I chuckled. “You seem pretty sure of yourself.” Then, something popped into my head. “Did we fight one time?”
Lily laughed. “Yes. I would have kicked your ass if Keir hadn’t come outside. Relax, you’ll remember it all in time.”
She returned to the shop, and I grabbed my helmet and followed her. There, at the far end of the garage, was my beauty. She looked fantastic with her new paint job and those cool handlebars someone had made especially for me. When you looked at the bike from the front, the handlebars looked like a bat with fangs.
“Who made those handlebars?” I turned to Simp, who was standing nearby.
“Brok, that friend of Lilith and Quinn’s.”Brok? Brokorol. That was the guy’s name. I remember him.
“Lilith?” The name was familiar, but it wasn’t coming to me.
“Lily. That’s her full name.” He looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
Lilith...I remember! I remember her full name and—wait! What? She’s a demon!
“Yeah. You okay, man? You need me to haul you and your bike home?” Simp touched my bicep sympathetically as he watched me.
“Naw. You guys need help with anything?” I pitched in and changed a tire, lubed up a small minibike, and adjusted the suspension on a Harley Trike while Quinn, Fish, Simp, and Georgia went upstairs to the apartment to eat.
When they returned, I said goodbye to my friends and pushed my bike out of the shop to start it. I listened to her hum as I pulled on my helmet to head home.
There was no rush, so I took a few side streets. I drove by a bar I remembered entering once with Trent, Amelie’s husband and my good friend. I passed by The Mystical Palm where he worked, and a million images flashed through my mind’s eye.
Lilith had worked at the store. I met Lake and Jamie there when someone tried to rob the place. Seeing Trent’s grandmother’s ghost milling through the stacks. Seeing other ghosts milling through the stacks.
Trent telling me the funeral home was on fire!
I parked the bike and rushed inside. “Trent! Trent!”
He stepped from between the stacks, his hands wringing as he stared at me. “You’re remembering it all, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what I’m seeing.” My mind was racing as a million images came at me all at once.
“Keir!You need to talk to Keir. Let me drive you.” He went to his office, and I remembered being in there with him.
I ran out the back door and hopped on my bike, heading out into traffic without looking and nearly broadsiding a fucking delivery truck. I zigged and zagged between cars, trucks, and buses, and then I took the ramp onto the highway where I remembered riding a Ducati for a customer.
I didn’t glance at the speedometer. Images still bombarded me, but I was able to make my way home. I pulled into the driveway in time to see Keir kneeling by the slide on the kids’ playset as Gracie slid down, giving her a tight hug. I stopped the bike beside our detached garage and lifted my leg over before removing my helmet and placing it on the seat.
The front door of the house opened, and Lucy walked out with Davy, holding his hand as the two of them slowly made their way down the three steps from the front porch. He was still uneasy on the stairs.
When he saw me standing by the bike, he jerked his small hand from Lucy’s and made a dead run toward me. I scooped him up and kissed his cheeks before spinning him around. He laughed, and the joy I heard made my heart overflow.
Keir and Gracie hurried over to where I was tickling our son. Keir kissed me as Gracie hugged me around my legs.
“How was your day, love?” Keir stared at me, so much love in his eyes that a lump formed in my throat. It was the vision I’d had when I was with Jo and Michael the Archangel trying to figure out why we were fighting with a demon to save humankind.
I grinned as I returned his kiss before bending to kiss Gracie and then Davy. They were cut from us, these two beautiful children. They were who I’d been fighting for—or the promise of them—and my vision was playing out in front of me. That beautiful vision was the moment I was living right now.
“Now it’s perfect. “I remember it all. I remember our life and everything we fought against to get to this instant in time.”
Keir stared at me for a moment. “Are you sorry you remembered? It’s my fault you have those memories, love. I gave Jo the okay to take it all away from you so you could have a normal life. You didn’t want to remain what you were. You told me so many times, and I tried to honor your wishes.”
I stared into his beautiful brown eyes and smiled. “I’m not sorry in the least. We have a beautiful life and an incredible future ahead of us, I’m sure of it.”
And in that moment, I was surer of the future than anything I’d ever been.
Epilogue
