The Ties that Bind

Chapter 1 | The Beginning

The house hadn't changed.

It'd been ten years, but it was as if she'd stepped into a memory. Bittersweet memories, the kind that made her feel heavy inside with longing but still, an aching pain. She had a vivid picture-perfect image of her Moroccan-skinned mother sitting out on the porch, braiding her hair in the morning while she sat patiently and listened to Selene change topics every two sentences. 

The porch had once been baby blue but was now grey and a stretch of vines had overgrown around one of the porch pillars. Outside the window, a huge oak tree dominated the property. There used to be a swing, Selene thought. The memory of falling off and breaking her arm brought a small smile to her face. Her mother, Raina, had been there in an instant, mending wounds and kissing tears away. 

Her father, Thomas, needed a fresh start. He never settled in the city -- always restless and itching for the quiet and familiar. Selene always knew he preferred the peace and consistency of a small community but moving back into their old family home isn't exactly what she had in mind for a 'fresh start'. It was willingly stepping into a loaded bear trap to see if it sprung. Selene couldn't imagine him surviving another wave of darkness if Thomas were to be triggered by it. She never imagined it'd drag him back after all this time, that was for sure.

Her fingers passed over her touchscreen cellphone, quickly texting Cas back and forth. Cassidy Bishop had been her saving grace and only constant friend throughout her employment at the Blair back in Devon City, Illinois. It was where she'd spent half of her life, where she'd developed the most. Her memories of her old life were foggy and much of it was repressed over time.

She was replying to a message about how work was going to be boring without her when the familiar rattle of a truck pulled up behind her. She pushed herself off the hood of her car just in time to see her father and her aunt Rochelle, in the pickup, balancing himself against the door with one arm and the other braced on his crutch. The accident left him with a permanent limp in his right leg after a severe break at the knee and he hadn't walked straight since.

He was a modest man but handsome. Thomas was dressed in his usual plaid shirt and his favorite pair of worn blue jeans. They'd been patched and sewn more times than she could count. They were his good luck jeans. Under the arch of his dark brows, his eyes were steel blue and they missed nothing. Her aunt had always told her he was a hawk amongst people. That he could spot the bad ones in an instant. Aunt Ruth was straight as an arrow, lean and muscled, with long tawny hair put up into a high ponytail. 

Where Thomas was ashen-haired and blue-eyed, like Ruth, Selene had inherited her mother's thick honeycomb hair and deep jade eyes. 

She threw an arm around him when he got near. "Hey, darlin'," Thomas said, kissing her temple. "How was your trip? That rust-bucket fall apart yet?" They hadn't seen each other in weeks -- Selene had been living with Cas in her loft apartment for months and was working nights at the bar. With Thomas on the outskirts of the city, Selene just lost touch with him for a while. 

Selene looked over at the old Chevelle in the drive. He always complained about the condition she was in. All the old gal needed was a new coat of paint and perhaps an oil change...and something did rattle precariously in the engine. "It was longer than I thought it would be," she smiled, "And she drove very well. I'm afraid she'll outlive us all."

Raina brought the car in the nineties, at half-price in a quick-sell car lot, and it was already twenty years old. Thomas insisted on getting rid of it, Selene figured it reminded him too much of her, even though if she asked him, he would flat deny it. While he'd offered to buy her a much safer vehicle, she simply couldn't part with her. It was asking her to cut off a healthy limb. The car was a piece of her as it was a piece of her mother and she didn't have much to remember her by besides the rare picture of her parents, her small collection of family photos that mainly consisted of Selene as a child, and an old jewelry box.