Chaos Descending

Decisions

Chapter 2— Decisions

I bolted upright with a huge gasp of breath, eyes frantically searching my surroundings. Chest heaving up and down in the near blinding light of the midday sun, realization slowly dawned on me that I was back in my own room. Not only that, but my muscles no longer hurt when I moved. Flexing my arms, I was shocked to discover that I was completely pain free. Stranger still, when I attempted to clear my throat it no longer felt like I'd gargled with sand. Struggling to make sense of it all, not to mention how I'd gotten here, I also found myself drenched from head to toe in sweat and utterly, utterly alone.

At least for a moment. Too bad it didn't last long.

I jumped when I heard my mom's persistent knock again. "Chaos, can you hear me?"

I flashed back to the dream, fingertips nervously skipping around my mouth to feel my teeth and sighed in relief. "No fangs, thank God!"

"Did you say something, Chaotic?" The door to my room swung freely open and in walked my mom wearing a pair of fuzzy rainbow colored slippers with her favorite bright pink bathrobe tied around her waist. The color hurt my eyes.

"Nothing," I lied. "I didn't say anything."

By the time she reached my bed, I had already scooted all the way up with my back pressed against the headboard. She sat down on the bed beside me, reaching to smooth a fringe of heavy red bangs out of my face like she used to do when I was little. Eyes full of worry, she murmured aloud more to herself than to me. "I didn't think you were ever going to wake up."

"How long have I been out?"

"I'm not quite sure. It feels like it's been forever," she admitted.

Shaking the remaining cobwebs from my brain, or attempting to anyway, I mumbled, "How did I get here?"

She gave a shrug. "One of our volunteers from the farm lives in Kalamazoo. He found you curled up in the middle of the road and called Chief Madden. He delivered you home safely. You've been out cold ever since." Fear strangled her voice. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know," I lied again, unsure of how much I was willing to share. Truth be told, I really wasn't even sure how much she knew about me becoming an angel. This didn't really seem like the right time to bring it up. Besides, the last time I saw her we were in Hell. I had to help her escape before Serenity could feed her to my friends. I never even knew if she'd made it to safety, until now. I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her tight. "I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again."

That right there was the God's-honest truth.

Neither of us said anything for a few frozen seconds. When mom finally spoke, she leaned away so she could look me in the face. The naked pain I glimpsed in her eyes matched the quiver in her voice. "I never wanted any of this for you, Chaos. You have to believe that."

I sat up a little straighter, swallowing past a lump in my throat. "I know."

She shook her head, giving my hand a squeeze. "No. I don't think that you do. I'm your mother. I should have prepared you. I thought not knowing what you were going to become would keep you safe."

"No, it's my fault," I insisted, taking all the blame. "I pushed you away. I thought I could hide what was happening to me."

She gave a laugh. "You thought you could hide the hole in my wall, and the even bigger hole you put in the roof of the barn?"

I gasped in surprise. "You knew about that?"

"It was kind of hard to miss."

Something suddenly occurred to me. There was only one way she could have known. The single word died in my throat. "Dad?"