Page 79 of Thunder with a Chance of Lovestruck

We didn’t need fancy things, and our happiness wasn’t measured by the square footage of our home. Plus, modern electrical options were a huge bonus.

The path to this point had been rocky and, at times, felt as if I was trying to sprint up a vertical incline. There wasn’t a day that went by that my past didn’t haunt me in the same way.

Sometimes, it was in the way Astria said something, her voice sounding a good deal like Amice’s to me. Some days it was when I looked into the face of my daughter and saw her father’s chin and eyebrows, not to mention his hair color. And other days, I found myself waking from a nightmare about my uncle or my brother. That had been the case for the past week straight.

My nights had been plagued by disturbing dreams. Ones about the night eighteen years ago when my brother had unleashed a horde of stitched-together monsters into the world. And when my sister-in-law, or whatever had been left of her, had come charging out of the basement door, moving in a jerky, in-human way, her glassy eyes seeing nothing yet somehow taking in everything.

I’d been reliving that moment over and over again, but my dreams differed from reality. In my dreams, Amice stopped her attempts to get at Astria, and looked directly at me before speaking. She sounded so aware in my dreams that it felt real. She kept saying the same things in each dream.

She wanted me to know we were all in danger. That a great darkness was on the horizon, and that from the darkness would come light. That we shouldn’t be afraid of the light, or the changes it would bring. That it was all meant to be. And she kept thanking me for keeping my promise to her. For raising Astria as if she were my own. For loving her fully and for keeping her safe to this point. But soon, Astria would be on her own, cast into a world where she’d either sink or swim. That it had to be. And that I needed to have faith in her and myself. That I couldn’t continue keeping the girls in a protective bubble, shielding them from the bad. That the time had come for us all to embrace our destiny.

The conversation felt so real that I’d wake, and for a bit, I’d swear that I could smell Amice’s perfume lingering in the air near me. I’d seen and lived through a lot in my life, but believing my dead sister-in-law was visiting my dreams in basically zombie form was a stretch, even for me.

That being said, I’d asked to speak to Torid on the phone during Astria’s last call home. I mentioned that I was having strange dreams and that I wanted him to be aware, in case something was the matter. And I asked him to be sure he was monitoring the area.

He agreed, sounding almost hopeful that he’d get a chance to eat something or someone. He’d then tried to actually eat the phone. Astria thankfully retrieved it before he could.

Astria was wrapping up finals at Grimm University in South Carolina. She was just about to graduate with a degree in gothic literature. The irony of this was not lost on me. I was just happy to see she’d gotten my quirky sense of humor. I was also thrilled to see her thriving as a young woman.

She and my daughter, Demi, were more like sisters than cousins. More than once I’d heard Demi describe Astria as her sister to others. It had broken Demi a little inside when Astria picked a college so far from where we were now calling home. I’d entertained packing up and moving to Grimm Cove, but I couldn’t help but think that my niece had been drawn to that town—that university—for a reason.

It was the town Robin had moved to when he’d left the district attorney’s office in New York. I’d taken Astria and Demi with me to Grimm Cove for a college visit and while there, I’d looked into Robin, discovering he was still there. That he had a thriving law practice there and was on the ballot for a judge’s position. I had to laugh a little at the idea of the legendary Puck being in charge of anyone’s fate. I’d not reached out to him then, unsure how I’d even open the conversation.

“Hey, how have you been? I know I dumped you out of nowhere and crapped all over what we had to run off into the sunset with a guy you don’t like, but how about we have some coffee and catch up. Oh, what have I been up to? Not much, just raising the girls on my own and running from leftover monsters my brother stitched together in the basement of our family home and trying to stay off the Nightshade’s radar. Oh, Drest—the guy I left you for? The one who swore we were mates? Yeah, we’re not together anymore. He vanished from my life weeks before our daughter was born and hasn’t spoken to me since. How are things with you?”

That wasn’t really a conversation I wanted to have, so I’d steered clear of him. But I’d also made sure to write his contact information down and commit it to memory in the event of an emergency. No matter what, I knew deep down that Robin would help Astria if the need arose. He was that kind of guy.

“Couldn’t find them in there,” said Demi loudly from what sounded like just outside Astria’s room. “But I found two of my shirts and a pair of my running shoes.”

I laughed. “Sorry.”

“I haven’t seen the shirts in ages. And I’m pretty sure I’m the last one who washed them, so this is on me,” she said, laughing. “But I’ll let you take the blame.”

I smiled.

Demi was seventeen years old and would graduate from high school in a few days. In fact, I had back-to-back graduations to attend between the girls. And like Astria, Demi was going to attend Grimm University. She’d start her freshman year in the fall and was required to live on campus in the dorms for her first year. After that, she’d move in with Astria in the old home that was shared by a number of girls, all attending the school.

The house wasn’t exactly amazing and certainly had an air about it that reminded me of the manor, but Astria seemed to like it and Demi had fallen in love with it when we visited. Yes, having her live there would be an extra expense, especially since I was planning to relocate to Grimm Cove in the fall too, but it would also help her learn to be a little more independent. I liked to think of it as baby-stepping her into adulthood.

I tried to help Astria with the cost of living off campus, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, she worked odd jobs while juggling a full-time school schedule. I knew it was because she’d seen me struggling to make ends meet nearly all her life and that she didn’t want to put another financial strain on me. I appreciated that, but I wanted to help all the same.

I could have tapped into the money I’d inherited or the money that had come to me after Henry lost his damn mind, but doing so would mean revealing my location and weaving another strand that connected me to that life. A life I’d gone out of my way to separate from. I’d seen to it that the girls and I went by Franks rather than Frankenstein and that all legal documents reflected as much. It was one more layer between us and the horrors of the past.

For a moment, after Demi had been born, I’d considered giving her Drest’s surname. The last time I’d seen him had been the night Henry had unleashed the monsters. I’d woken up in the hospital, and no one would tell me anything about him other than the fact that he was alive and unharmed. I’d tried calling him back then, desperately wanting my husband with me, but I’d been met with a nonstop busy signal.

I’d been placed under heavy guard by the Nightshade Clan, which they claimed was for my safety, but honestly, it felt a lot like they were also charged with keeping me away from Drest. I wanted to believe that wasn’t his doing. That if it was the case, it was the bosses he was always worried about. Not because he’d decided he’d had enough and wanted out.

It was hard to ignore our history and how he’d freaked on me after the Nile incident, and had basically ignored me for years. It meant he was very capable of shutting me out of his life for extended periods. As time stretched and weeks became months, which became years, I leaned more and more toward thinking the decision to cut ties with me—with his family—had been his doing.

Demi was around the age of three when I stopped calling and writing him, only to have the letter come back to me unopened. He was a powerful Fae. If he wanted to reach out to me, he’d have found a way.

Having him vanish from my life and leave me to raise Demi alone had stung—a lot. But what hurt the most was seeing my daughter grow up, asking about him often, wanting to hear stories of her father. Seeing her paint pictures for him when she was little, only to go on to sketch things for him, as well as write him letters, all of which she kept in a small wooden box along with other keepsakes.

Astria had a similar box. I’d gotten each of them one when I realized how many times we were being forced to abandon nearly everything we owned and relocate in an effort to stay ahead of our past. I’d wanted them each to have a little something they could remember.

The girls kept their boxes in backpacks that I made them keep packed with essentials in the event we had to run. While we’d been fortunate for the last few years and able to remain in one location longer than we’d been able to in the past, the threat that we'd have to bolt was always there.

I’d gone in and updated Demi’s bag the other day, making sure it had clothes that fit her and anything else she might need. I’d done the same for myself. I planned to mention it to Astria during our next call. I knew it was because the dreams with Zombie-Amice were getting to me. Since it was smart to always be prepared, I didn’t feel too silly acting on impulse.

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