I pulled my attention back to my work, going over the reports once Ellen brought them in and compiling some of the information into a presentation. We were having a conference for police leadership soon and I was presenting what was likely going to be a very boring presentation. It was a boring topic and I was a fairly dry presenter, so I wasn’t anticipating being popular. Still, it might provide helpful information to some people, and I’d do my best and making sure the information was accurate.
I had several meetings during the day, discussing budget issues, an ongoing case that had been giving my officers trouble, just the normal stuff. Some days like this, I kind of regretted taking the superintendent job. I missed getting to do real police work instead of spending all day at my desk, fighting with bureaucrats and reading reports. Initially I’d been excited about my job because I would have the opportunity to make changes in Port Fylin – changes that were far overdue in some cases. But fighting for the changes was harder than I thought and now I spent most of each day dealing with administrative nonsense that wasn’t really the right fit for me.
I didn’t intend to retire yet, though. I probably had another 10 years before I’d be forced into starting over again and I might as well stick it out until then. Give the kids as long as possible together before making them have to decide if they were sticking with me and starting over or staying in Port Fylin and continuing on with their current lives.
When I arrived back home, it was to discover that Jace had attempted to cook supper. Nice thought, but terrible execution. Jace attempting to cook inevitably ended up with ruined pans, blackened walls, and at least one small fire. Today was no exception.
I interrupted Jace’s attempt to fill up a container of water and calmly walked past him, holding out my hand and allowing the fire to come to me, which it eagerly did. The fire now resolved, I turned to face Jace.
“Were you attempting to burn down the house?” I asked him mildly. “As I recall, we all voted against you cooking.”
“You recall correctly,” Elyse volunteered. She was on the living room couch, her headphones in – listening to music, most likely – but could apparently still hear us or had stopped her music once she smelled something burning. “The vote against Jace in the kitchen was unanimous, apart from Jace’s objection which was overruled.”
Jace groaned and threw his hands in the air. “I’m just trying to help! You get back late, Elyse doesn’t like cooking, and Milo’s busy with homework.”
I squeezed his shoulder gently and then started clearing away the stove. “I appreciate the thought, Jace, I really do, but maybe it would be simpler to just order something next time?”
“I could go for pizza.” Elyse pulled her headphones out. “You guys can pick the toppings.”
Elyse was willing to eat anything. Honestly, as long as it was partially edible, she was fine with it. Even stuff that most people would say wasn’t edible – too burnt, too salty, whatever – she would eat it. She didn’t like cooking, though. I’d offered to teach her so she could navigate the kitchen even without seeing, but she hated it on the occasions she tried. Cooking was just not her thing, which was fine. She liked words, and I got that. To gryphons, who couldn’t lie, words were a big deal.
“At least let me clean up,” Jace tried to take the ruined pan from me. “Since it’s my fault.”
I surrendered the pan to him and let him attempt to salvage the kitchen, shaking my head to myself at how a witch could manage to do that much damage, every single time. In theory, witches should be able to create simple charms to protect against stuff like that happening. Jace just…didn’t use magic much. He didn’t see his identity as a witch as that important and instead, to him his magic was kind of superfluous. Unnecessary. A bother. All the things most witches would never dream of calling their magic.
With Jace in charge of cleaning up, I went upstairs and knocked on Milo’s door. “Jace has ruined the chance for dinner and Elyse’s voting for pizza. You have any preference?”
Milo opened the door, but instead of answering he just fidgeted for a bit.
I recognized this look. He wanted to talk to me about something, but being in his moody teenager phase, he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to. It might not fit his image.
Holding back a smile, I held out my phone with the pizza delivery app open. “Elyse doesn’t care what we get, so why don’t you pick a topping and Jace can pick the other?”
Milo sighed like he was very aggrieved about the inconvenience of being asked his opinion, but went ahead and grabbed my phone before handing it back without speaking, looking put out – a little forlorn.
I decided to rescue him from his predicament. “Need any help with homework? I can give this to Jace and be right back.”
I didn’t even give him time to answer – a deliberate choice – before heading back downstairs, giving over my phone to Jace and directing him to order whatever Milo had picked and something he wanted, too, before returning to Milo’s room.
Milo was no longer in the door, but had left it cracked. I softly pushed it open to find him sitting on his bed, hugging a pillow.
Ah. This wasn’t about homework. This was about something more important.
I shut the door behind me and came to sit next to him, waiting in silence for him to talk about whatever it was he needed.
Milo wasn’t someone who could be forced into talking. He knew I was here for him, willing to listen, and I knew asking him what was wrong wouldn’t help – I just needed to wait for him to open up. He was already close, judging by how vulnerable he looked at the moment, but if I talked to him, it might just make him clam up instead.
So I waited, and like I expected, it didn’t take long.
“A few months back, I got in contact with another techno vampire.”
I remembered him talking about that. Techno vampires usually didn’t spend much time in close proximity to each other because they didn’t want to invade someone else’s territory, as it were, and disrupt their feeding on electronic-related energy, but Milo had chanced across one while wandering over the internet and had gotten to chatting with them. He’d been kind of excited about getting a chance to talk to someone like him.
“He quit answering.” Milo hugged his pillow harder. “He was older, I was worried so I did some digging and – and I’m pretty sure he died.”
Techno vampires didn’t leave bodies behind when they died. Proving one had died was actually somewhat difficult unless it had been witnessed. It was more likely the vampire would just simple disappear one day and never be heard from again.
I shifted a little closer to him, waiting to confirm by the way he scooted closer, too, that he was okay with me touching him. Then I wrapped him in my arms and rested my chin on top of his head.
There wasn’t much I could say here to make him feel better. He’d lost his only connection to his own people and been reminded all in one of how short his life would be. What was I supposed to say to that? My heart hurt for him and I wished I could help – I wished there was some way, any way to stop the genetic disease which killed his kind – but all I could do really was be there for him while he silently cried into my shirt collar. Gently rub his back, wishing I had the right words to tell him that would somehow make it hurt less and coming up blank.
Loss was a part of all our lives, and by inviting Milo into mine, I knew the day I brought him home as a baby that one day he would break my heart when he, too, succumbed to the disease. All the more reason to make every moment count, to give him a life he wouldn’t look back on and regret.
“I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better,” I admitted at last. “I’d do anything I could for you.”
“I know.” Milo wiped at his eyes, but didn’t pull himself upright yet. For a few moments, I could have the snuggly version of Milo he’d been as a kid. “It just sucks, we’re doomed from the moment we’re born and then our own parents don’t even want us.”
“Well,” I squeezed him gently, “selfish as it is, I’m kind of glad they gave you up because otherwise I wouldn’t have you and you are one of the best things to ever happen to me.”
He let out a forced laugh. “Yeah, that’s true. That part of it was good. You, Jace, and Elyse.”
We sat there for a while in silence again, Milo no longer crying but also just letting me hold him and keep on rubbing his back. We were eventually interrupted by Elyse yelling up the stairs that the pizza had arrived. Milo wiped his face again and got up, looking a bit embarrassed as he headed to the door and awkwardly held it open for me.
I paused long enough to kiss the top of his head before going downstairs, where we both pretended that moment hadn’t happened and that Milo still was his rebellious teenage self.
Well, not really himself. It was a persona he was trying out because he wanted to. Maybe that was part of the reason it didn’t bother me, because I knew it wasn’t real. He was still trying to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do with his all-too-short life and if there was real anger there, it wasn’t directed at me so much as just the situation he was born into. One he couldn’t avoid.
After dinner, Elyse treated us to a reading of her new poem, which left me very confused and uncertain on whether she was still speaking English. Apparently Jace felt the same way, exchanging a shrug with me, but Milo seemed to understand it more and just seemed thoughtful.
Elyse actually might not have been speaking all English. Technically, she stopped school at high school, but with Milo’s help, she had a computer that basically gave her verbal access to the internet – to all the knowledge she wanted. I knew she spent hours listening to other languages just because she enjoyed the sounds and sometimes she probably took inspiration from the languages – or even borrowed some words – possibly without knowing what they meant. To her, sometimes the important thing was usually the words, but sometimes it was also just the sounds. This seemed to be one of the sound poems.
Elyse actually had a pretty strong following on social media and made some money from her poems. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to support herself, but she didn’t need to as far as I was concerned – I was more than happy to provide for her as long as she wanted.
To be honest, I’d do just about anything for any of my kids. We might not be biologically related, but we were still family and that would never change.
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