Surviving Paradise (Full Draft Version)

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 37

Swiveling her chair around to face the doctor, she forced her gaping mouth closed.

"You have a brother?"

Understandably, Sayer was surprised. As medical cohorts, they had spent many an hour together, and even the smallest details of life slipped out with enough time, unless deliberately held back. The subject of her sibling was always purposely withheld from anyone. Unearthing her phone, she found four stacked calls from her parent's home number.

"Sort of." Alex had never been interested in being siblings. What little she remembered of him, actually consisted of a time he had wished aloud to be an only child. That alone wouldn't have meant anything, since many kids said the same thing, at one time or another, but Alex had pretty much ignored her when they were growing up. Later, she had only tagged along, with her parents, to the state prison twice. "I haven't seen him in around five years." Trailing off, she glanced back at the phone, a strange fugue state stealing through her. "I will be right back to help you set up...I'm sorry..."

Briskly, she strode the halls, mechanically smiling at the everyday staff. In an area, known to have good reception, she pulled up the call screen, and jabbed at the four.

"Mom?"

Which is all she had to say. Gushing out the news, that Alex had been released a couple of weeks earlier than expected, she explained that he had taken the bus to Paradise, and that he would be helping them pack up the house in the coming weeks. The maternal parent was on cloud nine, and Allisa wondered if her father was just as happy to have the boy home.

Declining the invitation to supper, she was glad, for the first time, of the gaggle of vampires that would be through the lab this evening. When the call ended, she was disconcerted. All were upsetting, her brother was back, she would attend an obligatory family lunch the next day, and just the general reminder that her parents would no longer be just down the street in two weeks. The only good that had come of that phone call, was impressing upon her mother that it was not a good idea for Alex to be coming here to her work. With any luck, he would heed that second hand message, and it wouldn't happen again.

Longingly, she held the phone for a few seconds more, before deciding that there was not enough time to make even quick explanations to Will, although she desperately craved his voice, and virtual shoulder. Will knew her brother existed, but other than the explanation of where he was and why, there had only been a couple of other short mentions.

Stopping in the office, she grabbed the few things needed from there, before continuing down the hall, where Sayer had almost completed lab set up. Gabrielle appeared, in that habitual freaky way she had, of being absent, then present within the same second. Allisa made small talk while stocking the two stations that she would be using that night. Using her brother's unexpected arrival to her advantage, she actually spoke of it briefly to Gabrielle and Sayer, hoping that would make any nerves Gabrielle picked up on, seem like family problems, not fear of Ashton's secret being discovered.

The evening passed fairly fast. Allisa slipped away a couple of times, for a couple of minutes each, to the little room where Will was playing a game on his phone. Ashton had not come this time, and again she stressed to her overprotective boyfriend that she was safe, that he could go home, kill some zombies. Will didn't even bother to shake his head, just propped an ankle up on one knee, settling in for the hours to come.

Knowing the walls had ears, she did not bring up the subject of her brother until they were home, a few hours before daylight, readying for bed.

"So he just came up to your work?" Will frowned, and it made her feel better to know he considered her brother's actions as unusual as she had.