaded.
“I won’t,” Alexa promised. “Now, listen to me. Get up and move out of your room. Once you’re out of your house, I’ll call Daph and ask her to let you in.”
“But Alexa, didn’t you hearitbefore? The ghost is outside my door!” Melissa sounded like a frightened little girl that it softened Alexa’s heart slightly toward her.
She softened her voice, almost crooning-like. “Don’t worry, Mel. It won’t hurt you. If it’s in your house to bring me justice, it will surely listen to me. I’ll tell it to not stand in your way. Alright?”
“Alright,” Melissa agreed. There was a shuffling noise and Melissa said, “I’m ready—I’m notready, but I’m going to open the door. I’m putting you on speaker. And don’t hang up on me until I reach Daphne’s.”
“I promise.”
“You’re on speaker.”
Alexa took a deep breath. It felt silly, amusing, and strange altogether as she opened her mouth to speak.
“Hey…there,whoever you are that is haunting Melissa.” She paused, getting a strange feeling that someone was listening. Why did it feel like ahe? Was it really her dad’s ghost? “She has apologized to me and I have forgiven her. Please leave her alone and never haunt her again. Don’t hurt her, please. Let her go.”
Melissa thanked Alexa, and then she heard her break into a run, all while talking aloud to Alexa for her own assurance. When she reached Daphne’s doorstep—located four houses from hers—Alexa promised to call her right after she had called Daphne.
She hung up and stared at the phone screen, releasing the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.What the heck just happened?
5
Lightning Knight
Cassie’s Taylor Swift playlist blared through the speakers as Alexa walked into the kitchen the next morning. Her sister stood at the stove with her back to the doorway as she sang along, with a little dance in her steps, turning over the pancakes on the griddle.
Alexa walked over to the island and lowered the volume, catching Cassie’s attention. She turned and greeted Alexa with a warm smile. “Hello there, sunshine. Breakfast is almost ready.”
She sounded like a mother when she used that dialogue. And she might as well have been one.
Cassie became Alexa’s mother-sister after their mother abandoned them. They hadn’t always been this close. When they were younger, they enjoyed pointing out eachother’s flaws. Ratting each other out to their parents, particularly their mother, and enjoying watching the other be punished was a usual occurrence in their lives. Despite their five-year age difference, Alexa and Cassie had experienced every sibling rivalry that existed at the time.
But tragedy pushed them together until they had no one but each other to rely and count on, until they realized no one understood them better than they did each other. Despite their childhood rivalry, they deeply cared for each other, and they had no one but each other to cry on without being ashamed or judged.
Alexa still remembered the early days of their parents’ intense arguments. Their voices would ricochet through the walls and reach her in her bedroom, and Cassie would place a headset over Alexa’s ears, playing her favorite songs at high volume. It used to help block out the arguing voices, and Cassie would go down and try to bring some order to the situation.
The more this went on, the closer they became. By the time their parents divorced, their bond had become unbreakable, and it refused to let them remain broken as a result of the chaos. They went through it all together; since then, Alexa’s sisterhood had served as her anchor in the storm.
They trusted each other more than anyone in the universe, loved each other unconditionally, and knew each other like the back of their hands. If anyone claimed to know her sister better than she did, Alexa wouldn’t forgive them. Even when Brandon married her sister, she would simply let him pretend he knew Cassie better than she did.
Her sister had been Alexa’s everything, even when herdad was still alive. He had been a wonderful dad. Despite his sorrow over the divorce, he had prioritized their happiness—theyhad been his priority. Unlike their mother, who claimed to love them before abandoning them, their dad never did. He had been with them till his last breath, loving them and trying to be the greatest dad he could be.
“Morning, sis,” Alexa greeted back as she made her way toward Cassie and gave her a peck on the cheek. “You’re not going to believe what happened last night.”
“Last night?”
“Midnight,” Alexa clarified, leaning her back against the counter as she stood side-facing her sister. “You might need to brace yourself for this, because I bet you’ve never heard anything like this before—areallife incident like this. You might even be inspired to write a book.”
Cassie turned to her with an incredulous but amused look, crossing her arms with spatula in hand. “You’re driving me insanely curious. Spit it out already.”
Alexa took a deep breath, unsure where to start and how to deliver the story. She wasn’t a storyteller like her sister, after all. But she could try going from the beginning.
“Melissa called me at midnight in a fit of sobs and apologized for yesterday.”
Cassie blinked.