Critical Point

by S. L. Huang

  But Checker was out of jail, and Arthur was safe, and I could be happy about that for now. For just a moment, I wanted to live in this bubble of relief and not think about old acquaintances snatching at either my consciousness or my commitments.

  If they would let me.

  “You all good?” I asked Checker.

  “Now I am.” He frowned and pointed at my face. “Are you okay?”

  I touched my swollen cheek and the crust of blood across my nose and split lip. I probably should have cleaned that off before going into the station. “I’m fine. Long story.”

  “Catch me up on the way to Arthur?”

  “Yeah.”

  I walked with him back to Pilar’s car, and we piled in. As I drove, I began outlining for Checker everything that had gone down since he’d been taken into custody, including the mounting evidence of the doctor’s powers and D.J.’s increasingly clear fingerprints behind it all. “I’m thinking this has gotten personal for him,” I said. “And that he’s after you—probably backtracked to find you after they made Arthur. Before that, he had turned Teplova into his own personal Frankenstein-making machine.”

  “Frankenstein was the doctor,” Checker murmured.

  “What?”

  “Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster.”

  Coach wasn’t a monster, I thought. I hadn’t gotten to talking about him yet. I almost didn’t want to. Checker needed to know, but I wasn’t eager to gouge into that weakness in my psyche, or to admit I wanted to save someone who’d been so actively targeting us.

  “Teplova was D.J.’s own personal Frankenstein, then,” I said impatiently. “Whatever. My point is, just because we found Arthur, I don’t think that means D.J. is finished with us. We need to track him down and stop him. Will you be able to get into the police systems and see if the bomb squad found any other explosives at the first precinct?”

  “You mean other than the bomb you set?” His mouth twitched. “I’m honored. I’ve never had someone commit terrorism on my behalf before.”

  “It wasn’t terrorism,” I said. “Just, you know. Incentive. Can you do it?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t sound altogether enthusiastic, though, and when I cast another sidelong glance at him, he was looking down at his lap, toying with the hem of his shirt.

  “Look, I’m sorry your old friend turned out to be a homicidal kidnapper who mutilates people for his own amusement,” I said. “But we have to figure this out.”

  He sucked in a breath and bit at a nail, gazing out the window now. “Is it wrong that…”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” He sniffed and scrubbed at his face. “I almost hope he’s—like maybe someone from Pithica planted all this in his head or something. Wondering if there’s still some chance this isn’t his fault. But then I think back and … I think that’s wishful thinking.”

  “Why psychically brainwash someone when you can just pay them,” I agreed sardonically. “Besides, Simon’s pretty sure Pithica isn’t even part of this.”

  Checker hissed out a breath. “I know. But even if it’s all him, doing this, even though it probably is, I just keep thinking … if he’d had … It’s complicated.”

  How dare he. Here I’d been teetering on the brink of a guilt spiral about wanting to help Coach, and Checker wanted to wax blithely nostalgic about the person who had orchestrated everything? After his old friend had tortured mine into becoming someone Rio wanted me to shoot on sight?

  Coach’s situation was the one that was complicated. D.J. had made his choice—not just one but a thousand choices, descending to more hellish abuses with every branching. And now Checker was usurping this role from me, begging to shield his friend—even when being delicate about such a villain would come at the expense of not only Coach, but every single one of Checker’s other friends who’d been in the line of fire since this began?

  And he hadn’t even hesitated over it. Like we were nothing.

  The deep moat of anger at both him and Arthur that had been swelling up inside me threatened to overflow and burn us both. I’d spent all night strung out worrying about Checker, and his only concern was the guy who had almost killed me half a dozen times while I’d been trying to fix this whole mess. It was like he didn’t even see me. Same as with Arthur. I was an old reliable tool, a convenient missile to point at whatever they needed killing.

  We were always weapons, shivered Valarmathi. We knew that.

  I slammed her away. “It’s not complicated,” I said to Checker. “In fact, it’s really goddamn simple.”

  “No, it is. For me. He has good—I still have—he was my best friend, Cas.”

  I’d called Checker that, maybe, in the tentative, insecure recesses of my mind. I was glad now I’d never said it aloud.

  “Well, now he’s your worst enemy and probably out to kill you. And we’re going to end his merry little reign of terror over your friends and family and give him a taste of his own fucking medicine.” My guilty fury stabbed deeper, overturning every ugly fungus of emotion, and I hit the words meaning for them to be cruel. “Do you not realize that Arthur almost died? Tabitha and Pilar almost died. I almost died! You picked a murdering sociopath for a friend, and now it’s time to buck up and face the consequences—”

  “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  My face stung like he’d slapped me, and I hit the brake so hard, the Yaris’s tires lost static friction for an instant.

  It wasn’t like Checker hadn’t ever made jabs at my tendencies toward amorality. But usually, there was more humor. And usually, he wasn’t equating me with a murderous bomber who had abducted Arthur.

  Or maybe he was talking about my friendship with Rio. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. The image of Coach flashed across my mind again too, hurling the driver to the pavement as if in a toddler’s tantrum, and everything I’d been so apprehensive to broach to Checker sat trapped on the back of my tongue.

  We should have left him in jail to rot, Valarmathi whispered helpfully. I didn’t push back against her quite so hard this time.

  “If that’s the way you feel,” I said to him. “You want to make your own way back? Because I can arrange that.”

  “Look, I just mean … people are complicated,” Checker pleaded again. “D.J., you’ve only seen one piece of him. What our friendship meant to me—I can’t deny that, no matter what else he’s done. I won’t deny it. Besides, the person he became—that could have been me.”

  “Yeah, because I can really imagine you blowing people up.”

  “For God’s sake!” He twisted in the passenger seat to pin me with a hard-eyed stare, and I was glad I had the excuse of driving to keep my eyes determinedly on the road. “Come on, Cas. You don’t think I can effectively ruin people’s lives? Very effectively? You don’t think I could utterly destroy someone’s livelihood and family and reputation if I wanted to, drive them to—to suicide, or worse? We live online now!”

  “Could and would are two different—”

  “And I’d like to say I’ve never even contemplated going there,” he bulldozed right over me. “But there was a time when—there’s this temptation, when you feel like nobody in the world gives a damn, when the whole system’s been shitting on you, and you think, fuck it, I’m smarter than all of them—when taking that power starts to seem like justice. Like the natural, logical conclusion of the meritocracy everyone tells you life is supposed to be. And part of that whole craptastically messed-up headspace is not seeing other people as fully, equally human, because you can’t do that shit to other people if you think of them as—as having dreams and laughing at jokes and worrying about their families and just trying to muddle through this goddamn life the same way you are.”

  My jaw clenched. I’d never heard Checker voice any of this.

  “It’s so easy to live there, in that simple-minded place, and deny that real life is actually really fucking complicated,” he went on. “And
D.J. and I … I think we reinforced it in each other. Mock the stupid people, you know? Show them who’s boss.”

  “So, what happened to you?” I said.

  “Arthur,” Checker said simply. “And Diego. I’d be a completely different person if not for them. I’d be—I don’t want to know what I’d be.”

  “And what, you want to do that for D.J.?” I bit my tongue hard before I voiced my opinion that D.J. was beyond help. “I’ve never believed in redemption,” I said instead.

  “Well, you’re goddamn lucky your friends do.”

  He’d definitely been talking about me earlier. We finished the drive in tense silence.

  twenty-three

  WE MADE it to the hospital—after what felt like an eternity—and I immediately tagged out Rio, who’d been standing sentry outside Arthur’s room.

  “I have another apartment with an intact door about a twenty-minute drive from the old one,” I told him. “You can move Simon there. Get him back on his feet and…” Fuck, there was something they had to do, wasn’t there?

  “We shall attempt to track down Oscar.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That. Do that.” Right now, he might be our best lead on finding D.J. and ending all this.

  Rio nodded at me and left. Jesus, Simon was like radioactive waste right now, leaking stray thoughts all over the place. Thank Christ Rio would be able to handle it.

  The whole family plus Pilar was inside the room visiting with Arthur, and Checker had beelined in right away without a word to me. I neither felt like I fit in with their whole big happy family nor particularly wanted to talk to Arthur at the moment—now that he was safe, I was still really fucking pissed at him—so I slouched in a plastic chair in the hallway next to Diego.

  Who was also not visiting with Arthur.

  “How are you, Miss Russell?” he asked courteously.

  “Just peachy.” Abandoned by my so-called friends, obligated to a man who was likely too far gone to help, under threat by a power-hungry egomaniac bomber and officially past fifty hours without sleep. I sighed. “You can call me Cas, you know.”

  He nodded, and we sat for a while. Christ, I wondered if the kids were determined to spend all day fawning. Not that I had anything better to do than be stuck here as a guard dog. Unless it was attack the mountain of digging that needed to be done to track down D.J., or maybe get three minutes in a reasonably secure place where I could close my eyes … I catalogued all the hospital exits seven times over and distance over human running speed equaled time to get everyone out, then added error margins for the kids tripping over one another or freezing like fearful deer.

  Fortunately, I had a lot of ammunition in my pockets. I wondered what Diego would think of me then—I’d probably be putting my life on the line for his kids, so he’d better fucking thank me.

  I broke the silence far more out of a pissy itch to be nosy than any desire to make small talk.

  “So, what happened between you and Arthur?”

  He didn’t say anything for long enough that I knew he was annoyed with me for asking. Finally he said, “A marriage license and then a divorce lawyer.”

  I thought about making a joke about a mathematician’s answer, but I didn’t think he’d get it.

  “And how did you meet Arthur and Charles?” Diego asked with almost too-careful politeness.

  “A case.” I didn’t elaborate. I wondered what he’d think if I added the part about taking down a global network of telepaths.

  We were saved from continued screaming awkwardness when Arthur’s door opened and Willow Grace slipped out. I hadn’t realized she was still here—but of course, Rio wouldn’t have allowed her to leave. She’d changed to a man’s button-down and a loose ankle-length skirt that had to be Tabitha’s. I couldn’t imagine many people in the Rosales house had clothes that would come close to fitting her, but she’d belted the ensemble in a way that made it look like a fashion statement.

  She glanced around and took in the fact that Rio had left. “Seems like this is a family affair,” she said to Diego and me. “I’m glad you found your friend. If you need to reach me, you have my number.”

  I stood. “Wait—”

  She halted. “I thought you said that once you accomplished your rescue, this would be done.”

  Except it was obvious this had all been a setup. Except we still hadn’t found the people responsible. Except …

  “Call me anytime,” said Willow Grace, after a moment’s pause. “Looking more deeply into this is likely a fool’s venture, but if you do, it would be better to coordinate. You can imagine I have quite a bit at stake in finding out more about Eva’s killers.”

  Diego stood too. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Grace. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Wait—it’s for your safety too—”

  But Willow Grace nodded to us and strode off, and Diego actually put a hand on my arm. “You found Arthur. You can’t keep the poor woman locked down on your say-so.”

  Rio would have kept her here. He would have called it a standard precaution. But I wasn’t Rio …

  You aren’t you either, a ghostly voice reminded me.

  “I appreciate your desire to protect my family,” Diego said. “I continue to appreciate it. But the urgent situation is over. We have to go back to our lives sometime.”

  That was about as idiotic a statement as I’d ever heard. But Diego did have a point; there was only so long we could keep Willow Grace from leaving before we either had to tie her down or she called the police on us.

  My head had a slight buzzing in it, like a fly had decided to zoom around inside my skull. I shook myself. Maybe I should call Rio back and—what?

  You decided a long time ago you didn’t want to be what Rio is. Maybe it was fine to let her go home.

  God, I needed some sleep.

  Willow Grace had left Arthur’s door open slightly. I went over and called, “You two. Out here, now,” at Checker and Pilar. The kids were all crowded around too closely for me to see Arthur, which was just as well.

  “What is it, Cas?” Pilar asked, closing the door behind them. Her eyes widened at the sight of me. “Are you all right?”

  “It looks worse than it is. We need to plan.” I did a quick count in my head. “Wait a second, shouldn’t Elisa have gotten here by now?”

  “She’s not coming,” Checker answered.

  It registered, then, what his cryptic half conversation with Elisa down at the station had meant. The grating frustration I’d been feeling at all of them ballooned up inside me—people were going to get hurt and it was going to be my fault and nobody was telling me shit and why were there so damn many of them to protect—

  “Does nobody in this group think about personal safety except me and Rio?” I burst out. “The reason I am sitting here is that someone very dangerous is after something from us, and we don’t know what that is yet!”

  Diego winced. Checker tried to shush me and glanced over his shoulder at the closed door to Arthur’s room.

  Screw them all. I should quit and go pass out for a week.

  I pointed at Diego. “Call your daughter right this second and get her down here. Wait, better yet, let’s all get out of here.” We couldn’t work in the hospital. “Scratch Elisa. Go find a doctor and see what the earliest Arthur can go back to your place is, AMA if necessary, as long as it won’t be dangerous. We can call Dr. Washington to help if we need to.”

  Diego stared stupidly at me, then exchanged a glance with Checker before walking off.

  “I’ll come with you,” Pilar said hastily, and followed.

  Checker waved after them. “It is his house.”

  “So?” Diego was the one who’d been refusing to go somewhere safer from the beginning. If he didn’t want to put up with some coziness, that was his fault.

  “What I mean is, you just volunteered him to have his ex-husband convalesce in his guest room,” Checker explained impatiently. “There might be, you know, s
ome awkwardness there.”

  “Well, too bad,” I said. “If Arthur was worried about me causing awkwardness, maybe he should’ve told me his family fucking existed in the first place.”

  “And would you even have noticed if he had?” Checker’s words had real bite to them. Even more than in the car. “For someone who doesn’t respect boundaries, it’s not like you ever show much actual interest in our lives. You know the only reason you care now? Because you’re bitter we didn’t tell you, that’s why.”

  I opened my mouth and tried to say that wasn’t true. But some sort of heavy emotion sat hard on my throat, and the words wouldn’t come.

  Checker scrubbed a hand across his face, and the aggression went out of him. “Cas, I’m—what I mean is—”

  “You said what you meant.”

  “No, I mean yes, but—”

  “As soon as we get back, I need you to get all the forensic reports on Arthur’s kidnapping so we can start going through them. Okay?”

  “Right. Okay.” He put a hand on Arthur’s door, but stopped.

  “What?” I said, my tone going as ugly as his had been.

  But his breath hitched, and he turned his face away.

  Oh. Oh, Jesus.

  I sucked at this stuff.

  “Arthur is … God,” Checker whispered to the door. “He got so messed up. And all because—I’m the one who…”

  “You didn’t mean for this to happen,” I tried.

  “But it’s still my fault, isn’t it? He’s really hurt. I didn’t believe—I never thought he’d—” He swiped at his nose with the back of one hand.

  I didn’t think “he” meant Arthur anymore. “We’re all fucked in the head about some things,” I said.

  I’m not crazy; I’m just a new species, Valarmathi added helpfully.

  Checker took a breath and resettled himself. He still wasn’t looking up, but he reached out and touched my hand. “You found him. Thank you. And I … I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve been more help.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t plan to get taken to jail.”