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Liz

SHALLOW END OF THE GENE POOL

“Liz, stop being stubborn and get in the car. You need the money, and there’s nothing left for you here. They’re invading this entire state, and there ain’t nothing we can do but take the money and rebuild somewhere without all the freaks. You can’t stay here all alone. You need to find a husband and start your life. Your clock is ticking.”

The way Geneva’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she said ‘freaks’ was more than enough to ignite a fire within me. The insinuation that my life wasn’t going to start until I was married was just as infuriating. Despite the constant irritation her ignorance caused, she was my sister, and I loved her deeply. But my god, the amount of narrow-minded nonsense that came out of her mouth daily could fill the Grand Canyon and still have some left over.

“You know I can’t,” I said, trying to keep my temper.

Getting mad at Gen and yelling back just gave her a ladder to climb up on her soapbox and preach her ignorance to anyone within earshot. God hadn’t granted me the patience to deal with her on top of everything else going on today. I’d already gotten dumped by a text message, not that I was too attached to him anyway, and the school was closing down until further notice. How was I supposed to teach my seven-year-old little brother to read? I filled my kindle with enough steamy books to make a sailor blush, and probably not be able to look any of his shipmates in the face for a week.

“Gen, I have a life here, and our brother needs me to—”

“That thing is no brother of mine,” she spat. “That thing ruined our family, and I won’t let his sinful existence take any more of your life either.”

“He did no such thing,” I sighed, praying Leif was up in his room and the window was closed so he didn’t hear Gen’s ignorance. “Our family was ruined because our father loved the bottle more than us, and Momma ran off the first chance she got. That’s not the fault of a child.”

“You’re wasting your life,” she screeched.

“It’s my life to waste,” I said, stepping out onto the porch and closing the door behind me. It didn’t matter what Gen thought, he didn’t deserve her hatred. I was going to spare that child every bit that I could.

“You’re not thinking.” Gen stomped her foot. “What kind of future could you have among the freaks? What kinda babies are you going to have? Being a mother is the greatest thing a woman can be.”

I rolled my eyes. Then, I looked past her to her car, where she had her three kids packed into the back of her old rust bucket, fighting over who knows what. “I’m only twenty-one, my biological clock hasn’t even been wound up yet. I have time, and I want to use that time raising our—my—baby brother and taking care of our family home. I’m not the only human staying, and maybe I will end up with one of them. Maybe I will end up with someone who isn’t entirely human. Or maybe I will decide not to have kids. I don’t know the future.”

Her blue eyes, the ones that were almost identical to mine, filled up in horror at my words as she clutched her fake pearls and gasped.

I wasn’t sure if she was more disturbed by the idea of half-breed children or no children at all. It didn’t matter.

“Look,” I said, putting my hand on her head like Momma did when we were little, smoothing out the few hairs the humidity had made stray. “You go, raise your babies how you see fit. The borders are closing soon, and I’m sure you want to have this damned place in your rearview mirror well before that happens.”

She nodded, taking in my words. “You’re right, but if you don’t come with me, that’s it. You’ll never see your nephews again.”

I looked back in the car, only counting two heads now, one a little higher than before, telling me he was no doubt sitting on his brother’s head, his favorite way to establish dominance.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, smiling reassuringly at her and walking her to the car.

“No, you won’t,” she said. “You’re going to die alone, probably with dirty vampire fangs in your neck, pulling your soul right down to hell.”

She turned on her stiletto and got in her car, rolled down the windows, and started yelling at her boys as she drove off.

My big sister, who had been my rock for most of my life, left in a hurry, and I knew I would never see her again. I should have been sad, but all I felt was relief after how she’d been treating Leif recently.

“Lizzy?” His voice came from behind me and I turned to look at my adorable baby brother with his mess of red curls and pointed ears sticking out from among them.

I would never understand how we didn’t realize he was part Fae before the existence of creatures was announced. There’d been rumors of vampires and magical humans actually existing for years, but no one had ever truly believed them until a turf war broke out between vampires and wolf shifters that resulted in dead humans in several major cities and elementals involved in the trouble too. The Fae had stepped in to end things, but not quick enough.

Human governments around the world were pissed, and rightly so, even though paranormals insisted they’d be largely peaceful and able to live amongst humans for centuries; all paranormals but the Fae were to be confined here. I guessed hindsight was twenty-twenty.

“Hey, Kiddo,” I gave him a bright smile. “Ready for lunch?”

“Why does Gen hate me? What did I do?” He asked, a single tear trailing down his freckle-covered cheeks. My heart clenched. I went to him, kneeling on the porch and pulling him into my arms.

“You didn’t do a single thing, baby. Every family has secrets. We all have skeletons we’d rather not have come to light, but we still have to deal with them because they’re family.”

“Am I the secret?” he asked, mumbling into my shoulder while his little hands gripped my shirt.

“Of course not. You’re the brightest, funniest little boy in the whole wide world, and you’re not just special. You’re perfect,” I reassured him. “Gen is the secret. I hate to admit it, but we have someone in our gene pool who is… so…”

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