Between Shadow & Ruin (Fangs & Fae Saga Book 2)

thirty-one.

That night after we ate dinner, and the kids watched some TV before bed we decided to tell Odie what we found. We asked the twins to head to bed; they were reluctant as they hadn't seen us in a week, but we needed privacy. Odie was wringing his hands together in nervousness. I put one hand on his leg.

"Don't be nervous," I said.

"I'm sorry, Momma. I know this has something to do with..." he said, pointing towards the school.

"It does."

"We found a way to help you," Val said, bringing the jar downstairs.

"What is that?" he said, pointing to it. The way the magic was stored let them see it swirling around the jar.

"It's pure light magic. Your Poppa and I ... worked really hard to get you this much. It should help you fight the darkness."

"What do I do with it? How am I supposed to use that?"

"The darkness is chaos because it's all dark magic," Zane said. "We need to be balanced. The only way to fight it is to fight it with light magic. But if you use that much of your own light, you'll be no better. So, you'll pull from us as well as use this to fight it."

"'Pull from you'? Like siphon you? No. I won't do it."

"Honey, we'll be fine," Val said.

"But can't that hurt you? How are you going to defend yourselves? If I pull all of your light magic, won't you go dark!?" Odie asked, nervously.

"We won't let you pull all of our light magic, don't worry. But that jar has a lot as it is. You use that as a last-ditch effort, okay? You won't have to use your own as much. It will amplify yours, but it won't last forever." I could see Odie was now more nervous than he was before.

"It's kind of hard knowing that all of this rests on my shoulders. What happens if I can't do it? What happens if I can't win? What will happen to me?"

"What do you mean?" Chris asked.

"What will happen to me if I can't win? What will happen to me if I do win?" I put my arm around his shoulders, and he leaned his head on mine. I looked at Val, Zane, and Chris very seriously as I felt Odie's tears soak through my shirt.

"We can't keep sugar coating this anymore," I said.

"Liz –" Val started.

"No. I won't let him get hurt or worse because we couldn't tell him the truth. You said it yourself. We should've told him about this long ago." Val took a sharp breath in, flaring her nostrils as she put the jar on the coffee table. Zane crossed his arms across his chest. "Odie, this fight? It's going to fucking suck. You're probably going to get hurt. We're probably going to get hurt. It's not like we've had a great track record with big fights in this family."

"But the important thing to remember is that if you can breathe, you can fight," Val said.

"That's... that's a little dark, Mom," Odie said.

"Yeah, but your mother's right. I won't let you fail because of my own selfishness in not wanting you to lose your innocence. I blocked your memory of something really traumatic that happened to you when you were little, thinking it was protecting you. But all I did was hinder your learning." Odie's eyes darted around as he thought about what Val was talking about. He scrunched his nose for a second.

"Are you talking about ... about what happened with Uncle Ray and Aunt Aria? It was my birthday, wasn't it?" He looked up at us. "I can't really remember it... but I remember bits and pieces. It's almost like a dream." I felt him tense up under my arm. "Th-they fed on me, didn't they?"