Page 52 of Lightning Angel
Alexa blinked. “An ant?”
Tristan spluttered a laugh, a hollow one. “Aunt,” he corrected her. “One of my aunts.”
She stared at him for a moment, incredulous, before asking slowly, “Your auntbityou?”Was she a vampire or something?
“She cursed me.”
Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. She couldn’t be hearingthis!“W-why would your aunt curse you? What is she?”
“She’s a witch.” Tristan’s eyes dimmed with each answer he gave her.
“Oh, my God…”
“And it’s a long story.”
Alexa composed herself and sat straight in her lounge, leaning forward. She studied his eyes before prompting softly, “Tell me.”
Tristan looked to the bookshelf behind her, staring unfocused, as though he was gathering his words. And when he began, Alexa realized there was no turning back from this.
She had chosen to fall into the rabbit hole.
10
Rabbit Hole
“Her name was Merissa,” Tristan began.
“Sounds fitting for a witch.”
“I’ve thought so, too. But she wasn’t always a witch.” He paused. “She was my dad’s best friend.”
“And she cursed her brother’s son?” Alexa couldn’t believe it.
“She was my mother’s cousin, Alexa.”
“Oh—” Alexa stopped short. “I thought you were referring to a dynamic sibling relationship because you said she’s your aunt.”
“No. Merissa and my dad were best friends since junior high and throughout their college years,” he explained. “Somewhere along the way, she developed feelings for him. My dad didn’t know it because he had friend-zoned her long ago. She neverbrought it up between them either. Then, my mom and her family moved across the state to here. My dad met her at Merissa’s birthday party. They fell in love. Merissa was hurt and furious when she found out—when Dad told her he was in love with her cousin—and professed her love for him. Dad was shocked. He told her he only ever saw her as a friend, that it could never be anything more than that. He loved her as a friend and he didn’t want this to strain their friendship, but Merissa was… Well, she didn’t want anything to do with my dad after he refused her love for him.
“A week later, she disappeared. No one knew where she was. All she left behind was a letter that said she didn’t want anyone to go looking for her, that they wouldn’t find her if they did. Her family sought help from the cops despite her words, but it was futile. Years passed, my parents got married, and they had me. When I was three, one day, Merissa showed up at our doorstep.”
Alexa gasped softly.
“Dad said that she had looked so changed then, that she was no longer the sweet girl he had known. She claimed she had come to apologize, that she wanted a fresh start with my dad and my mom, and that she brought presents for her new nephew…”
Tristan’s gaze hardened at the floor rug he was staring at. Alexa held her breath, watching him, her heart beating with trepidation for what happens next in the story.
“My parents believed her. They welcomed her warmly. She even delivered an apology speech,” Tristan said with a cold laugh, just before his facial expression shifted into a mournful one. “Mom was five months pregnant with my little sister, and she congratulated myparents.”
Tristan lifted his eyes from the rug and met Alexa’s. The intensity of pain in those electric-blue eyes shattered her. Her own eyes brimmed with tears.
“They believed her, in her change, in her ruse. Yes, she brought me presents true to her word, all of them lightning bolt toys. But the one she had mainly intended to give me, the one that brought her to our doorstep all the way from her hiding place, was one to destroy my life—her revenge on my parents. They didn’t realize she was a witch, not until after she slipped a potion into my orange juice when Mom didn’t notice and chanted in a strange language as I drank it.
“I passed out immediately. Mom was horrified. It was at that moment Merissa dropped her mask. Dad said that she was standing next to them as they fretted over me, with a calm and satisfied expression on her face. When he looked at her, there was glee in her eyes. He immediately realized she had done something and demanded it of her. She didn’t hesitate to explain what she did.I cursed your precious product of love.Those were her exact words.”
Tristan heaved a weary sigh and continued, “She then began blabbering about her witchcraft; that she had been training and waiting and experimenting on animals for this very moment, all these years, after she realized she could exact revenge on my parents. That’s why she disappeared without a word all those years ago. Merissa said I wouldn’t wake up until the next lightning stroke the skies; when it did, my parents should lay me outside in the opening where it would flash on me. Dad called her crazy and almost took me to the hospital when Merissa calledhimcrazy and said there was no cure for me inmodern medicine or anywhere in the world—other than death itself.
“If they didn’t do as she said, I’d die on the next day the first lightning touched the earth. And when the lightning did flash over me, my curse would activate… permanently. It wasdo or die. My parents chose the first option.”