Chapter 6

After Jhing-Jhing left in a whirlwind of toddler screams, fish smell, and judgment, I just stood there, staring at the half-eaten dragonfly wing on the floor.

Oh god.

Why? Why would you let your child eat those inedible bile things? What the hell was happening to me? Why was I even alive?

This body… this Catherine… was too big, too soft, too heavy. I could barely walk across the room without knocking into something. The house smelled like old pizza dipped in milk  and forgotten wet socks. There were stickers on the ceiling. Too many. How did that even happen?

One of the girls had taped a half-eaten banana to the wall like modern art.

The children were chaotic. The screams, the cries, the constant MOMMY! It was too much! I could handle a grenade but this? This was too much.

The house was a battlefield.

And not the noble kind. Not trenches and rifles. Not smoke and valor.

No.

It was worse.

It was a warzone of wits, wet diapers, glittery unicorn stickers, and boobies. There were so many boobies. Not sexy ones. Not fun ones. I mean baby bottles, nursing bras, and tiny toddler hands constantly trying to poke mine to check for milk like I was a vending machine.

There were old crumbs in places no crumbs should exist. I found a slice of apple inside a shoe and a Barbie doll jammed into a peanut butter jar. There was a sock in the ceiling fan.

And where was the father?

Was there even one?

Had he abandoned ship in the dead of night and left me—Leon Darrow, elite mercenary and proud bachelor—as the last man standing in a sticky pink hell?

I scanned the room like a confused spy on his first mission, crouching low behind a pile of stuffed animals with permanent marker tattoos.

Family pictures.

There.

On the wall.

A man.

Ordinary-looking. Late thirties. Balding at the front with an underwhelming mustache. He wore a football jersey two sizes too tight and had one of those dad smiles, the kind that said, "I gave up on sleep in 2009 and haven't known peace since."

Probably the father.

I narrowed my eyes.

He looked almost as old as me. Definitely not athletic. Definitely had a beer tummy too big for my liking. And honestly, that man didn’t look like he could fight off a squirrel, much less raise three demon-angel hybrids like the ones now tearing through the hallway yelling something about "Rainbow Warrior Punches."

I moved to the hallway, still on edge, and noticed a pair of adult shoes by the closet door.

Massive. Size twelve at least.

Way too big for my new petite, unfamiliar feet.

In the bathroom, beside three toothbrushes stuck together with something suspiciously gooey, was a razor.

It was massive. Silver. Shiny. The kind of razor that said, “I may be emotionally unavailable, but at least I groom.”

And yet… there was no testosterone in the air. None of that musky, sweaty, Dad-was-just-here aura I would expect from a house with an adult male in it.

Just…

Tiny bras.

Mismatched socks.

Half a cup of milk under the bed—HOW? WHY?

And a scratched-up DVD copy of My Little Pony: The Crystal Heart Disaster playing on loop.

I walked over to the TV to turn it off. It hissed. Sparked. Refused to die.

Of course.

I turned to find Ivy—the youngest, I guessed—gnawing on the TV remote. Just… peacefully teething on it like it was a grilled cheese sandwich.

She made eye contact.

Pooped her diaper.

Maintained eye contact.

“Right,” I muttered. “You win.”

I backed away slowly.

Then someone threw a pancake at my head.

It hit me square in the temple with a wet slap.

“Aliya!” Maya screamed from the kitchen. “You’re not supposed to throw breakfast!”

“I’m feeding her!” Aliya yelled back. “Mommy said if someone looks hungry, you give them food! Mommy looks very hungry today!”

I peeled the pancake off my face. It smelled like… was that peanut butter and sardines?

My sanity was cracking. Piece by piece. Like a glass of wine in a toddler's grip.

“Okay,” I breathed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Let’s… let’s all calm down.”

Aliya appeared in the doorway, smeared in jam and holding what looked like a taxidermied squirrel. She held it out like Simba.

“I found a friend!”

“What—where did you get that?”

“The neighbor gave it to me!”

“Why would—”

“She said it used to be a dragonfly but I stepped on it, so now it’s a squirrel!”

That was it. That was the moment I blacked out internally.

I sat down. On the floor. In a puddle I hoped was apple juice.

And as if summoned by my internal scream, the front door swung open again and Jhing-Jhing, the plus-size Filipina neighbor of legend, marched in like a maternal warlord again.

“Hey I forgot to tell you about Ivy’s birthday party on friday. You coming, yeah?” She had curlers in her hair, a giant reusable shopping bag in one arm, and a two-year-old Ivy hanging from her hip like a barnacle.

I blinked at her. My mind were frozen.