“What the fuck is going on!” Angela demands from Justin.
“Angela, Angela, calm down,” I tell her.
“Dad, shut up!” Angela shouts at me. “Justin, your daughter stabbed Ethan! He turned to dust like a vampire! You high fived her! Justin!”
Justin is thinking. So much has happened.
“Your husband is a killer!” Joy shouts at Angela. Joy doesn’t need time to think. “I killed him like he deserved!”
“Hey, psycho,” Angela gives her back the same tone. “The grownups are talking!”
“If the grownups are talking, why are you talking?” Joy zings her back.
Justin laughs in spite of himself, while shaking his head. “This is bad. This is bad.”
“Justin!” Angela shouts.
“Quiet, quiet,” Justin says softly as he raises his hands. “Give me a second.”
“My dad’s going to make you disappear in just a minute,” Joy tells Angela. “And he’s going to make your kids disappear! And he’s going to–”
“Angela,” Justin finally looks up, and looks straight into his sister’s eyes. “You married a killer.”
Angela freezes. “He’s not a killer. Why would you say that?”
“He killed Joy. He kills anyone he meets in his dreams.” Justin’s tone is low, just trying to understand.
“In his dreams?” Angela’s confused. “You can’t blame someone for something they do in their dreams!”
“Yes, you can!” Joy says.
“Yes, you can,” Justin says simultaneously. “He is an awful, terrible, dark man. He’s the most evil person I’ve ever met. How could you have missed that?”
Angela opens her mouth, but says nothing. She seems shocked. She isn’t moving.
“Angela,” Justin says. “You’ve been with him for years! How could you have missed it!”
Angela isn’t moving.
We all stare at her. I don’t know what to say. I’m her father and his father, and I know only part of what happened with the angel Chrysalis. If this was really Angela, I’d like to think I’d have something to say. But I don’t.
Angela is just frozen there, mouth hanging open.
And then, suddenly, she shatters as if she was made of glass. She explodes into thousands of small, colorful glass pieces.
“Oh!” Joy looks down at the shards.
“Don’t touch them!” Justin says. And then, in an instant, all the glass pieces are gone.
“Told you!” Joy tells the missing shards of glass.
“Don’t touch them,” Justin says again and stumbles forward and into the living room.
He falls into my Archie Bunker chair even as Suzy walks in. I assume Grace and Tommy vanished as well. “Don’t touch them,” Justin says again.
(To be continued…)