Chapter 35 - Sibling Stalemate

The next day Goldie knocked softly on her sister’s hospital door and waited for an answer. Darby’s quiet voice came a moment later. “Come in.”

It was Sunday. Goldie had spent all day yesterday in the erotic fog of her Prowl and had hardly given a thought to her sister after her and Flint’s conversation. This morning when they woke she had felt like she was through the worst (the best?) of the Prowl, but she was eager to get things settled in case it came over her again. Even walking away from Flint as he settled into a chair twenty feet from Darby’s door had been more difficult than she expected, but Goldie knew she had to do this part alone. She looked back at him and he gave her a thumbs up that she shakily returned before entering her sister’s room.

Darby’s eyebrows rose in a you-got-some-nerve curve as they locked gazes. Goldie held out her peace offering: Darby’s makeup case. She’d grabbed it from their side of the duplex before she and Flint came. Darby’s still-bruised eyes lit up, but she kept the smile from her face as she greeted Goldie. “Hey, where you at?”

Goldie gave a weak smile. “I’m okay. Sore, still.” Although, if she was being honest, most of that was from the sex, not the car accident. “I thought you might want this.” She set the makeup case on the rolling table next to the hospital bed.

Darby maneuvered the table so it crossed her lap, and opened the case to reveal a large mirror and tiers upon tiers of product. Goldie opened the shades on the window to bring in better light before she sat down. “We need to talk, Dar.”

Her sister was already into her routine, putting her hair up in a plastic clip and pulling tubes and brushes from her kit, too busy to spare Goldie a glance. “So talk.”

For probably the millionth time ever, Goldie wished that Darby could just make things a little easier. But that wasn’t who her sister had ever been, and it was time Goldie stopped wishing on stars for what would never happen. One dream come true was enough for her. “I know things have been crazy lately, and I haven’t been completely honest with you. That ends now.”

And she told Darby everything that had happened since their grandmother died. From the voodoo woman in Jackson Square to Flint and Bryce being grizzly bears. Darby’s jaw dropped, her eyes and mouth wide, brown and ivory contour dots scattered over her face, waiting to be blended. She blinked quickly, more times than Goldie could count. “Motherfucker’s been holding out on me.”

Then Goldie told Darby about Jameson being the white wolf who’d run them off the road, and herself being a killer of vampires. “You might be one, too. We won’t know until you get around a vampire, I guess.” For once Darby didn’t say anything, just looked at her sister with the widest ‘scuse-me? eyes Goldie had ever seen until Goldie gave up waiting and told Darby about the Prowl. Just a little. Just in case.

By then Darby had recovered her chill. Her smirking response made Goldie’s cheeks flame. “‘Bout time you found an excuse to bounce on that boy. Bear. Whatever.” Darby screwed the top onto her lip gloss and put it back in the case, folding in the tiers and closing the lid.

She fixed Goldie with a hard look. “Honestly, Goldie, I don’t know what to think. I’m supposed to be the crazy sister, but you just left me in the dust with this shit. What ever happened to you and your rock solid control? This kind of crazy shit never happened to us before.”

Goldie squirmed in her seat. She knew it sounded nuts. There was the hard sell and then there was mental institution material, and she had no illusions about which side her story fell on. The fact that it was true wasn’t much help to anyone but her.

Oh! Keeping her gaze locked on Darby’s, Goldie blew into her palm and felt the Breath energy fill it. She curled her fingers around the ball of electric purpose and threw it at the empty water jug six feet away, sending it skittering off the bedside table.

Flawless burgundy lips popped wide, along with Darby’s eyes. “No shit! How’d you do that? That’s fucking epic!”

Goldie grinned and blushed at the bombastic reaction. She hadn’t impressed Darby enough to get her to show it in more years than she could count. Now her sister’s jaw was practically spring-loaded. “So you believe me?”

Darby tilted her head to one side and regarded Goldie with kinder eyes. “You’ve never lied to me before all this, that I can remember.”

Goldie swallowed. She had held one thing back. Not exactly a lie, but… “There’s a little bit more to the story. It’s about Mama and Daddy and the night they died.” So she told Darby that, too, about the green glow and the thoughts she’d had, the guilt she’d carried ever since. By the end of her story Goldie was staring at her tear-stained lap, unable to meet her sister’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Dar. I never meant for them to die.”

Darby’s cynical laugh brought Goldie’s eyes flying up. Her sister’s perfectly made-up eyes were filled with tears that threatened to ruin all the time and attention Darby had paid to them. “Goldie, if that was all it took to kill our parents, they would have been dead years before Katrina hit. I wished myself out of there every day since I was five, and in lots of worse ways. But I didn’t mean it the other night when I said I’ve been trying to ditch you all my life. Hell, you and Tallulah were the only people I ever wanted to be around back then.”

Goldie gave a shocked laugh. “And now?”

Her sister smirked. “Well, Tallulah’s dead, and you’ve kinda turned into a pain in my ass.”

They both laughed hard and long at that, at the swampy mess they’d landed in and how much they loved each other in spite of it. When they finally calmed down Darby wiped her eyes. “I guess your new bouncy-bear means we’re staying here.”

Goldie smiled, then took a deep breath. This was the last hurdle. “So here’s the thing. The duplex isn’t safe, so Flint is thinking maybe we should all move into the hacienda, Resperanza. Bryce too. It’s hidden from humans, vampires, too. Your stalker won’t be able to send us letters… I think it’s the best thing, if everyone else agrees.”

Darby hesitated and Goldie saw the skepticism in her eyes. Oh yeah, way to show her you don’t want to control her life. She should totally trust you on that one. So Goldie tackled that beast head-on, too. Non-confrontational can suck my left nipple. “And I promise I won’t even bug you. Riot lives there, downstairs where you’re going to be, and if you spend all your time with him and Bryce and I never see you, that’s fine.” Goldie met her sister’s eyes, so much like her own. “I just want to know you’re safe.”

For a long moment Darby just looked at Goldie and said nothing. Then her mouth curved in a gentle smirk. “I kind of want to fuck with you like I’m not convinced, but for real, I can’t fucking wait. This shit is crazy. I could be a witch? Made to kill vampires? And these dudes are animals? I wonder what Riot is. Mmmm, or that yummy guy at the diner, maybe he’s one.” She rubbed her hands together and Goldie felt a stirring of apprehension. What on earth have I gotten these poor shifters into?

Goldie stood up, leaning in for a hug from Darby before she aimed her feet to exit. “I’ll let you know how it goes.” Darby waved her out and Goldie closed the door quietly behind her.

Immediately her eyes searched for Flint in the hallway, pushing to standing and coming towards her with a grin on his handsome face. “It sounded like that went well. Sisters again?”

Goldie stretched to her tiptoes for a kiss. “Sisters again.”

Flint took her hand and aimed them both for the elevators. “Let’s go home.”

A sigh escaped Goldie’s mouth as she tipped her head to lean on Flint’s upper arm. “Where’s home?”

Flint squeezed her hand and leaned over to kiss the crown of her head. “You know where home is, Goldie.”