It was late, nearing nine on the dot, and she still hadn’t put Milo to bed. He should have been asleep an hour ago but instead of sleeping, he was currently curled up on the couch, watching his favorite cartoon. An affectionate smile found her lips, adding a bit of gaiety to her normally serious expression. He was such a good, innocent child who had little knowledge of the danger she’d exposed him to simply by being his big sissy. If not for the risk her defiance posed to him, she would’ve already turned her back on the government and their demands. But they’d given her no choice but to surrender her everything to them, and now she was forced to watch her every word and move around Milo in fear of their retaliation.
Smile softening, Jaclyn reached across the back of the couch to give Milo’s disheveled hair a gentle stroke with her gloved hand; she wore gloves to protect others from her touch. She could control the power to some degree, but sometimes she infected people without even meaning to. “What is it, bud?”
Milo leaned back into her caress, seeking her affection as he often did during times of stress or confusion. “Treat?“
Her smile faltered. Most people would probably have no idea what he was asking, but Jac knew. She’d always been able to understand and anticipate his needs, even before he started talking at the age of five. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you can’t go out tonight. It isn’t safe. Halloween brings out all sorts of … bad people.” A strange thing to tell a child, but it would give her an excuse to keep him indoors tonight. “Tell you what, I’ll stop by the grocery store tomorrow and buy you whatever kind of candy you want. How’s that?”
She never heard his reply, though, since at that exact moment, someone knocked on their front door. Stiffening, she gave Milo’s head a soothing pat before she made her way across the living room and to the small entrance way. And even when she heard that childish voice on the other side of it, she didn’t lose her caution, slowly opening it to see who’d decided to visit at this hour. It didn’t even hit her that it could actually be a child trick-or-treating …
And that was exactly what or who it was.
“Well, aren’t you cute,” Jac said, forcing a smile for the sake of the child. “But I’m sorry. We don’t have any candy.”
Aaron rocked back and forth slowly, focusing the weight of their body solely onto their heels as they waited for someone to answer the door. The impatience that seemed to inhabit their younger form made it seem as though it took hours for them to sense movement on the other side of the door, but the centuries spent on earth gave them the knowledge that it had only been a few moments perhaps three minutes.
The door opened slowly, but once eye contact had been established it was obvious that she had fallen for the disguise that they so easily wore. The grin fell away at the next revelation - after all what sad souls didn’t have candy on a day such as Halloween. That in itself was a true tragedy, one that even Aaron wasn’t able to simply ignore or wave off as not mattering. Halloween was a sacred day of tricks and of treats in their mind. You simply couldn’t have one without the other -that was like having dark without light, day without night.
Aaron’s head tipped to the side in the slightest way, noticeable only in one was paying attention to every small movement. Eyes managed to both narrow and widen at the same time as they thought of a way to possibly fix this terrible wrong. Then it hit them as if they had run into a brick wall, and a small hand reached into the bag and pulled out a chocolate bar. “It’s halloween - you should have treats too.” They offered it on an open palm.
