Anomalous

13-Looks Like We've Got A Stowaway

The rest of the trip to Cannon Falls is pretty quiet.

The conversations have lulled to the occasional whisper, and I mostly look out the window.

I want so desperately to ask Leila about her brother, but I think that's too many big questions for one car ride.

"Only 5 minutes away!" Leila calls back.

It was at this moment, that I decide to look back and see how the kids are doing.

Hannie and Nora and trying to figure out a game of cat's cradle, and Christian's head is resting on the window, asleep.

In the back, Emmanuelle has fallen asleep on Oakley. Oakley catches my eyes and gives me a big grin and thumbs-up.

I smile and thumbs-up back. Beside them, Mercedes grumpily stares at the sleeping Emmanuelle.

Ooh, looks like someone's jealous. What a vicious love triangle.

Even though it's only around 2:00, I can understand why these kids are falling asleep. They've been unconscious for who knows how long, they haven't been this active (even in a car) in a while.

"Okay, Christian, time for you to direct us," Leila says, eyeing the streets ahead.

I turn around and poke Christian's face.

"Wake up, buddy," I say, as he opens his eyes. He rubs the sleep out of them, and just like that, he's telling Leila where to turn.

With a stifled yawn, he points out a big, old, brick house.

He thanks us, and we tell him goodbye.

When the door opens, probably 3 or 4 kids of all ages engulf Christian in a hug. Then his parents appear, shooing what I can only assume are his siblings away.

They laugh and cry and squeeze the crap out of Christian.

Leila quietly backs out of the driveway, leaving the family to reunite.

"Okay, only Emmanuelle left. Should be about an hour and a half until Minneapolis," Leila says, quickly glancing at the van's GPS screen.

"Alrighty, settle in then," I mutter leaning my head against the window.

For a while, it's just peaceful. Quiet conversations in the back, me in an almost-asleep trance, listening to the hum of the car.

Eventually, though, I have to say something.

"Leila, I...um, what...happened to your...brother?" I ask nervously, and I'm not usually nervous about asking big questions.

Leila doesn't get angry with me like I thought she would, she just seems upset. She sighs deeply.

"I'm not even going to ask how you found that out, I'm just going to tell you. Then, hopefully this is the last person I'll have to say it to, and we can just leave this topic alone. Okay, so my little brother's anomaly was that he could see through things. Tables, chairs, beds, dressers, walls, even through the ground. Sometimes he would describe to me how pretty the Earth's core was. He always made it sound so beautiful. He made everything sound so beautiful. One night, though, we had a little run-in with the night-shadows. I don't know how they found Juliette's apartment, all I know is that they took him in the night. That wasn't the last time we saw him, though, he managed to make his way home. We were so happy, we thought we had lost him. He was badly injured, though, so we rushed him to the hospital. This was before Juliette had complete control and strength of her power, so we couldn't just rely on her. We got to the hospital, and he was taken care of quickly. His cuts were stitched up, but he was complaining of a headache and had thrown up earlier, so they scanned him for a concussion. We didn't know that would lead to them finding the abnormality. It was in his eyes, and they wanted to check it out. They thought it was a disease, so they tried to extract it. My brother not only lost his anomaly, he ended up passing away in the hospital that night. The doctors were getting careless and...excited, I suppose, during the surgeries, because they thought they had discovered a new disease. Anyway, that was the first and only time I'm going to let that happen. Never again," Leila explains, tears welling up in her eyes as she tells the story.