Chapter Fourteen

 

 

“I’m confused.” Saffron was sitting at the table in the kitchen with Sage and Ven. Xander and Caden were cooking. She had to control the smile on her face. The sight of Xander cooking with his brother made her heart pound. The love between them was clear. If she had her phone, she’d sneak and take a picture of it.

Ven handed her a phone and winked. He was way too spooky for her peace of mind, but she shrugged there were too many other things to worry about. She did get several nice pictures of them.

“It makes a strange kind of sense.”

Sage turned to look at Ven. “What do you mean?”

“Up to now, there have only been female deaths. You almost had to wonder why they never killed a male.”

“I assume Richard killed thing one because I’m still alive.”

“Why did he want to kill you?” Xander walked over to her and kissed her cheek while placing a glass of apple juice in front of her.

She missed the apartment and making orange juice together. There were moments like these when she wished it was just the two of them, so she could climb in his lap and shut the world away.

“He said that Jim was supposed to kill the door, but he failed. That meant he couldn’t have a door and a key running around.” She had spent the night wondering what it all meant but was unable to really get her thoughts straight.

Xander picked her up, sat on her chair and placed her in his lap.

“How did I miss this the first time you said you were the key?”

“Do you know what that means?”

“No, but I know who the door is.”

Caden was holding Sage tightly in his arms looking at Saffron before he finally sat down.

“Someone start from the beginning and tell me what’s going on.”

Ven looked around the table to see who was going to speak. Everyone seemed locked in a staring contest.

“Sage came to us because her boyfriend was trying to sacrifice her.”

Saffron looked at her. “Jim?”

“Yeah, did you know him?”

“Not really. I do remember the first time I met him; he spoke about his girlfriend. He called you amazing.”

A smile touched Sage's lips for a minute. Memories of what could have been danced before her eyes until thoughts of what really happened killed them viciously.

“I know the next time I met him; he was different. But that’s all I know about him. If not for Richard continually mentioning his name, I wouldn’t even remember those two meetings.”

“Some nights I wake up shaking, and I have to remind myself he wasn’t always like that. This may sound strange, and I know Caden is mine, but I wish at times that Jim had lived the right life so he could have found what I found. There are times I think that this is all he wanted. Then I remember he desired power.”

Saffron and Sage stopped talking looking at each other hopelessly.

“He tried several times to kill Sage. In the end, Caden took care of him.”

“I won’t ask how the less I know, the better. What does being a door mean?”

“I don’t know. He went on and on about me opening a door between two worlds. What does being a key mean?”

“Not sure. I fit into the lock so I can allow the door to be open or closed. However, if you were dead wouldn’t it mean that the door was either permanently open or closed?”

“It’s hard to tell what a crazy person is thinking.”

“I agree.” She stared at Sage before going on. “I grew up with my dad, my mom wasn’t in the picture.”

“I grew up with my mom, my dad wasn’t around.”

“My dad says my hair, and eyes come from my mom.”

“Your natural?”

“I am.”

“I’m not used to seeing that.”

“My dad said it was in our favor. So, I let everyone think I wear contacts and dye my hair.”

“Your eyes look familiar.”

“Umm, thank you?” Saffron wasn’t sure what to say, and right now she wanted to run. She never thought of herself as a coward, but there were just some revelations you would rather not know.

“They should look familiar Sageray. They look just like your eyes.” Caden told her. He was sliding the palm of his hand over her back helping to keep her calm.

“Caden’s right Saffron. Sage’s eyes look just like yours.”

“That’s impossible. How could we have the same eyes? We don’t know each other.” Even as she said it, she realized that if she just stared at Sage’s eyes, it was like looking into a mirror.

“My father’s name is Peter.”

“My mom’s name is Rosemary.”

“That’s my mom’s name. I never met her, but that’s her name.”

Sage was nodding a tear was slipping out even as she tried to fight it. “My dad’s name is Peter, but I never met him. Or I don’t remember him.”

“This is impossible. You understand that?”

“I know that I was born March seventeen.” She whispered the information to Saffron.

Without Xander’s arms around her waist, she would have fallen. “I was born the same day and year.”

“It has to be a coincidence. We look so different.”

“Sage, you look alike,” Caden told her.

There was a knock on the door. Ven went to get it.

“What she means is that we are two different races. She’s white, and I’m black. Kind of like your all gray.”

“Why does this matter wildcat?”

“It doesn’t… But it does. It’s hard to explain.”

“You’re all on one planet, and every one of you is born to parents. I don’t understand.”

She placed her head on Xander’s chest. From his point of view, it all made sense. Everyone on Earth was born the same way; it made them all family.

“No matter where you go someone will have a reason why another person isn’t quite as good as he or she is. Here we focus on color. The more melatonin you have on your skin, the less you're worth. At least, that’s what some people think.”

“Sage, do you think that you’re better than Saffron?”

“Xander, I don’t think that.” She wiggled until Caden finally let her down. She went to Xander and hugged him, then she hugged Saffron. Caden came over, and they did one big group hug. They were family and always would be.

“Looks like you’re ready for me.”

They all looked up to find Cait standing in the doorway. She walked over and took a seat.

“I have blood samples from the two of you, so if you want to know what’s happening, I can tell you.”

“I want to know,” Saffron told her.

“Me too,” Sage said.

“You’re sisters, twins since you were born on the same day.”

“How can that be?” Saffron stared at Sage the image of a pretty white baby came back to her.

“We’re different colors,” Sage said. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

Cait smiled at them. “You haven’t lived long enough.”

Saffron held up the phone that Ven gave her earlier to take pictures on. “Can I use this to make a call?”

“It’s your phone do whatever you want with it.”

She dialed a number and hoped her father would pick up. They had moved around the world, and he kept moving after she left home, but he never changed his cell phone number. It was her life line if she ever needed one.

“Hello?” His deep voice gave her comfort. Whenever she heard her dad, she knew things would be okay.

“Dad, I missed hearing your voice. Where are you? I have some things to ask you.”

“Is it about your sister?”

“I have a sister?”

“A twin. Have you met her?”

“She’s here dad.”

“Put Sage on the phone I have to talk to her.”

“Dad wants to talk to you.” Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. She was jealous, and it didn’t make any sense. Sage was finally getting to talk to her father, but he had been her dad forever, and she didn’t want to share. Sage had a mother when she didn’t have one, and now she was taking her dad away from her.

Little flares of electricity were jumping from finger to finger. Her heart beat was much too fast. She couldn’t control what was happening all she could feel was rage.

“Are you really my father?”

“I am. I’ve missed you so much, Sage. The few pictures I have of you aren’t enough. I need to see you.”

“You gave me away.”

“The hell I did.”

Saffron touched Xander. The electricity on her fingers went through his body making him shake even as he absorbed it.

“Xander!” She screamed and jumped up.

He pulled her down and kissed her releasing her electricity back into her body.

“You can’t hurt me wild cat.”

She sagged against his chest.

“Dad wants to meet me, the both of us together.”

Saffron nodded. She wouldn’t go. Sage should be able to meet her father without her hanging around.

“Peter, who’s on the phone?”

Saffron lifted her head looking toward Sage.

“Sage is on the phone.”

“How did she get your number? Has she met Saffron yet?”

“She’s there with her.”

There was a rustle of clothes and maybe a tussle. Saffron couldn’t be sure what she was hearing.

“Sage, baby, please put your sister on the phone.”

“Mom wants to talk to you.” She handed the phone over.

Saffron looked into her eyes and knew she understood how she was feeling. It hurt to think you were losing a parent, but maybe they were gaining a family.

“Mom?”

“Roni, baby, it’s really you.” She was crying hard. Peter was trying to comfort her.

“Mom, I waited for you, thinking you would come for me. Instead, you gave me away.” She couldn’t help but repeat the same anguished words of her sister.

“The hell I did. Put me on speaker. I’m sure Sage can hear us, but I want no misunderstandings.”

“You are twins. It was the first time in history that we know of that an interracial couple had both a white child and a black child in one pregnancy. The world is more one than we think it is. That didn’t go over well, but we didn’t care. I was sure that you were both an emissary of peace. Then you started playing with electricity. They called you demons, ghost, or unnatural. I would defy them all. Then something came for the both of you, it was dark and nasty, and it wasn’t human.

“That’s when we knew we had to separate you to keep you alive. Saffron, your dad, took you because we didn’t want any ‘well-meaning bystander’ to accuse him of something terrible if he were caught alone with his white daughter. I took Sage for the same reason. We split believing when the time was right that the two of you would find each other again. Recently, we got back together. Now we can live our lives and know that you’re as safe as we could make you.”

“Don’t be upset girls. We made the best decision we could back then. It’s a different time now, and maybe we would make a different decision, but then the only right move was the difficult one.” Their father's voice seemed to calm them down.

Tears were rolling down their faces.

“Don’t cry wild cat.”

“How can I not? I’m crying for the family I missed growing up, also crying for the sacrifice my parents made to keep me alive. I’ve heard about sacrifice all my life, but to see it in action. To know that in this day and age parents still sacrifice for their children. I don’t have the words.”

“Neither do I,” Sage added. “All I know is they loved us enough to keep us hidden so we would live, and that meant they had to put their love on hold.”

Saffron cried harder using Xander’s T-shirt to weep into. That was the one thing she was missing. The example of love she never saw, and it was playing out right in front of her, and she didn’t know it. Her parents loved each other so much that they could put it aside take care of the kids and come back to that same love so many years later.

She looked up at Xander and realized that maybe she felt more for him than she was willing to admit.

“Mom, why did the evil want us dead?”

“Because together the two of you might have the power to end their plans.”