Page 44 of Up In Flames

Or, maybe I do. Big people, even horrible giants, would give me a background I currently lack. But I’m a man. I’m not given to introspection. I act, I shut away feelings that don’t serve me, and I go about my day. Sure, one day I fully expect the tower of thoughts I don’t think about to topple over on me, but I don’t expect it to be today.

“What are you thinking?” Nina asks, as if reading my thoughts.

And I have a choice: wave her off, or give her honesty. And really, that’s no choice at all, not if I want to keep her.

So, I choose the second. “I’m thinking that my feelings are mixed. I’m not twelve feet tall. I’m eight and a half. That makes me human, which is good. On the other hand, I find myself the tiniest bit disappointed, because for a brief moment, I thought I might be getting a peek at my ancestry. For an adopted child, there are always unanswered questions. We never really feel complete because we never really know ourselves. But more than that, I’m relieved. I’d never want to be anything but human. That would be horrible. I love my community. I have zero desire to stand outside it.”

“That’s a lot.”

“It is, but I’m handling it.” Famous last words. “Cool story, but it helps that none of it is true.”

Her lips purse. She looks like she’s debating with herself before she says, “I think, though, there might be something to it. Hear me out?”

And almost, I say no. But I can’t. It’s impossible to turn away from knowledge, and equally as impossible to turn away from her, so I nod.

“First point is that you’re not evil, Sampson.”

“Hah. Bet you wouldn’t have said that before I rescued you out of a tree and gave you an orgasm.”

“Well, I would have been wrong. You’re kind down to your bones, which is another difference between you and the Nephilim. Not twelve feet tall. Not evil. Besides, I would have called you a pompous, judgmental asshole before you rescued me and gave me the orgasm of my life, but I wouldn’t have said you were inherently bad.”

“Of your life?” I ask, distracted, as she no doubt intends me to be. But I don’t care. Give me a man who won’t crow at the compliment, and I’ll give you a piece of stone.

“Fast, soul-wrenching, and lasting.”

Fine. I suddenly feel a whole lot better.

She reaches for one of the modern books and flips through it. “I bring up the evil part of the description of giants because of the red-haired giants of North America. This work is a compilation of all the known information and speculation about them. Their bones have been found across the globe, but definitely across the United States. Legends of them have come down through various indigenous tribes that were alive during the time they are believed to have existed, which at their end wasn’t that far back, strangely enough. Within five hundred years, for sure. They were said to possess red hair, light eyes—usually green or blue, double rows of teeth, negative blood type—though this last is mere speculation—and stood between eight and twelve feet tall. And yes, the North American giants could be as small as eight feet, but they differed from you in that the skeletal remains were said to contain six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot. Last I counted, you have five. Big difference.”

The chill that bites through me punches bone deep. And in that moment, everything inside me turns, revolts, and settles.

I don’t want to believe. But I do.

For just a moment, I fist the hands that I hold out to show her. It’s hard to open them, but I do it because… because she’s got the right to know. She’s part of this uncovering. Plus, if she’s going to be my future, and I think I want her to be, she needs to know everything about me.

Even so, spreading my fingers so she can view the in-between is nearly impossible. “See the large space between my pinkies and ring fingers?”

When she gasps, I know she understands. “Did your parents…?”

“No, not the Deans. I was left at MFD when I was about six months old. My birthdate is really just a good guess. Anyway, surgery had already been performed on my hands and feet, cutting off what would have been my sixth fingers and toes.” And the heaviness of what I’m saying drops through me. “My parents said… they said it was a sign that my birth parents loved me, that they’d had a barbaric surgery performed so that I would be more adoptable, even though my parents also assured me in the same breath that people are born all the time with more fingers and toes than the norm. Honestly, it hasn’t been a huge concern of mine, but Xy mentioned blending with the local population. He said something about The Council wanting me to mix in. Maybe…” I can barely push out the words. The reality of what the books say compared to me is… damning. “Maybe that’s what he meant? That parts of me were cut off so that I’d look more human?”

Maybe I could ignore ancient tales of Biblical Nephilim. It’s harder to ignore more recent claims of eight-foot giants with six fingers and toes. And red hair. I have red hair. I’ve got the height. I’ve got the extra digits, or had them. And…

I close my eyes, my green eyes, and try to get my bearings, but they slip away. Because I’ve also got a double-row of teeth, don’t I? And the blood… yeah, that too.

Nina smooths my chest. “You can’t think you were planted here? I mean, why? What would be the purpose?”

“I don’t know.” But it’s beginning to seem like I might not know the first thing about who I truly am.

Double rows of teeth, six fingers, six toes, eight to twelve feet in height. Red hair, green eyes… negative blood type, which is rare, and which has been a concern, if I’m honest. I’m a firefighter. We face potential hazards every day. Our blood is banked at the local hospital, but other donations are kept on hand of our specific types for emergencies, and there aren’t a lot of A-negative bags around. “Anything said more specifically about blood types in your books?”

She gazes up at me, sympathy pulling her eyes tight. “Not with the skeletal remains. The red hair and green eyes are from reports by the indigenous tribes, not from forensic analysis. I don’t think there’s been a mapping of blood type other than the surmise that the bloodline is negative. I’m not even sure what that means, to be honest. Why?”

“Because I’ve got Rh-negative blood, which means I lack the Rhesus protein. Normal blood, Rh-positive blood, will kill me if infused into me, though a person with A-positive blood can accept a donation from an A-negative blood type without any issue. Negative blood types have no known origin and don’t exist in any other species on earth, and they remain an outlier. Some people call it Martian blood, which is ridiculous.” Or maybe not. I shake my head. “Honestly, blood type hasn’t been important except with my job. If a transfusion becomes necessary, I have a smaller chance of finding donor blood. But in the context of giants, it’s… another stake in the ground.”

She bites her bottom lip as she takes in the information. “You think the negative blood comes from giants?”

“Or your Watchers.” And I don’t know if that’s right, but it feels right. Angels are the ultimate extraterrestrials, after all. “Where can I see a skeleton of a giant?”