Chapter Eighteen: "Aradia's back"

Alice Smith.

(Party night)

As soon as I hang up the phone I wrap up myself with the first jacket I see in the room — I don't think it's even mine — and I shoot out of the house where I was celebrating whatever shit that doesn't come to my mind.

Any excuse is good to celebrate something.

Like a rocket ship, I fly across the pavement leaving everything else behind; streets full of drunken people, big and ostentatious houses, shops, supermarkets; until I get to the Mendoza house.

After Alex told us that he saw Aradia's return we have all been alert and aware of her behavior. What we did not expect is that it would be so soon, it usually lasted a month before her return. This time it was a week, a miserable week. In a week you do not have time to prepare things, to protect yourself from what is coming. You just don't have time for anything.

I leave the motorcycle as I can on the same lawn full of disposable cups thrown on the ground and my heart shrinks a bit when I leave my precious motorcycle in those ways. As I walk through the green grass, I take a little look back to see that no one is interested in my Baby II, and I do so once again as I pass through the doorway.

Music plays everywhere, without any specific point, and if it weren't for my dear sister to stop being the innocent girl that I knew and pretends to be, I would join the others to dance. I shake my head and what is not written is hard not to hum the song, to not move my head or body to the sound of the music.

When I get upstairs without doing all those things that I was dying to do, I see it as an achievement, as if I had circled the Earth in less than forty-eight hours, as if I had been able to make anyone survive. plant in my charge for more than two weeks.

I move through those corridors that I know by heart quickly dodging the drunken guests and forcefully opening the door of his room.

The first thing I see is an upset Alex, a confused Ethan and my sister, lying on Alex's bed with her hair spread all over her face and the turmoil her body is under. Her chest rises and falls rapidly but suddenly changes to a relaxed and slow, very slow.

She seems relaxed, asleep.

Anyone who saw her would think that she is sleeping it off and that she will wake up the next morning with the worst hangover ever. But we all know that this is not the case, we know that if she wakes up from her, she will stop being her, she will become another person, something that we would like to avoid at all costs. He and I know that this is very far from reality, that it is not simply a dream, but the recovery of memories of one and the liberation of her other half, a half that wants to destroy everything even if it means losing her sister or even herself.

I desperately seek his gaze but his does not leave her body fainting. His eyes locked on her, her body tense with each passing second. They separate us two meters apart but I can see the suffering that is in him to see her go through this again, to lose her again until Aradia gets tired of playing.

I close the door behind me and lock it so no one else can enter. I approach her quickly but cautiously and I can feel the tension that Karla's body is under. Like Alex, neither of them is comfortable with the transition, neither of them likes it. I carefully brush away the hair that covers her face and gently open her eyelids. What I see scares and disappoints me. Both of her eyes sockets have turned a dark, malevolent black that only indicates Aradia's strong presence and the green that adorned her iris has turned into a precious, heavenly blue. The image is beautiful but not what it augurs.

The last time it happened, she disappeared for years. None of us had news of them, especially if they did not want to be found. When it happens, she spends her days living being one more demon and when whatever she does is done, she comes back without remembering anything. It's one of the advantages that grandma Margarett gave Karla. The fact is that she, because she does not want to know, has two features in mind; one, it might be said, that she is pretty and full of flowers and the other is dark and bloody.

I should be used to seeing her go through the transition but I am not. Today it was the drinking that made her lose control of her psyche, the last time it was the accident with my Baby I that caused this change. Every time it costs Aradia less to appear and more to emerge from the darkness for Karla.

It's too late...

"There is nothing we can do now." My voice is tinged with disappointment as I head for the door, away from my sisters.

"It can't be," he whispers, and the helplessness in his voice is palpable.

"Sorry."

And I close the door behind me. And Alex should do the same if he doesn't want to leave there burned like the one last time.

Well, it's not my problem.

I need alcohol in my veins to forget the birthday shit that Karla has again.

I hope she has one good birthday before she dies.

And with that thought, I get on my Baby II and head to the nearest bar.

***

Aradia Smith.

I take a deep breath before opening my eyes. I stretch every part of my body and I finally feel alive when I open them. My body weighs heavily on me and the season Karla was in a coma in the hospital recovering from that lucky — for me — accident comes to my mind. Although this time it is different. My head is spinning, yes, but it's not like I'm drunk, it's like being born again and that makes me smile.

Poor Karla. She has followed the typical stereotype of the dumb who tries not to be one by drinking more than she should so that the boy with different colored eyes falls in love with her. If she knew that in the past she had tasted that delicacy for decades and that she decided to forget everything for me, she would die of rage and impotence, which makes me happy.

I get up and before I realize what is happening I notice that delicacy, those muscular arms, holding my shoulders.

"Careful," he whispers.

He still has that angelic, innocent voice that haunts me so much.

"Thank you, Guardian Angel." I smile and he copies me.

"Guardian angel?"

"Ah, that's right, things don't change no matter how many years have passed." I put my index finger on my chin pretending to think. "My sexy guardian angel."

That makes me laugh out loud and I feel a warmth in my chest that I can't identify.

"I thought the most arrogant species were demons, but you have shown me that even the purest soul can be corrupted."

"That goes for you too."

Don't cut me off, kid.

"Yes, but there is no one who corrupts me. I was created this way, I was born this way. "I shrug. A malicious smile forms on my face. "Although, do you know what I would like?"

Alex looks me in the eye, those eyes that he knows he can't help but look at, as I take off the hideous T-shirt that Karla had put on, in one move. I hear his breathing get ragged and his eyes are full of desire even though he tries to hide it.

"What would you like? "Swallows with difficulty which makes my heart rate go up automatically.

"Corrupt every last inch of your body."