Glows by C.K. Madrid

Author:C.K. Madrid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nextone Inc
Published: 2024-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

Into the Light

F

or a moment, I sat there, stunned. I felt like my world was inside a snow globe and someone had shaken it. My mother had just told me about her past, that she was really a slider and a light agent working to take down the most powerful dark networks.

“I regret that I couldn’t tell you earlier,” my mom said earnestly. “It would’ve put your life in danger.” She tapped faintly on the desk with her long nails.

This whole ordeal was completely surreal. I stared at my mom. Her black sweat suit and sneakers created the illusion I was talking to my D Glow mother on her way to her regular spa appointment, but the person sitting before me didn’t sound or act like my mother. This person was softer, nervous, caring—alien.

I searched around the pale pink room in an attempt to get a clue of who she really was, but the room seemed mostly barren. No books lined the shelf, and the only objects on the desk were a notepad, pencil, and a haphazardly cloud-shaped paperweight.

“I don’t have an office here,” she explained, noticing my eyes surveying the room.

“How could a bureau of supposed light allow you to kill all those D Glows that worked for Father?” I mumbled.

“I didn’t actually kill any of them, I just made it look like I did. It's easy to get D Glows, at the right place and the right time, to kill each other off. I just made sure your sister saw what she needed to see—that I was, well, bad to the bone, so to speak. She’d report back to your father and that helped my reputation.” Mom smiled reassuringly, then quickly looked down, her smile fading.

I rubbed my neck, trying to take it all in. Birds chirped happily and unassumingly in the background. Why were birds chirping? We were in a room with no windows.

“Make the damn birds stop chirping,” I demanded tiredly.

“Of course,” Mom said quickly, eager to comply. She grabbed a remote from inside the desk drawer and pointed to the portrait of a forest on the wall, and the noise abruptly stopped.

“So what am I, then?”

“A Light Glow. Your reading today was correct—well, sort of. You are up from neutral. There has never been a test for you as Julien Romero before so it assumed, since you are an L Glow, that you started at five and went down to plus one. At your last testing though, it was at neutral. The Light Bureau changed it to a Pure D reading to protect you.” Mom stood up and came around to the front of the desk to sit down on its side. “I have tried to keep you pretty much in the neutral zone as best as I could, but I think Skyla may have moved you a point to light.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. So she was actually trying to turn me?”

“No, no,” Mom quickly added. “I think you were falling in love with her, and that, my dear, brings you toward light.

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