| |
Her eyes opened and Bella instantly remembered everything that happened. She sat up in bed and began to feel for her shoulders and the wings that had ripped from her body.
“They’ve retracted,” Abeona said, and Bella looked to where she sat in a chair close to the bed in the dim room.
“How long have I been out?” Bella asked.
“A full twenty-four hours,” her friend said gently. “We got you inside and dry as best we could, and laid you in bed. They slowly retracted the deeper you slept.”
Bella’s voice was hoarse. “So they’re gone?”
Abeona looked at her and shook her head, “Oh honey, no, these are permanent. For a Nephilim, the wings are the last one of the bodily changes you will have. It means your evolution is almost complete.”
“Not yet,” Bella whispered hoarsely and tears filled her eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen for years yet.”
“We were right in assuming what is going on is affecting your changes, forcing them to happen at a faster rate.” She moved from the chair to the bed. “Since you were sleeping and I was watching over you, a few things happened.”
Bella laughed bitterly. “What exactly, I sprouted horns?”
“No,” Abeona pulled a small blade from God knew where and sliced Bella’s arm.
“Hey, don’t you think I’ve suffered enough?” Bella demanded angrily.
“Watch.”
A small amount of blood trickled from the thin cut before it closed and was completely healed.
Abeona gave her a thin smile. “I think you might be immortal now, or maybe not immortal but you’ll age slowly, you’ll see generations come and go.”
“Well, yay me,” Bella muttered. “You would think since my father wanted me to survive and fight for humankind, he wouldn’t take all—and I do mean all—the books about what will happen to me as part angel.”
“Your wings are quite remarkable, one feather fell as your wings emerged and it was dry as a bone in the rain. Your wings are strong, as in ‘you could stop a bullet’ strong,” Abeona told her. “They are also instinctive in their protection of you. When Yan and Henri tried to lift you, your wings wrapped around you like a cocoon. It took a lot of subconscious coaxing on my part for you to feel safe enough to open them while you slept. Then we were able to dry you off completely and change you out of the wet dress.”
“The internet did not tell me any of this,” Bella sighed. “I only know what I am... who I am is another question and with each change, that answer seems farther and farther away.”
“You’re Belladonna, a beauty with a heart so big she tries to save the world,” Abeona said gently. “Even if you try to hide it behind thorns, bars and stone.”
“Save the pain of letting people in and having it shattered,” Bella pointed out, her heart aching with the thought of Sachiel’s betrayal.
“Bella,” it was one of the few times Abeona used her real name. “That pain is the one thing that makes you the most human of all.”
“Why can’t you be a bitch so I can lash out at you?” Bella asked with a sigh.
Abeona laughed. “That would be too easy, you can’t just evolve physically.”
“Shit, that’s all I know how to do!” Bella cried out. “There wasn’t a mother or a father to teach me to be a well-rounded kid.”
Abeona made a sound of frustration. “Here’s a little tough love, Nightshade. Grow the fuck up, you’re a Nephilim, deal with it, we all get dealt a shitty hand in life and we have to learn to overcome. Do you want to know my story, Nightshade, why I am who I am today?”
“No.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” Abeona said firmly. “Sit down. In 1922, I was born to a servant woman and the man of the house where she worked.”
Bella’s jaw dropped. “You’re a hundred years old?”
“Hush,” Abeona said. “As a girl under his roof I became a kitchen maid and as I developed, his eyes turned from my mother to me. Unbeknownst to our owner, my mother had a shack in the woods where she taught me the craft of our people. Gullah is from the island people who lived by the seas. Along with weaving and other practices, we also have strong magic. My mother’s family came through Louisiana as slaves and then were sold in Savannah. From there somehow we ended up with families in old Boston.”
“Did the house owner make a move on you?” Bella asked quietly.
“Worse, he got his way against my consent, and laughed as I cried and my mother held me in the corner of the kitchen,” Abeona’s eyes grew angry at the memory. “Where can you go, who will believe a black woman and her daughter whore? Those were his words as my mother tried to clean the blood from between my legs. I was sixteen, I knew no man and after that I never wanted to again.” Abeona smiled sadly.
“Many men have asked, ‘what man hurt you to make you this way?” she continued. “I was always this way and that man happened to hear me tell another maid my secret. He wanted to show me what a man could do, what it felt like, and for that I abhorred him all the more.”
“If he was still around I would kill him for you,” Bella whispered furiously. “I would turn him to ash while you watched.”
“That is exactly what we did,” Abeona said. “My mother and I, we burned the house to the ground with him in it. We got his wife and children out on the pretense of saving the family, but he was poisoned in his offices and the fire burned so hot, there was little left of him.”
“Fucker, I hope he is burning in Hell,” she said wickedly. “Maybe Ose could find out and torture him a little bit more.”
“You don’t need to be vengeful on my behalf, I have made my peace with that past.” Abeona fixed her skirts and played with the hem of the bow tied at her waist. The family was so grateful for our saving them, we were given money and my mother and I left for Louisiana. I have no doubt the mistress knew of her husband’s treachery and was glad to be free of him. He was abusive to her and the daughters as well.”
Abeona continued her life story. “In any case, my mother and I moved to the bayou and steeped ourselves in magic, but I hated men, hated them all so much I grew vengeful and for any woman who came to me and asked for help with a man, I destroyed them with glee. I was about to curse a man and his male bloodline for two hundred years when my old mother stopped me. And I raged while she tried to tell me to be free of my pain. I caused a storm, one that flooded the bayou and killed my mother. Her death was on my hands. I truly understood grief, loss, guilt and forgiveness after that terrible day.”
“Why forgiveness?” Bella asked curiously.
“I was on my knees, in the wet mud after I buried my mother, begging to be taken with her,” Abeona wiped tears from her eyes but her voice kept its even tone. “I exhausted myself and fell asleep soaked by rain, caked in mud, when I heard her voice, stern but clear. ‘Abeona, what is wrong with you, girl, get up and be the queen I raised.”
“Oh Abbie, I’m so sorry,” Bella covered her hand with her own and squeezed.
“Mama, I said, I want to die too, and she told me no. She told me to live and she forgave me because I was the love of her life and she understood why my heart had broken. I felt her kiss on my cheek and I vowed to be better than what I was before.” Abeona smiled brightly. “Forgiveness was my peace and I live by it each day.”
Bella raised a finger. “But, you still work for some pretty evil people.”
Abeona’s laugh was loud. “Because I learned one cannot be inherently good or bad, we must embrace both and that is what I do. I do have limits, let them kill each other for all I care, but I will not hurt an innocent human or unnatural. The moral of the story is this, Nightshade, your story is your own, embrace it, tell it to me or someone but stop hiding from it. It molded you, it made you who you are.”
“I guess I have a lot to think about,” Bella said. Something squeezed in her chest, so tight it felt like she couldn’t breathe, and the room felt like it was closing in.
“You go,” Abeona stood and said knowingly. “I’ll be here if or when you need me.”
“I’ll tell you,” Bella said huskily, feeling tears threaten.
“When you can and in your way,” Abeona kissed her on the forehead. “Go ride your death machine, I guess, it might not before you now.”
A watery laugh escaped Bella as her friend left the room. Changing into her jeans, boots, and a black cropped top, she felt a little sluggish and as she shrugged into her beat-up riding jacket, her shoulder blades were sore. No one was around when she left Abeona’s house, no doubt at her request to give Bella peace, which was appreciated.
As she rode, her stomach rumbled hungrily and Bella was famished. She directed her bike towards Ose’s apartment, knowing his love of food would match hers as she ate. This time she locked gazes with the doorman who walked from behind the desk to unlock the elevator and then gave her stank eye as he turned away.
“Hey.”
Bella called with a wide smile and when he saw it, he smiled in return. Until her middle finger was what the doorman saw as the metal doors closed, and that kinda lifted her spirits. Ose was not in his penthouse, but that didn’t stop Bella. She went about pulling the delivery menus from the drawer in the kitchen. While she ordered various types of food, she smirked thinking that Sachiel and his angel cronies were probably watching her in horror.
“Well, fuck them too,” she muttered to herself.
Thinking about Abeona’s life story, Bella didn’t know how she managed to be so well-rounded and, well, gorgeous. The woman was a century old and didn’t look a day over maybe thirty-five. Magic had strange effects on its practitioners. She’d seen some who looked like ancient leather because what they drew on, demanded payment in return. Maybe Abeona had balanced her scales between bad and good well enough that her ancestors kept her beautiful. Immortality in itself could take its toll. Bella thought about the young vampire who longed for his family. Now she was in that position as well, she was immortal.
The food started to arrive, and Bella moved aside Ose’s heavy ornate coffee table with black marble elephants that lifted gold-lined glass. She shook her head. Some of his decorating style was downright nineties rapper, but with the food around her Bella ate greedily, tasting some of each. That was how Ose found her in his living room about thirty minutes later, still eating but she had slowed down more to enjoy her food. He curiously looked from her to the massive amount of take out around her.
“Care to explain?” Ose asked casually.
“I sprouted wings tonight,” Bella said after she swallowed a bite of Korean noodles. “There’s plenty left, partake.”
Ose sat down cross-legged and picked up a container next to him. “Wings? I don’t claim to know much about your kind but I thought your powers evolved every five years, with wings being one of the last stages.”
“Whatever is happened is forcing my evolution. We were scrying for the doorway and the pendulum shattered, them my back felt like it was burning. The wings were there and then Abeona said I slept for twenty-four hours. She said they protected me until my subconscious thought I was safe.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe Abeona and this new BFF friendship might be what’s doing this, or maybe Abeona herself?” Ose asked in a mild tone. He picked up a stuffed chicken leg and bit into it.
“Don’t do that,” Bella said quietly, looking at him. “Don’t try to make me distrust the only new person I’ve had in my life for a long time. For all I know, it’s your demon friend Malphas and you want Abeona out of my life so I have to turn to you for moral support.”
“Let me assure you, Malphas and I are not friends, associates or acquaintances.” Ose didn’t seem insulted by her accusation. “I stayed very far away from his level of Hell and when I could get topside, I was out of there.”
“Don’t you still have to report to the big kahunas, Malphas or Morningstar?” Bella asked.
“I rarely do, I tend to get to do what I want as long as I meet a certain quota, especially me,” Ose answered. “He would be pleased someone still uses the old names.”
“I can appreciate it but the evil behind it, nope,” Bella replied. “Yeah he fell and all that, but did he have to go full-throttle evil? Nope.”
“So, want to show me your wings?” Ose said. “I’ll show you my cloven hooves.”
“Please never do that, if you ever want to see me naked again,” Bella laughed. “And no, they are not a showpiece.”
“Maybe later then,” Ose laughed. “Since you moved my table and that piece is heavy, grab the remote and we’ll find something useless to watch, as you say.”
“Mindless—I say mindless,” Bella corrected him and turned to grab the remote. “Hey, since you’re from Hell, shouldn’t you know where the doorway is?”
“Bella, I have not been downstairs in a very long while. As you can see, I like the finer things in life,” Ose said. “I would not know where to start, and if I started asking questions it would definitely draw attention.”
“Are you lying to me?” Bella pinned him with a direct stare.
Ose didn’t blink or look away. “I am many things, Belladonna, but a liar I am not.”
Bella nodded. “Good because I would hate to have to kill such a good fuck as you.”
That made him laugh, he was a demon after all, and anything crass tickled him to no end. Bella got tired of food and TV, hell, the booze that Ose had, it didn’t even the dull the fact that she’d grown wings and was becoming less human each day. She stood, took his hand and led him to his bedroom. Bella needed to forget.
“So this is next on tonight’s agenda,” Ose said. “I am not complaining.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Bella said dryly.
Bella roamed her hands over the strong contours of his shoulders while their lips met in short, passionate kisses. That soon turned heated and filled with need while they undressed quickly. His touch enflamed her, each caress was like fire against her skin. If this was the heat of Hell, she didn’t care, not at this point. Heaven had its deceptions as well and she had no damn reason to judge bad or good when it seemed she only knew the bad ones.
Nor could they hold her to some sanctimonious moralistic code they couldn’t follow themselves. She scratched an itch when she needed to just like anyone else. Ose filled his hands with the smooth globes of her breasts and watched as she arched into his palms. Ose wasn’t one for sweet words like Sachiel, and that alone excited her. There were no frills to their intimacy.
“I do like that I can make you hot and wet,” he said, touching her intimately.
“Yeah, I do the same to you, ” Bella laughed. “Wasn’t it you that said your skin feels like fire when I touch you?”
“I’m a demon, darling, my skin is generally on fire,” he answered.
Bella chuckled when she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him while she roamed her hands over his chest and down to his engorged cock. Ose was more than okay when she was assertive, to a point. He would let her play until he was ready to take over and then they would burn together with her screaming in ecstasy.
The thought excited Bella as Ose watched her with growing desire, then she looked up at him and grasped his cock in her hands. She stroked the ridged shaft, all the while watching pleasure play across his face. Bella gave him a wicked smile before she licked the tip of his length and he was unable to hold back the breath that hissed through his lips. Ose pushed himself into her hand wrapped around his sex in a silent plea.
“Do you like what I’m doing, do you want more?” Bella asked, needing to feel a sense of control.
“You know I do.” Ose’s thigh muscles flexed as she continued to stroke him. “Taste it, deep in your mouth.”
Bella responded by giving his cock a long, slow lick and a low growl escaped him before he tried to pull her to her feet.
“Don’t tease me, woman, or I will throw you on that bed and fuck your brains out,” Ose’s voice was primal.
Giving in finally, Bella slipped her mouth around the head of his shaft and he threw his head back and tunneled his hand into her hair. He gave himself over to the stroke of Bella’s hand and the sucking motion of her mouth, both moving in tandem until he groaned her name and his hips matched her rhythm.
A warm flush washed over Bella, as he tunneled his hand farther into the thick afro and he tightened his grip until she felt the pull on her scalp. Holding her head still, Ose pumped his hips savagely before lifted her against him and kissing Bella hungrily. Their lips dueled with wanton abandon and he kissed her like a man possessed... oops, wrong word, Bella thought through the haze of desire.
Ose slipped his hand between her legs, while they stook in his bedroom. causing Bella to whimpered as he caressed her wet sex and her hips jerked in response. He swallowed her cry when he slid his two fingers deep inside her, and as she felt her sex clench around his digits, Ose’s own groan filled the air. Her knees were weak and her legs trembled. She spread her legs wider and writhed in his arms while Ose drove her to release. He kissed her parted lips as her wetness coated his hand and her thighs, her back arched in pleasure while it coursed through her.
Ose lifted her in his arms and took her to his bed, only letting Bella stand for a moment while he lay down on the bed and pulled her over him. She could feel his body tense with excitement while she straddled his hips and positioned herself over his cock. Bella slid down slowly, taking each torturous inch while he gritted his teeth, trying to hold on to control and patience.
The walls of her pussy seemed to pulsate and clench around his engorged length. It only added to Bella’s pleasure as she began to move. There was no slow build up, not with Ose, her body moved like the dance of a flame and she opened her eyes to see him watching her. Bella could see he wanted to claim her, to call her his own, but she couldn’t allow herself to be captured and he could not keep her to himself.
Ose reached up to caress her breasts before sitting up to pull a pert nipple between his lips and tease it with his tongue, sucking it deeply into the recesses of his mouth. The sensations made Bella buck while she was poised on his cock, and she cried out, moving faster and striving for release. They moved with wild abandon. Ose pulled her down for a searing kiss, a sheen of sweat covering her skin.
“Show them to me,” he groaned out, his breathing harsh. “I want to see you as you’re meant to be.”
Bella shook her head but never stopped her movements. “No, not here, let me just be a woman when I’m with you.”
“But you aren’t, are you? Accept who you are,” Ose said harshly. He grabbed her hips and pulled her down against him hard. “Show me Belladonna in all her beautiful glory!”
“I’m going to come,” she cried out and as she threw her head back. Bella’s black tipped wings burst free and spread wide.
“Beautiful,” Ose breathed out in awe.
Their breathing was harsh, and Bella could feel his fingers bite into the skin of her thighs as he gripped her tight.
“Now.”
The word was harsh, torn from Ose’s lips, and he never looked away from her above him, wings spread, while giving in to his release. Bella felt her pussy clench around his cock and her orgasm was such sweet pain that her scream couldn’t be voiced. He thrust into her harder, faster, taking them over the edge of sanity and into the dark abyss where they were poised, still, before falling back to earth.
Bella fell against Ose’s hard body and as her wings retracted, he enveloped her in his embrace. She shifted, purred in contentment and sat up slowly, looked down at him beneath her.
“Why did you do that?” Her voice was husky with emotion as she whispered the words.
“Because I wanted to see,” Ose admitted. “And because you need to stop being ashamed of what you are and what you’re becoming. If I haven’t proven it by now, I will endeavor to do so, there is nothing in this universe that would make me betray your trust.”
“You love me,” a slow smile spread across her face.
Ose looked away. “Demons don’t fall in love, that would mean we have a heart, but we have none, nor a soul.”
“I say demons have both, but they’re buried so deep that it takes something special to bring them to the surface,” Bella replied. “I think that’s me for you.”
“Shall I make you leave?” He rolled with Bella so she was on her side facing him.
“Not quite yet.” She traced a finger down his nose, knowing he was teasing. “Aren’t we a pair, both don’t know where we stand. The sand beneath our feet keeps shifting, moving with the surf, but somehow we found a connection in each other.”
Ose raised an eyebrow. “If you recall, I was sent to schmooze you to the dark side.”
“Okay, Darth,” Bella laughed. “Enough. Let’s do this again, see how it goes.”
“We know how it will go, we’ll burn together and we’ll enjoy it,” Ose replied.
She ran her hand down to his cock and began to stroke. “I’m okay with that.”
Bella opened her mouth under his kiss and he continued the exploration of her mouth with his tongue. Right now the world consisted of what she could feel and taste. Bella would deal with the rest when she was ready to face it all again. She made it a point to never stay overnight in the demon’s lair, lest he have unwanted guests, so he watched her dress and she left with a smile of goodbye.
Leaving Ose’s apartment, the doorman’s desk was empty. It was almost disappointing she couldn’t spar with him, but there would be other times for them to pick at each other. She walked to her bike in the cool Seattle night and made her way back to Abeona’s through the empty streets of Seattle. The lights of the city still lit up the night in a beautiful array and the Space Needle was a landmark that she could always find as she drove.
Bella parked her bike in Abeona’s private parking garage, where she had at least four cars, two smaller compacts and two SUVs. Yan or Henri always drove her and while she used the private stairs to enter the home, Bella wondered if Abeona could even drive. Her friend was still up, sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine and watching the crazy reality show Bella had introduced her to.
“It’s sucked you in, Abs,” Bella grinned, closing the door.
Abeona glanced at her and then back at the flatscreen TV. “It really has, I want to curse these dishonorable men with warts and the woman with chastity. It can’t be healthy to kiss that many people in one show. Why does he need to have fifteen women to choose a wife from? It reminds me of the old days when women had to be paraded around for prospective husbands like cattle.”
“You done with this tangent?” Bella asked, sitting down and taking the glass of wine to take a sip. It dawned on Bella that she hasn’t been drinking as much as she used to. How could Ose think Abeona was against her when she’d done nothing but take care of her?
“You smell of your rendezvous,” Abeona noted.
Bella shrugged. “And I showered too.”
Abeona took her glass back and filled it a bit more. “Well, demons are known for a high-pheromone scent. Ask your demon if he would mind if you got some for me, it’s very good for lust magic.”
“I doubt he would say yes,” Bella said, amused, and hesitated. “Abbie—I think I want to tell you now, about my life and how my father found me.”
Abeona put her glass on the coffee table and turned in the chair to face Bella. “I am willing to listen.”
Bella blew out a deep breath. “My first memory is at three years old and being hidden in a closet. I was told my mother died giving birth to me, but I heard my grandmother saying there was an exorcism that went badly because it seems my mother saw visions. I think that’s why my father chose her, because she could see who he was, and I have a vague flash of her smiling, telling me how special I was, but it was a dark place so maybe I imagined it.”
“I think it’s the truth,” Abeona said quietly. “If you were kept in captivity, there is no doubt your mother was also. People try to hurt or cure what they do not understand.”
“My grandmother sold me,” Bella said bluntly. “I had no name, could barely talk, and the preacher that bought me used me for these tent services where he would get me all nice and pretty and put me to sit on stage. You see, I could get flashes of people’s lives and he told them I detected sin, and that’s how he got people to repent.
“Mostly he extorted them to keep the information to himself. That was when Sachiel tried to kill me. I was five and as he tried to slay me, I grabbed his hand and I saw—I saw what I was. I could see though his eyes that they killed my sisters before I was born, and that triggered a memory of being in the womb. I saw how sick my mom was and they never intervened even as my grandmother let her die.”
Bella wiped the tears away that had begun to fall. “But it seems my touch stopped him as well, because he looked down at me with this curious expression on his face. He knelt as his wings spread and he wiped the dirt from my face. I thought he would save me, but he just disappeared and I felt the air from his wings on my face.”
Bella stopped to take a breath and Abeona spoke. “I think that Sachiel saw his destiny was tied to yours. I know others tried to kill you but he never tried it again, that is written in the Nephilim texts.”
“There are freaking texts?” Bella asked, astonished.
“I have some volumes not even the Vatican could claim to know of. You can read them tomorrow,” Abeona promised. “Please tell me the rest of your story.”
“I think I blocked the visions after that, haven’t had another one until the one I told you about,” Bella went on. “When they stopped, I found that I could burn away infection from sick people, so then the preacher used me as a healer. My father told me later on that my energy was so low it was like chemo.”
Bella closed her eyes to the memories, hating that they still made her heart race. “I slept in this small, cramped cellar and while doing these ‘healings’ took a lot out of me and I was hungry, that man barely fed me. He beat me unmercifully when he was drunk. I was the devil when I wasn’t making him money and you had to beat the sin out of evil girls like me.”
“Oh Nightshade,” Abeona whispered in horror.
“I cried for a mama to save me, I cried for the angel to come back, even though I knew he might kill me, but no one ever came,” Bella whispered. “I didn’t pray because what kind of God would let me suffer, would want me to die?
“I was sixteen, still crying for a mom or Sachiel to come back, and then it was my father,” Bella continued her story. “I distrusted him at first, but he killed the preacher for what he did to me and then brought me to the manor house. It was the first time I ever felt love and even that couldn’t keep him from leaving me.”
Bella let out a ragged sigh. “It seems every time I care, it ends with people leaving me. I’m in this big world and I am the only one of my kind. Even in a group I’m alone. I belong nowhere, to no one. I shouldn’t exist and I have come to terms with the fact that I’ll fight until I die.”
“You will do no such thing!” Abeona cupped her cheeks and kissed each one. “You belong, you have a family, we are your family. Me, Wheeler, Henri Yan, we are your mother and brothers. My mother and my ancestors are yours, my Nightshade, you were never alone.”
Bella tried to smile. “Thanks for that but...”
Abeona shook her head, cutting Bella off. “You don’t understand, our meeting was never happenstance. I knew you would walk into Diablo’s long before you ever did. My mama came to me as I slept, five years before I met you, and she said, ‘She needs you, daughter, my chérie, a child of angel and human born. Belladonna is wary, untrusting, but her heart will make her fight for the innocent of this world. You must help her, you must care for her in her darkest moments, she is to know she is not alone.’”
“Are you making this up to make me feel better?” Bella asked, wiping at her tears. “Because I can see how you’re trying to help but it’s kinda shitty as well to use my feelings like this.”
“Nightshade, I have never told you a lie,” Abeona said and grabbed Bella’s hands, putting them to her temples. “Now see!”
The vehemence of Abeona’s words or the combination of them and her gesture seemed to open the well of her subconscious. Bella’s vision came hard and fast like a movie on fast-forward but she could see Abeona was telling the truth. She pulled away, wide eyes staring into that of a friend who was put on a path so they could be close.
Why did it feel like a tight fist around her heart had opened up or a cork that held in all her emotions had popped like a bottle of champagne? Bella felt the first sob leave her throat like a hiccup and it hurt as the second came from her chest. Soon Bella was sobbing and not understanding why as tears streamed down her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked Abeona between her sobbing breaths. “Why can’t I make them stop?”
“You’re free.” Abeona wiped away her own tears and opened her arms.
Bella hugged her, and she couldn’t seem to stem the flow of tears. Time was lost. She didn’t know how long she cried or how long her friend patiently held her. There was so much she held on to and it all seemed to pour out of her in her tears. At the end of it, she sat back and smiled and tried to see through puffy eyes.
It was still there, but it wasn’t choking her, didn’t make her want to scream and pull her hair, wondering why this life was hers to bear. She wasn’t healed and this wasn’t some miracle where she’d be dancing through the meadows catching butterflies soon. But it was a start and she kinda had a family, people she could trust.