2 Family - 2

I get up and pour myself a cup of coffee from the sad little coffeemaker sulking in the corner of my room. It gurgles like it’s personally offended by being used. I take the mug and retreat to the couch, claiming my space, my caffeine, and my sanity. I sip slowly, letting the bitterness settle my nerves, while my eyes drift to Kiara.

She’s in full tornado mode — piling clothes onto the bed like she’s building a fabric monument to poor life choices. Shirts. Dresses. Jeans. Things I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen her wear. I swear, if Target ever runs out of stock, they could just raid her suitcase.

Half of it, naturally, lives in my cupboard, cause hers is too small. The kid doesn’t pack — she migrates.

There’s a soft knock at the door, barely there, and Axel’s face appears in the gap. Just his head at first, like he’s checking if it’s safe to enter.

“I’m so glad you girls are back,” he says, voice warm and genuinely happy, before dropping himself onto the couch beside me like gravity personally invited him.

Up close, it’s impossible not to notice how much he’s changed. That swimmer’s body —already unfair — has packed on even more muscle this past year. Solid. Strong. Comforting in a way that sneaks up on you. His cropped hair makes his sharp profile even sharper, drawing attention to those quiet, unsettlingly intense eyes.

“So,” I say, lifting my mug, “how’s the firefighting life?”

“Good,” he replies simply. Axel has never wasted words. Fire Station 34 suits him, though — coastal rescue, real danger, real purpose. Having an Olympic gold medalist swimmer on the team probably doesn’t hurt either.

He stretches out, relaxed, familiar. The old rumors flash through my mind — the whispered nonsense from school. Murderer. Cannibal. Vampire. Werewolf.

All bullshit.

The truth was quieter. Sadder.

The bruises he hid under oversized hoodies weren’t from fights he started. They were from a home that wasn’t safe. A childhood that never really happened. I still don’t know much — just that he has an older sister, his mom’s alive, and Uncle John helped him to overcome whatever he needed overcoming.

A vandalized boy from a broken home. A kid forced to grow up too fast.

No wonder he and Jackson are inseparable. They recognize the fractures in each other.

For ten years now, Axel’s been part of us. Since the haunted house incident.

“Do you guys remember that haunted house?” he asks suddenly, like he plucked the thought straight out of my head.

It’s kinda creepy how the boys do that — always know what’s in your mind.

Kiara swears it’s because they’re dysfunctional. I think it’s because broken souls vibrate more intimately.

“Yep,” I say dryly. “Hard to forget. Still got the scars.”

Kiara broke her ankle. My bicep got impaled by a flying arrow. To this day, I’m not sure what upset our teacher more — that we slipped away without permission, or that she had to drive us to the hospital herself.

“We got called there last week,” Axel says.

“It burned down?” Kiara gasps, hope lighting her voice.

“Nah.” He stretches his long legs right over my lap like he owns the space. “Small fire. A hobo trying to stay warm.”

Of course.

“But you’ll never guess what we found.”

“The monster guard?” I blurt.

Kiara rolls her eyes so hard they almost detach.

“No,” Axel chuckles. “The arrow dispenser. The one that nailed your arm.”

My eyes widen. “You’re kidding.”

“Empty,” he adds. “But still. Kinda wild seeing it in real life.” He scratches his jaw. “Took us minutes to put out the fire. Hours to clear the place. That building is basically a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“I told you guys the place was booby-trapped,” I say. “Jason Steward was the one who triggered it. He stepped on that loose plate.”

“Didn’t you say Cupid shot you?” Axel grins.

“I was in pain,” I snap. “And possibly hallucinating.”

Unicorn. Monster. Ugly man. Jury’s still out on that last one.

He turns to Kiara. “Your hole’s still there. The one you fell into.”

She groans.

“The hobo used it as a toilet,” he adds helpfully. “Smells horrific.”

“Maybe if I looked where I was going instead of filming Jason,” she mutters, “I wouldn’t have fallen into it.”

She snorts. “It ruined my athletics career,” she adds dramatically.

Axel now snorts. “Kiara, you never had an athletics career to begin with.”

I don’t miss a beat. “You’ve always been slower than a sloth.”

She glares at us. Axel just nods. “Even Pink Scarlet beat you, and she could not run to save a snail.”

Kiara opens her mouth to protest, but closes it again.

It’s true. Kiara was the slowest runner in the whole grade — even before she broke her ankle. Even slower than Scarlet. But that cow could wrestle the socks off a bull.

Guess everyone has their own thing.

Kiara pauses, considering, then shrugs. “Fair. I’m more of a sexy brainiac anyway.”

She adds another sweater to the already teetering pile.

“Come to think of it,” Kiara suddenly freezes mid-fold, a shirt dangling from her fingers, “I still have that video of Jason.”

I glance up.

“You know,” she continues, eyes lighting up, “the one where he runs out of the building screaming like a girl — while the rest of our class stampedes after him like startled cattle.”

I snort into my coffee.

“It was funny,” Axel adds, voice soft with memory, “right up until it wasn’t. If Damion hadn’t shown up, you would’ve been stuck in that hole for a long time.”

That part still knots something in my chest. Axel tried to hoist her up … but his tiny body was broken … in more ways than one. He didn’t have the strength. Tried to hide it. Tried to fight it.

To this day, I don’t know what Damion was doing there — alone, in a haunted house, miles away from anything. He was not part of our school back then.

I asked him once. He dodged it with that infuriating half-smile and said he was ‘visiting’.

Visiting what exactly? A ghost? The monster? A demon? Honestly, that would track.

“Yeah,” I say before my brain can stop my mouth. “He was pretty awesome that day.”

Silence. The kind that buzzes. I feel their eyes on me — sharp, knowing, amused.