Chapter 11

11

I f you think you're ready, be prepared to run. Whatever you do, don't look back.

Much smaller words were written underneath that, and I had to squint to make them out.

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." ― Anton Chekhov

I blinked at the journal's words, unsure what to make of them. It didn't feel ominous, per se, but it was far from comforting. Maybe if it had been more along the lines of 'Don't worry, you're not going to die yet' or 'You and your sister will both be fine,' I would have felt a little better. Instead, I was just told to run, which told me, considering how right my mysterious friend always seemed to be, that my parents would catch us. I didn't have a good feeling about that. I'd have to remember to tell Abby. Also, who was Anton Chekhov, and why was he talking about broken glass? I'd have to look him up later.

Thanks. Pray for me. I'll need it.

I closed the journal and sighed heavily. There was no point in worrying. Either it would happen, or it wouldn't. I told myself to let it go while I was sleeping and do something more relaxing with my time. Which meant I ended up in the conservatory, scrubbing the floor. It was thankfully nearing the point of being completely clean, and I was looking forward to scrubbing something that didn't require me to be on my hands and knees on a tile floor. Granted, it really shouldn't hurt in a dream, but the human brain is funny. It made me think there was pain involved.

It was while I was scrubbing that Gabe showed up. I wasn't surprised. He knew our grandfather would see us today, and I'd expected him to ask me how it went if Beelzebub hadn't told Gabe himself. "Wow, it's looking terrific in here," he said softly when he arrived, probably in an effort not to startle me. "It was so grungy when you started that I almost don't recognize the floor now." He paused, and then I heard him walk closer. "Actually, I don't recognize the floor," he admitted as his clawed feet came into view. "I never would have guessed something so vibrant was under all that muck."

I stood slowly, Gabe putting a hand on my elbow for support as I did. "Yeah, it was pretty gross," I admitted with a weak grin.

"It's nice to see it looking better." I turned my attention off the floor and looked at him. His face was etched with concern.

"Thanks for the cookies," I said. "They were just as good in real life as they were here. Abby sends her thanks, too. Something about us winning the sibling lottery."

Gabe grinned, though the worry didn't leave his face. "I try," he said. He stared at me for a moment, then sighed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm scared," I told him, opting for honesty. "Like, really scared. My pen pal told me to be ready to run."

My brother grimaced, his fangs peeking out from behind curled lips. "You could just come to stay with us," he told me after collecting his thoughts. "Rose has enough to get them in trouble, right? The old man told me about the recording. Jesus, Abby has more guts than any of the rest of us. She's fucking fearless ."

"She's tired of being abused," I corrected. "She's putting her foot down and taking a stand. I have to do the same. Yeah, the recording will get them in trouble for hitting their kids, but there's no guarantee any investigation will turn up proof of their widespread sexual abuse. So I don't have the option of just leaving, as much as I'd like to. If I don't get them locked away and they hurt someone else, I'd never be able to forgive myself." I thought about explaining my feelings, but it was hard to put into words. "I'm lucky because I ended up with you and Abby and Stan and everyone to help me out. The next kid might not be so lucky."

Gabe heaved another sigh, then reached over to ruffle my hair. "Yeah," he said. "I get it. I just wish I could spare you from it. God knows I'd be there with you myself if I could." He gave me a smirk. "Literally, God knows. I gave him hell for not letting me protect you, but those stupid rules..."

"Grandfather called it...Calvinball?"

My brother let out a burst of laughter I hadn't expected. "Oh god," he wheezed through a chortle. "Oh, that's exactly what it is."

I sighed and gave him a look that spoke volumes about having no idea what he was talking about.

"Sorry," Gabe said, clearing his throat. "I'll explain it later, just know the description is apt. Seriously, though, you've been through enough. Both you and Abby. You're both good kids, and I don't want you hurt or worse."

"We'll be okay," I assured him, though I wasn't sure I believed the statement. "I think the wait is killing me more than anything. I just want it done so I never have to look at them again."

"Yeah," Gabe agreed. "I get it." He looked around. "Come on, I'll help you scrub."

"Really?" I asked, taken aback. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the help, but are you sure?"

"Yeah." Gabe grabbed a scrub brush and gave me a wry smile. "I could use something to take my mind off of nerves, too. Because you're not the only one worried about your impending break-in, little brother, even if I know you'll be safe no matter the outcome."

"Okay," I agreed, getting back on my knees to scrub at the grout that still bore stains. "What do you want to talk about instead, then?"

He thought about it for a minute, taking the time to get on the ground next to me and work on his own patch of tile. "Oh, I know," Gabe said after a moment. "What was your gay awakening?"

"My what?" I asked, looking at him in confusion.

He grinned. "What made you realize you like guys?"

"Oh," I said, my face getting slightly warm. "Well, it was a dream."

"I see," Gabe said, smirking.

My face heated even more, and I was pretty sure I probably looked like a tomato. "Not that kind of dream," I told him. "I was like twelve, and the moment I fell asleep, I was in someone's kitchen. Blond guy, kind of..." I paused, thinking about it. "I want to say short. He was about my height at the time, and I've gained a good four or five inches since then. Anyway, he was getting ingredients together and looked surprised to see me. I didn't think anything of it because it was just a dream, but now that I know I probably have some kind of ability to travel between dreams..."

"You think maybe you accidentally ended up in his dream?"

I shrugged before turning my attention back to the task at hand. "I don't know," I said honestly. "But why would someone in my own dream be surprised to see me? So I have to wonder. Anyway, he told me he was going to bake a cake and asked if I wanted to help, so I agreed. He said he was making something called a Watergate Cake, and I remember there was a cake mix involved, along with another small box of something, but that's neither here nor there. I asked him what he was making the cake for, and he said he wanted to take it to a meeting for work. When I asked why, he said, 'Well, they say that a party without a cake is just a meeting, so I'm hoping I can turn the meeting into a party if I bring cake.'"

Gabe stopped, going so still it was like time had halted. Then his head turned so slowly I could almost hear it creak. It was eerie, honestly, and I wasn't sure what I'd said to get that reaction. "You said he was blond?" he asked, his voice unnaturally calm. "And short?"

"Um, yes?" I said, my voice quivering a little.

"I'm not mad at you," he said, though his voice lost none of its edge. "So, he was short, he had blond hair probably down to his shoulder blades, and was wearing a ridiculous-looking pink apron with large black polka-dots?"

Suddenly, I felt dizzy and had to stop and lean back. "Gabe, how did you know that?"

"I'm going to kill him," Gabe growled. "I will absolutely kill him for not telling me he'd already met you."

"Wait," I said, holding up a hand. "You mean he's real ?"

That, of course, was when I woke up, my stomach in knots. I'd started scrubbing the conservatory floor to work off nervous energy and had instead made things so much more confusing and stressful. I wished I'd been able to stay asleep to get the answer I desperately wanted to hear, but I could interrogate my brother when I went to bed next. Or if I saw him in person, considering how the night might go.

I'd once again woken up far too early, but it was too late to go back to sleep and get any decent rest before my alarm went off. I opted to read instead and try to take my mind off the far too many things banging around in it, grabbing one of my library books. As I opened it, there was a tiny knock on my door. It opened slowly, and Abby peeked in. "Morning," I said softly. "You're up early."

She crept in and shut the door. "Same to you," she whispered back. I moved over and offered her space under my blanket. The morning was cold, and our parents didn't run the heat as much as I would have liked because they were assholes who loved their money more than their kids. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," I told her. "Sort of. I'm scared."

Abby nodded. "Yeah. Me too. Gabe told me he thinks we'll be fine, but he seemed worried even while saying it."

That gave me a start. "You saw Gabe?" I asked.

She nodded again. "He said he'd see you after. He just wanted to make sure I was doing okay. He also asked if I was sure I didn't want to go to Hell with you. When I explained, though, I think he kind of got it. So that was nice."

"I still don't get it," I admitted. "But that doesn't mean I won't respect your decision, so long as you have other plans to keep you safe."

Abby grinned at me. "I know. Did you see Gabe?"

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "I did. He's worried, like you thought. Deep down, my gut says you and I will be fine. It's just..."

"The wait," she supplied.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's the wait. The not knowing. It'll be fine once it's over but in the meantime..." I sighed and told her about what I'd seen in the journal. "So I think we're going to get caught no matter what we do."

"Maybe not," she argued. "Maybe your friend is just warning us to be ready, just in case." She reached a hand out from under the blanket and patted my shoulder. "Try not to stress over it too much."

"We're doing the right thing," I sighed. "Right?"

"Right."

I sighed again, and Abby bumped her shoulder against mine. "We'll be okay because we've got each other," she said firmly.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, we'll be okay."

Breakfast seemed even more subdued than usual that morning, and our father didn't even bother with a sermon, which seemed more disturbing than I'd thought it would be. It made me nervous. Did they know something was up? Had they somehow found out what we were going to do? It was probably nothing, but the change in their behavior made me paranoid.

"Do you feel like something's going on?" I whispered to Abby before we entered the school building that morning.

"Yeah," she agreed. "But we don't know it's about us, so there's no point worrying about it."

She was right, but that was easier said than done. She promised to get me for lunch for another round of lock-picking practice with Gus, and we went to our respective classrooms. It was a good thing I wasn't worried about my grades because I failed to take in any information thrown at me that morning. By the time lunch rolled around, I'd just spent the first half of the day dwelling on what was happening with my parents, why they were being weird, and what would happen that night. The whole thing made me queasy, and I was probably more than a little green when the bell rang.

"You look like crap," Abby said when she saw me, confirming my suspicion.

"Love you too," I told her. "I really don't feel good."

"I can tell," she said. "You want lunch?"

I thought about it. It was hamburger day. "Yeah," I said, because hamburger day meant tater tots, which my mother would never serve at home. I said as much to Abby, and she rolled her eyes but also she didn't argue with me about it. Instead, she led me to the cafeteria before joining me in the basement.

Amusingly, having some of those greasy little starch bombs in my stomach made me feel better. You'd think it would be the opposite, but fried potatoes were magic. As we were finishing up, Gus arrived, whistling a cheerful tune.

"Well," he said when he saw us, "it's my two favorite apprentices. Are you both ready to break some more rules?"

We both chuckled a little at that before Abby spoke up. "Actually, about that..."

She went into some detail about how we both knew our parents would react badly if we got caught and eventually asked about getting into the school after hours to hide ourselves. Gus frowned. "I feel like this is far more serious than you've let on."

Abby and I exchanged a glance. "Yeah," I admitted. "It is. Our grandfather will protect us as much as possible, but he can't be in the vicinity while we're doing what we're doing. For...legal reasons."

Okay so it was more 'the gods would be angry' reasons, but I couldn't tell him that. Legal reasons sounded like a genuine enough thing.

Abby nodded. "Exactly. We just have to hide until he can get us," she said. "He knows what we're doing."

Gus stared at the two of us with no emotion to betray his thoughts. "Your parents have done something pretty horrible, haven't they?" he finally asked.

We both looked away, unable to answer.

"Well, lucky for you, the school grounds are poorly patrolled at night, and there are no gates to keep people out. Also, I happen to have a spare key to the basement door so that you can come down here in the event of an emergency." He narrowed his eyes a little. "But you didn't get it from me, you understand? I don't want to go back to jail."

That caught me off guard. "Back?" I asked.

He nodded slowly. "I didn't learn how to pick locks here," he admitted. "And certainly not because of a supply closet. Let's leave it at that. Just know that your parents, who head this school, are aware of my situation and love to use it against me. Do you know how hard it is for a former convict to get a decent job? I'll be here until I die thanks to their machinations and getting caught—uh, I mean 'making poor life choices'." He gave us a fake smile. "Don't try to make a living breaking into places you're not welcome, kids."

So our kindly old janitor was a cat burglar? And one who was more upset about getting caught than about what he'd done in the past, from the sound of it. That wasn't what I'd expected, but the more I thought about it, the more the pieces fit. I wasn't going to hold it against him, considering that he was helping us, even if he was getting some personal vindication out of it. "Okay," I said. "We didn't get it from you. And we won't ask questions."

"Yeah," Abby said. "Gus is Gus."

"Thanks," Gus said softly, patting both our heads. "I appreciate it. Now, who wants to pick some locks?"

By the time lunch ended and we headed back to class, I felt a little more confident that I'd pull things off, but I was still a ball of nerves. The more I thought about it, the worse it got, so I tried to distract myself by paying attention in class. That was a mistake because I nearly nodded off from boredom. As much as I wanted to hide in the conservatory for a while, my parents would hear about it if I slept in class.

Somehow, though, I made it through the rest of the day. Abby and I trudged home, interrupted only by the honk of a horn and the scornful laughs of our brothers. David had been given a car during his senior year for good grades (and being a general suck-up, I was sure), and the two enjoyed taunting us when they could.

"The way he drives, we'd end up dead even if he did offer us a ride," Abby snorted. "Besides, who wants to get back to that house faster ?"

"Seriously," I grumbled. "I look forward to them finding out they are not, in fact, what God was hoping for. Maybe we can have Gabe feed them to a hellhound or something."

Abby wrinkled her nose. "Why on earth would you do that? The poor hellhound would never be the same. Isn't that animal cruelty?"

"Yeah, you've got a point," I laughed. "Maybe we can have them in perpetual nightmares of being in the middle of town naked while people laugh at them or something. Something that won't hurt their bodies but will damage their egos." The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. That probably didn't make me a great person, but I could live with that. If I stepped too far off the path of a decent human being, Gabe would smack some sense into me. Probably literally.

"Oh well," Abby sighed. "At least we know how things will end."

I grinned. "Yeah. They and our parents are in for a very warm afterlife."