His older cousin was just as intrigued, handing him a knife. Jalen stabbed the knife deep into his palm, evoking a scream from Jessica and an excited gasp from Frank. Then he showed his cousins his hand as it healed completely. Their jaw dropped expressions alluded to the impressiveness of his showcase. Unfortunately, the blood that leaked earlier dripped down his arm. Jessica took this opportunity to pick up her jaw and send Jalen off to clean himself while she sterilized the knife. Frank pestered him with questions about his powers, barely giving him any rest.
Once Frank was satisfied, Jalen approached Jessica to discuss the main reason he came here. “Do you know where Ella is?”
Jessica’s delighted mood darkened. “Yeah, she lives in The Narrows with that jerk, Victor.”
“Do you know where exactly she is?”
“Not really. You know how that place is. Trailers don’t exactly have street names. Look, I’ll gladly take you directly to her now, but I have to watch Frank. I could give you her number.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
Jessica dialed Ella’s number and handed her phone to Jalen. “We’ve been trying to convince her to live with us for years, so she might not answer. By the way, why is she so stubborn? All my mom wanted to do was help her.”
Ella, true to form, ignored the phone even after it rang three times.
“Well, uh… It must have been difficult for her,” Jalen said. “Plus, she has a hard time accepting help. But I’m back now. You said something about a trailer. Is that where she lives?”
“Yeah, the main trailer park.” Her gaze trailed up at the ceiling, as if recalling something. “I think it was near an abandoned steel factory.”
Jalen nodded and stood up. The time displayed on the microwave was 5:30 pm. If he flew, there was still enough time to find her before dark.
“You’re going now?” Jessica asked. “That place would be fucking dangerous right now. You can crash in my room while I take my mom’s, then you go tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Jessica. But I have let things deteriorate too much these past 6 years. I can’t wait any longer. Besides, The Narrows should fear me, not the other way around. Stay safe.”
“Okay, but at least crash with us until you get back on your feet.”
Jalen turned back to regard Jessica with the rewarmed food in his hand. Her offer was tempting, to say the least. And he would have taken it, if not for Jigoku Kumo, the spider demon, killing a sisterhood of nuns just to steal his life force. Who knew what other threats were lurking?
“I’ll think about it,” Jalen said, before stepping out.
He found a secluded spot, transformed, and flew off towards the north, carefully clutching the food in his arm. It didn’t take him long to find the massive trailer park with an abandoned steel factory opposite it. He landed behind the factory and transformed back into a human before making his way over to the park. The park was expansive and littered with hundreds of trailers, dirt, and plastic waste. The borders of the trailers had dangerously overgrown grass.
Jalen started his search closest to the factory, navigating through a body maze of passed out drug junkies. Ahead of him, two men hurled obscenities at each other before descending into a messy fight in wet mud. He kept his eyes peeled, ignoring the blank stares of the inhabitants sitting around. After heading deep into the park, with no trace of Ella, he asked a few of the inhabitants about her whereabouts. It was the fourth person who knew her and gave him her location.
At last.
His pounding heart calmed once his goal felt so near. Jalen hadn’t realised that his breathing had gotten erratic. Following the directions given to him, he weaved through trailers, spotting a blonde-haired man with a beer belly arguing with a black woman with a short afro. Getting closer, Jalen recognized the woman as his sister.
“Yeah bitch!” The man said. “Every day, I come home to this bullshit. You accusing me after you hear these silly rumors?”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Victor,” Ella said. “You fucked Jean again? That tramp? I can’t believe you are doing this to me.”
The man stepped away from the trailer, heading in Jalen’s direction. “I’m not doing this with you, Ella. I need to smoke.”
“If I see you anywhere near that fucking tramp, I’ll chop off that thing with some pliers. And don’t bother coming back here again.”
“Whatever, stupid bitch!” Victor bumped into Jalen, then grabbed his collar in a fit of rage. “You saw me walking, lil’ bitch. Why didn’t you move, huh? Wanna fucking fight me?”
Jalen shrugged in disbelief. “You could just have easily walked around me, dude.”
Victor slammed him into the trunk of a nearby tree. “Do you know who you’re talking to, bitch? I could fucking split your skull right here, right now. And no one would bat a fucking eye.”
“Victor, leave that man alone!” Ella shouted.
The large blonde man shoved him and stumped off, cursing. Ella went inside her trailer and slammed the door. Jalen could only stand there in silence, parsing through what just happened. Then he shrugged again and walked towards Ella’s home. Moving up the short steps, he listened to the gut wrenching sounds of Ella crying.
There were so many times during that confrontation with Victor he thought about turning the man to red mist. But Jalen calmed himself. He had finally found Ella. That was all that mattered. He knocked on the door softly.
“I meant it Victor,” Ella said. “Go away!”
“It’s not Victor,” Jalen said.
Ella flung the door open. “What do y… Jalen?”
“Yeah, what’s up Ella?” He smiled.
“Jalen!” She slammed into him, hugging tightly. Then she wept, more than she did a few moments ago. Jalen hugged her tightly as well, tears leaking down from his eyes. The siblings stood, embracing each other for almost fifteen minutes before Ella released him and dragged him into the house.
Despite being cramped, her trailer home was cozy. Pink and blue floral pattern wallpapers plastered the walls, giving the place a serene atmosphere. Ella had even managed to pack her sole window porch with potted flowers.
After placing his food down, they sat in silence for a few minutes. Ella looked like she was walking up the courage to say something before going silent.
“You know, I was just with Jessica and Frank,” Jalen said, breaking the ice.
Her eyebrows shot up. “So that’s why she was calling me. God, I’m so stupid. I could have thrown this chance away.”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Jalen… we thought…”
“I was dead? Yeah, it was logical considering I disappeared for 6 years.” He rested his elbows on the small table. “How have you been, Ella?”
His sister sighed, holding her head in her hands. “You just saw what happened with Victor, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s been my life, basically. A royal fuck up.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I’m sorry, Jalen. I’d rather not.”
“Please.”
“Okay… Just give me a sec to recollect my thoughts.”
Then she told Jalen what had transpired since he left. When Jalen didn’t come home that night after their mother died, she repeatedly called his phone, but it seemed he had switched it off. Then weeks passed with no sign of him, but she clung to the hope of finding him. She looked for him, printing and distributing flyers, for 3 months straight before coming to the realization that he may be gone forever.
As for their mom’s apartment, she couldn’t afford it after a few months, so she split the rent with a couple and their child for 2 years before leaving entirely to live in this trailer to save more money. She quit college, putting her biology degree on hold, to take up more jobs. She made all these decisions to funnel as much money as possible into paying off mom’s medical debt. Ella didn’t mention Victor’s name once, and he decided not to pry.
“Jalen,” she said, slipping into another bout of crying. “If I did anything to offend you, to make you leave, I am very sorry.”
He grabbed her hand. “The reason I left has nothing to do with you or mom’s debt.”
“So… why did you leave?” She asked.
Jalen stood up and headed towards the door. “Wait for me, E.”
As he stepped out of the trailer, he scanned the surroundings, taking in every detail.
I must be getting paranoid, he thought.
When Jalen got back, she was dishing the food he brought. It was fried rice and some Chinese-style omelettes. He told her who gave him the food and joined her to enjoy the dinner. The conversation during the meal was a relaxing break from the problems plaguing them. Well, as relaxing as a horde of demons attacking the inner city could be.
After their meal, Ella said. “It’s okay, if you don’t wanna share why you left, Jalen. All that matters now is you are back, alive and well.”
Jalen watched her put away the dishes, contemplating his next words. He could either lie or feed her half truths like he’d been doing since he came back to Earth. Or he could come clean, because the things he wanted to do required her knowing the level of danger she was in. He drummed his fingers on the table, which alerted Ella.
“What is it?” She asked.
“It is not that I don’t want to share my reasons,” Jalen said. “I simply don’t know where to start.”
He stood up and closed the blinds of her porch window, making sure not to tip over her flower pots.
I’m definitely paranoid.
Then he turned towards his sister. “Do you see the color of my eyes?”
She nodded.
“Well, the simplest way to put it is, I’m a god,” He continued. “A god with powers that are very enticing to a lot of powerful people.”
“A god?”
“Yeah.”
Her face was ripe with confusion and skepticism. “Jalen, what the fuck do you mean? How can you be a god?”
“Okay, so the reason I left was because a monkey took me to…a different planet of sorts and offered me powers. Then a star… Yeah, it sounds ridiculous when I say it.”
“So what kind of god, Jalen?” She barely held herself from laughing. “The christian God, Allah, or maybe Zeus with the lightning bolt?”
Jalen fished into his pockets and dropped a half burnt rosary on the table.
Ella examined it. “Okay, so…”
“That belonged to a nun called Abigail,” Jalen stated, irritation evident in his tone. “Yesterday, a spider demon killed her and her sisterhood, stole a portion of my powers, and would have killed me if I wasn’t what I am.”
“No way—”
“You have a phone, right? Search for Sancta Maria Monastery in Muncy, Pennsylvania.”
Ella did as he asked, her expression going from disbelief to shock. She read from her phone.
“In a devastating turn of events, Sancta Maria Monastery, a historic landmark in Muncy, Pennsylvania, has been engulfed in flames. Firefighters rushed to the scene early this morning as thick plumes of smoke billowed from the centuries-old monastery.
According to eyewitnesses, the fire broke out shortly after sundown, quickly spreading throughout the sprawling complex. Efforts to contain the blaze were hampered by the monastery’s remote location and limited access to water, leaving firefighters battling the inferno well into the morning hours.”
She looked at Jalen, all traces of jest gone.
“The demon set fire to the chapel and fled,” Jalen said. “I say this to warn you of the dangers coming for me and, subsequently, you.”
“Then we have to run or report it to the authorities.”
“No, we will not. Not when I have witnessed a man of god be reduced to a puppet on strings by the demon. No, I will take matters into my own hands. Ella, you understand the seriousness of the situation now, don’t you?”
She nodded. Jalen retrieved the rosary from her tightly clenched hands. “Do not worry, E. I will make you a god as well.”
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