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“Hell yeah!”

“I’ll get the hammer-”

“I’ll get that really big flashlight.” Frank stares at my suggestion. “It’s like, super heavy.”

She shrugs, “If you say so, sis. We’ve got like three minutes before we gotta meet Kristie. Let's make those three minutes count!”

Gabriel

“OK, so explain to me again how she’s real now?” Kristie asks, the straw on her giant caffeinated drink making an obnoxious noise.

“Why are you even asking? It’s been a month and you’ve already offered her a job.” I grumble watching Bren and Frank behind the coffee shop counter laughing with Starla.

“Because I need to know if she’s like, immortal now. Like can you imagine how cool I’d be with an immortal bodyguard?”

I roll my eyes while Dima chuckles. He thinks my sister is cute. She’s not. She’s a pain in the ass.

“She’s not immortal.” That much I know for sure. She sleeps and eats and drinks and does all the things normal people do. “The way mama described it was that Frank never existed independently. She was real. She had a soul, but no body. She spent her existence tethered to Brenna. Then she chose to leave Bren, enter Percy, destroy him from the inside and come back out still separate from Brenna.”

“Like a fucked up supernatural birth,” Kristie says, unhelpfully. She slurps noisily at her coffee. “So Percy gave birth to Frank?”

“Do not fucking phrase it like that.”

“Like what? Like Percy is Frank’s momma?” Kristie grins evilly as Dima grins at her.

“Do you think I should get him a Mother’s Day gift?” Frank asks, causing Kristie to jump.

“We need to get you a bell. You’re creepily silent.”

“And that’s not the only thing creepy about me.” Frank wags her brows. “So, let's get this meeting started. I’m moving house today. And Gabe is helping me.”

***

I pick up the last of Frank’s boxes, marvelling at how much stuff a person who has only existed for a month has managed to collect. While I’m happy me and Bren will have the house to ourselves so we can have sex on every surface of the apartment, there’s a small part of me that worries about Frank. I mean, hell, she’s new to this living stuff.

“Is that the last of it?” she asks as I walk through the front door propped open with a book about New Orleans ghost tours.

“Yup. The very last box. You know, you have managed to accumulate a lot of stuff since you’ve been here.”

She looks up from the bookshelf to smile softly at me. “You can thank your woman for that.”

I take her in. Everything about her is the same yet somehow different to Brenna. The way she stands, the way she wears her red curls. She seems harder somehow.

“What?” she asks, turning toward me.

“No, it’s just,” I rub at my neck, feeling bad for judging her.

“Spit it out, man. I promise it won't hurt my feelings.”

“It’s just, I find it confusing. The differences between you two. You never lived and yet you seem harder than Bren. More wary.”

She steps closer, a tight smile on her face. “I never lived out here, but I lived everything Brenna lived.” She stares at me, imploring me to understand.

“You took the bad,” I whisper.

“I protected my sister. Someone had to keep her gift safe, and that someone was me.” She lifts her chin, pride written all over her face.

“Thank you, Frank.” I turn to leave. “Oh, we are just next door, and we love you. Anything you need, just let us know.” I tap on the door jamb.