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“Ummm…”
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
The knocking grew louder and much more insistent. Leaving Emma strapped securely in her high chair, I carried Brayden with me to the front door and peered through the peephole.
A woman stood on the other side.
She was small, and so bundled in jackets and scarves I could barely make her out. She was alone in the hall, though, so I cracked the door.
“Can I help yo—”
I never got to finish. Without a single word she shoved her way inside, with a strength and speed that surprised me. To my horror, she reached for Brayden and slid her hands beneath his arms.
“EXCUSE ME!” I shouted, twisting away. But the baby was reaching for her. And as the scarf fell away I saw her face, and slowly, vaguely remembered…
The demon queen.
“Erika?”
She was a little older, a little thinner, and a lot more angry looking than I remembered.
“Of course, Erika!” she shot back. “Who else would I be? Now give me my son!”
Reluctantly, I handed him over. Brayden went willingly enough, but once in her arms, he began reaching back for me again.
“So who the hell are you?” Erika demanded. “And where’s Adrian?”
“He’s out. At work.”
“Work!?” she scoffed. Just then, a baby began screaming loudly. Her cries carried in from the kitchen.
Emma!
“Whose baby is that?” Erika roared. Her mean eyes narrowed. “Are you running some kind of a daycare here, or—”
“One second!”
I ran back, scooped Emma from the high chair, and dried the tears on her little cheeks. She clutched me tenderly, her tiny fingers clenching and unclenching on my shirt. My heart felt like it would literally melt.
“Is this milk?”
Adrian’s ex-fiancée stood in the doorway to the kitchen now, her lip curled back in disgust. She was holding her son with one hand, and sifting his matted hair with the other.
“Yes, actually.”
“How did—”
“Look, it just happened. I’m going to bathe him. In fact, I was just about to—”
“Oh you’re not doing anything of the sort,” Erika laughed bitterly. “I’m taking my son home. It’s obvious he’s not getting proper care here, and he was supposed to be visiting his father anyway.”
She scanned around, sniffing the place like she’d never been this far inside. As far as I knew, maybe she hadn’t.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” I asked her.
Her gaze finished its circuit of the kitchen and fixed tiredly back on mine.
“No. Should I?”
