Page 18 of Ever Dark Academy: Volume 6

Another memory crashed into him. It was his birthday and he had begged and pleaded for the newest Playstation. But it was expensive on its own, not to mention with the games he’d wanted. He’d pretty much given up on the idea until he’d come home from school that day.

“Mom?” he called. Her car had been in the driveway so she should be home. “Mom?”

“In here!” she called from the television room.

He frowned as he thought he was hearing screaming and a car crash? What the heck? He walked in only to find his mother sitting on the couch with a Playstation controller in her hands. On the television was the game he’d been dying to play.

His face hurt from smiling so big. “You got it!”

She was staring at the screen, but she reached over and found the second controller.

“C’mon, c’mon, Grayson, you’ve got to get in on this,” she said. “We need some of your birthday luck to crack this quest.”

He’d immediately sat down beside her. They’d played all night, eating pizza and popcorn, drinking too much soda. She’d even let him stay home the next day. They had to recover. He’d had a party with his friends from school that weekend too, but he actually had preferred that night with just the two of them.

Another memory slid in quickly as this one left. It was similar to one he’d had of his dad, but very different at the same time. He and his mom were in the parking lot of a mostly abandoned strip mall. There weren’t any other cars around, which was good because he was in the driver’s seat and his mother was in the passenger one.

“Are you seriously going to let me drive?” he’d asked her as his hands clutched the steering wheel.

“My mom taught me how to drive when I was twelve. She thought it was important that I know how well in advance of getting my license in case…” Here, she paused and then said, “In case there was an emergency and something happened.”

“Like with Grandpa Carl?” he asked softly.

Her father had a heart attack when his mother was only five. Her mother, his grandmother, had called the ambulance, but there’d been a mix-up and they’d taken forever to come. And forever had been too late. She believed that if she’d driven Grandpa Carl to the emergency room herself that he’d have been saved. But his grandmother hadn’t known how to drive. But she’d learned after that and taught his mother.

“That’s right. Just like with that. We have to be self-sufficient, Grayson,” she said quietly. “The world helps those who help themselves.”

“And we help, too,” he said, adding that part.

She nodded. “We do, but we don’t expect others to help us. So! You are going to start to learn to drive. Now, you’re tall enough to reach the pedals and look over the steering wheel so it seemed time to start.”

Thinking back on those words, Grayson realized that she sounded a lot like he did. Like Ashyr did. Almost as if… Well, almost as if she’d been chosen to bring him into the world to learn those concepts again. To remember them.

“Now put your hands at ten and two,” she said. “And let’s get this party started.”

He had learned to drive. He’d also known how to use buses and trains. He’d been taught budgeting and how to cook. She’d made sure that he knew everything he needed to know in order to survive on his own. Even on the streets, her words and the things she had taught him had been the ones that he’d counted on to get him through. They’d likely been why he had survived.

“Grayson?” Balthazar’s eyebrows were lifted. “You all right there?”

Grayson slowly nodded. “Yeah, I… I think…”

“What do you think about using your mother as bait?” Christian asked.

His father’s eyes were pleading. He wanted Grayson to go get his mother and bring her here, out of danger, right now. He didn’t want her to be used. This man had given up nearly two decades of his afterlife to keep Grayson safe. Or as safe as he could be. How could he go against what his father wanted? He owed the man something, didn’t he? There had to be another way.

The world helps those who help themselves.

And we help, too.

Yes, we do.

“I think she has to be asked,” Grayson said. “If she agrees to it, that’s one thing, but I don’t want her to be a sitting duck out there.”

“Will she agree to it though, Grayson?” Caemorn asked. “And will knowing make this easier or harder for her?”

And we help, too.

“I think she will help,” Grayson said. “She’s really brave. She made a mistake with my stepfather. She tried to fix it. So hard. But she’s incredibly capable and strong and… yeah, she’ll do it.”