10 - Absolute Wish//Lea

Her mother hadn't come home since before her father was arrested. During the hearings with their father's lawyer, they found out she was the one who had turned their father in. She would call, but the guilt in her voice meant they were more relieved when the calls were over.

It wasn't her fault, but all of them couldn't help how they felt, especially Waco. Even though it was their father's actions that had caused the chain of events that led to him breaking his leg again, he seemed to hold his mother accountable instead.

Both she and her brother stuck themselves into their hobbies. For most of the year, they lived alone, so it wasn't difficult. Sometimes Lea would wake up in the middle of the night, worried sick about how her father was doing In prison, and she'd hear her brother reciting a script from memory from across the hall. It was always the same one; Tedderson, a tragedy about a who steals a fishing boat and is swept away by a large wave.

"He's lost at sea

Our words do not reach him

The white waves keep them away

But we do not need this endless grim"

The way he recited it chilled her to her very core.

Without having ever read the play, even she knew Mr. Tedderson didn't make it.

A few weeks after he was arrested, Waco went to visit their father. He came back with high spirits, and a large sum of money. Though he promised that these were his legitimate savings that he was passing on to them, Lea couldn't bring herself to believe it.

Still, they embarked on vacation as he'd instructed, which had led her here.

-HEIST_ON-

Lea woke with a start, the chilling words of Tedderson still echoing in her mind. She was laid on top of her bed, still wearing her favorite psychedelic skirt and plaid socks. Her hands were tangled in her raven hair, thick and greasy with her signature gel.

She quickly sat up and pulled her plastic beret out of her hair, wondering how she'd gotten home. The last thing she could remember was Nora and Paxton quietly discussing something after Nora had confirmed she had indeed become a giant monster.

The hilarity of it all hit her like a ton of bricks and she found herself giggling. Nora? Paxton? Mysterious monochrome costumed heroes? How many more signals did she need before she realized it was a dream?

She got up and quickly dashed across the hall. In his room, Waco was splayed across the bed, legs hung over one side. He didn't even lift his head as she came in.

"I'm just sleeping," he said feebly, as he always did when he was trying to mask the pain in his leg. "Are you guys leaving?"

"Waco? What's going on?" she asked. Over her own voice, she could hear the TV in the living room. It was much louder than either she or Waco liked it, but it was exactly the way their mom did. A chill ran down her spine and she felt a prick of panic at the base of her neck.

"Lea! You're up!" he said, using his arms to pull himself up. "Your friends have been here all day waiting. You sure took a long catnap; I was just about to call Doctor Hewitt."

"I guess that's just how it goes when you're not used to partying," he continued. Lea tilted her head in confusion, wondering if the stranger side-effects on his pain medication were finally starting to kick in.

"Is mom home?" she asked. Waco's face darkened at the thought, but he quickly shook his head.

"Your friends, remember?" he repeated. "Nora and Pax...roe. Yeah, Paxroe."

"Paxton?" Lea corrected, feeling a different sort of panic descend on her.

"Yeah, him. Nice kid, weird book," he said, plopping down again. "You go see them and I'll just be here, resting."

"Waco, if it hurts you should-" she began to say, still concerned about him even with the new reality she was confronting. He put his hand up to stop her, and she couldn't find the energy to continue.

So she put one leg in front of the other until she was standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at Nora lying belly-up on her sofa watching some news program. Lucky Bagley's brilliant orange face was with a studio guest, berating them with his usual inane questions.

"Nora?"

"Lea!" Nora said, jumping from the sofa and grabbing her hands like an old friend. "You're finally awake!"

"Paxton said he misread the numbers and dates, but he couldn't confirm the accurate translation after that," she said. "I'm glad it was just fourty-two hours instead of like, a hundred."

"Forty-two hours?" Lea repeated. "I was asleep for forty-two hours?"

"Woah woah Lea," Nora said calmly. "This is Paradox City; stranger things have happened."

"Like when I turned into a giant monster?" Lea asked, hoping she was still fuzzy on details and at least that part had been a dream.

"Yeah; that's about as weird as it gets," Nora confirmed. "But nobody knows that was real except for us; your brother thinks you were tired from some party. I can't believe he bought that Paxton knows anybody popular enough to throw a party."

"I know... people!" Paxton shouted as he bumbled in from her parent's office. In his hands was a staggering number of papers tucked into a midnight blue file folder. On top of it was loosely bound book that was coming apart at the seams.

"I have an open invite to the Paradox City LARP Association events every other weekend."

"I rest my case," Nora insisted, taking a bow. Lea did a wide sweep of her living room, taking in the relaxed expression on Nora's face and the over-eager expression on Paxton's as he set down his folder and pulled out a few pages. She only had one question in mind.

"What are you two doing here?" she said. "You're like, superheroes or whatever, and you saved me. Aren't heroes supposed to work in silence? Let me think it was all a dream?"

"I'd like nothing more," Nora said with a forced smile on her face. Her sudden change in tone made Lea feel like everything up till now had been a façade.

"Nora," Paxton called out quietly before turned to Lea.

"You're one of us now," Paxton said plainly.

"What?" Lea asked incredulously.

"I was leading up to that!" Nora insisted.

In the midst of the madness, Paxton had picked up a red gem -the red gem- in a plastic case alongside a piece of paper.

Then he said the only thing Lea had wanted to hear for months, even though she didn't know it yet.

"Before you say no; I just want you to know that if we finish what we're doing, we can have a wish."

"Any wish."

That was when Lea learned that there was a force in Paradox City even bigger than dreams.