Fall Away

I woke up frowning. Pieces of my dreams lingered in my head, something about a house of mirrors and Kirian and Soren and a telephone-

Ring!

I scrambled around, looking for my phone. That was probably what had woken me up in the first place. I finally found it on my desk and opened it up. “Hello?”

“Hey sis.”

“Danny!’ My face lit up with a smile. “What’s up?”

“Well, I was actually calling to ask you something.”

The last time we had talked, he had been asking about my “date.” I groaned to myself. How was I supposed to explain how the relationship had changed since then?

“Are you around at 3 o’clock today?”

Well. That wasn’t what I had been expecting. I paused for a moment, thinking. “Um, yeah. Why?”

“I need you to pick me up at the airport.”

“What?”

“My plane lands at two-thirty, so I figure I’ll be ready by three,” he continued casually.

“Wha – Daniel Moore, are you telling me you’re going to be here, in my town, in five hours?”

“Yeah.”

I could hear the grin in his voice. He seemed happy to have made me speechless.

“When did you decide to do this?” I finally asked.

“Oh, the other day,” he replied casually. “I figured I could surprise you.”

“Well, consider me surprised,” I muttered.

“So anyways, I have to run, but I’ll see you in a few hours.”

I hung up the phone, somewhat dazed by the sudden turn of events. As the shock wore off, I began to smile to myself. This was just like my brother. He was always spontaneous, and I was sure he had gotten bored of his job and decided to take a long weekend to come out here. I hadn’t seen him in a few months, and it would be nice to reconnect. We didn’t get much chance to talk, and-

I froze, feeling the plate I was holding drop to the ground. Luckily, it was plastic, but at the moment I didn’t care.

Kirian.

The name burned through my brain, and all the implications came with it. I turned around and ran back to my room, picking up my phone and dialing quickly.

“Hello?”

I knew the twins well enough to recognize Kirian’s voice, and I began my rant.

“My brother’s coming into town,” I said without preamble. “Today.”

“Does that mean you’re not coming over?” Kirian asked.

“Well, yeah. That too.” I paused, temporarily distracted, before regaining my train of thought.

“But I swear, Kirian, if the plane crashes – if he doesn’t-”

I took a deep breath before I finished the sentence. “I swear to God, if he dies before he gets he gets here, there will be hell to pay.”

I slammed down the phone before he could respond, feeling the angry tears well up in my eyes. I was not going to let Kirian ruin this visit for me. Not if there was a single thing I could do to prevent it.