by Jada Fisher
But still…she looked rough.
“Oh, really? And here I was just about to join a beauty pageant.” Her voice was weak and raspy. Looking around again, I saw a case of sports drinks next to her bed and I crossed to her, picking one up then unscrewing the lid.
“Here, drink,” I said flatly, noticing her cracked lips and how damp the pillow under her head was. “You need to hydrate.”
But she just looked at me. “What are you doing here, Davie?”
Well, I supposed that was a fair enough question.
“I don’t know.”
It was an honest answer. I didn’t know. I hadn’t even planned on seeing her, and yet there I was, holding out a sports drink to her like I hadn’t basically been shunning her for… How long had it been? I didn’t know. Time was growing more and more nebulous by the minute.
“Alright then.”
One of her arms snaked out from under the covers and it too was slick with sweat, trembling slightly as she took the opened bottle and brought it to her lips. She drank deeply, taking a gulp, pausing for several moments as if swallowing was difficult, only to immediately follow it with another deep gulp. I watched her drain half of it, then set it at the nightstand.
“I miss you, you know,” she said with a sigh once she settled. Her red-rimmed eyes regarded me so carefully, like she was worried I would lash out at her at any moment. But I would never—
Oh wait… I had, hadn’t I? Tried to strike her, tried to hurt her, when she got between me and her parents.
“I…miss you too,” I answered after a long, long moment. “Or at least what we once were.”
“I didn’t know.” She was looking at me so earnestly, so desperately, that I felt my heart pang in my chest. “You have to believe me, Davie. I never knew how bad it was. I thought… I thought they were just messengers once and that they never went back to it. If I…” She squeezed her big, irritated eyes shut, and I didn’t miss the couple of tears that squeezed out to join the dampness across the rest of her face. “…I didn’t know.”
Suddenly, most of my anger dissipated, sinking down somewhere inside of me where all the things that hurt me sat. I reached forward and gripped her hand, feeling how hot she was to the touch.
“Don’t,” she said, pulling her sweaty palm away. “I’ll get you sick.”
“Golem, remember? I don’t think I have to worry about the flu or common cold anymore.”
“Oh, well, that’s handy.”
I nodded. “Now give me your hand and let’s talk for a bit.”
The smile that slowly spread across her face made my heart throb again. I was still hurt, I still felt bad, but so much less of it was pointed at Mallory. “I’d like that.”
I let go of her long enough to pull up a chair, and then I took her hand again. We sat there for a moment, her sweating and shivering, and me just picking up another sports drink and setting it on her nightstand.
“They’re not bad people, you know,” she said finally, her voice slightly less raspy with the drink I had given her.
“Who?” No, I knew who she meant. I just wanted to hear the words out of her own mouth.
“My parents. They did bad things, very bad things, and they’re flawed deeply. But…but they’re not bad.”
I took in a long breath. And there it was. All the hurt, all the anger inside of me bubbling up that she was still defending them. But then again… How could she not? They had taken care of her. Taken care of me. They had done many good and kind things before their mix-up in all of the craziness, and they had done many good and kind things afterwards.
But none of that negated what they did when their backs were against the wall.
“Mallory,” I said as firmly as I could while still keeping my voice level. Yelling at a sick woman would get me nowhere. “I won’t sit and debate with you whether your parents are bad or good because, for the most part, people are never really one or the other. It’s all about the choices you make, how you act when you think that there are no other options. Like it or not, your parents made the choices they did. Choices that will make people regard them in a certain way. Making excuses for them, trying to defend them, will only end up muddying things further. And maybe end up hurting people that you don’t mean to hurt.”
She was staring at the ceiling, her eyes having opened sometime while I was giving my mini speech. Although they didn’t seem to be focused on anything in particular, I could tell that she was listening to me.
“That’s what I’ve been doing then, hurting you?”
I shrugged. “You could say that. And I’m sure me shutting you out after all our years together hurt you a bit.”
“…maybe.”
“Made you angry?”
She tilted her head to look at me again and it looked as if that action alone exhausted her. “Is this supposed to make me feel bad?”
“No. Looks like you already have plenty of that on your plate. I’m saying these things because it’s not just a matter of me forgiving you and then we skip all kumbaya into the sunset together. We’ve got wounds now, some pretty deep ones, and we both have to figure out what’s the best way for us to heal. Maybe that involves forgiving one another and picking up where we left off. Maybe not. All I’m saying is… I suppose that I’m willing to give it a chance.” I let out a dry chuckle. “You know, once it looks like you’re off death’s doorstep.”
She laughed weakly as well. “The doctor says it’s just exhaustion and stress combined with a bad stomach bug. It’s my own fault I’m this bad off. I first started feeling sick when we came back from that other dimension.”
“What? Really? That was a so long ago. Why did you let yourself run around if you were sick?”
She gave me a look like I should know better, and it was so classic Mallory that I couldn’t help but smile. “Because I thought that it was grief at first, you chicken nugget. I just watched my best friend sacrifice herself to make sure I lived. So yeah, an aching stomach seemed par for the course.”
“Right… I suppose I forgot about that.”
“Forgot about dying and being trapped between dimensions?”
I shrugged dramatically. “What can I say, I’m a busy girl.”
She snorted, and we shared a small laugh again. “I know things haven’t worked out that great between us, but I’m really glad you’re back, Davie.”
I smiled softly at her, patting her hand again. “Believe it or not, I’m glad to be back. I feel like there’s a whole lot more work to do before I kick the bucket.”
“Speaking of that, isn’t there supposed to be a grim reaper or something after you?”
“Oh, right. About that. Her and I have an agreement.”
Mallory raised one of her eyebrows so high that I was surprised it didn’t pop right off her face. “You made a…deal? With the spirit that was hunting you? The ancient spirit that has spent most of its existence guiding people to death?”
“Yeah. She’s pretty cool, if you can get past her chronic smugness. Oh, and all of her cryptic talk. Weirdly invested in our friendship, though.”
“What, really? You’re kidding.”
I shook my head, and goodness if it almost felt like we were before the world crumbled around us. Just a couple of young folks in a gap year and trying to survive day to day. “Nope! I’m not. I wonder if she’s a fan of yours.”
“Well, it’s about time someone started my admirers’ club.”
More laughter, slightly less tentative than previously. I was feeling myself relax, the hurt and pain inside of me simmering down to a manageable level. It wasn’t gone completely, and Mallory and I had so much more to talk out, but for the moment it was enough. I could look down at her, all sick and sweating and very obviously miserable, and just want for her to get better.
That gave me quite a bit of hope, because I really did miss her, even if it sometimes felt like she ripped my heart in two. Even if my trust had been broken and I was going to have to rebuild it brick
by brick from the foundation.
Sigh.
“Hey,” I said after another brief pause. I felt like I couldn’t take the quiet, like it was ticking down above us, urging us to get done whatever we needed done before we all poofed into ash. “When was the last time you brushed your hair?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Probably the same time I washed my hair. Which was…a while ago.”
I clicked my tongue. “That’s it. I’ma help.”
“You don’t want to do that, Davie. It’s gross.”
“More gross than that one time you got your wisdom teeth taken out and you got dry socket?”
“Well…no.”
“Alright then. Let me get some supplies. Brush and stuff are in the bathroom, I’m guessing?”
She nodded and I was up, fetching all that I needed. Comb, hairbrush, a wet washcloth, and a dry one. Seeing a stack of those plastic cups by the side of the sink, I grabbed one and filled it with hot water.
I’d been real sick before, and so had Mickey. If there was one thing that I knew, it was that the scalp got real itchy when it was left grody for too long. And if I could take at least one irritant away from Mallory, well, maybe that would be enough for the day.
Once I had everything I needed, I headed back to the room and pulled the nightstand out a little, setting each of the items onto it. “Can you sit up?”
“I’m sick with the flu, not an invalid,” Mallory said, rolling her eyes and rising with a groan. I didn’t force her to support herself for long, however, sliding behind her and placing a small towel between us, then a couple of pillows to support her lower back. She didn’t need them, however, slouching forward. I could see that her shirt was soaked through.
“Hey, when we’re done with this, I want to get you a different top, okay?”
“Sure, not like I’m in the position to argue.”
This time, it was me that rolled my eyes, and I went about letting her hair down. It was clear that once it had been in a ponytail, but it’d been inside of it so long that it had wound around itself, getting tucked into tangles and ratted back on each other until it was practically a nest.
Alright, I had my work cut out for me.
I started carefully, working in sections, trying to get the knots exposed and quarantined so I wouldn’t accidentally tug on them when I didn’t mean to. It took a good while, but after a bit, I felt relatively satisfied.
And that was when I grabbed the conditioner I’d found in the bathroom, squirting it into my palms to warm it up. Not necessary, really, but a bit of a habit. Then I began to work it into her hair, focusing on the roots and trying to keep it away from her scalp. It was slow going, especially since I was trying to be gentle, but Mallory kept still for me.
Once that was done, I let it sit for a bit while I brushed out the ends of her hair. From there, I worked my way all around her head until I felt like the conditioner had set enough, and then I began to work my way up. Whenever I came to a particularly egregious knot, I gripped her hair as close to the roots as I could to keep from jerking at her scalp, then slowly went at it with the brush.
We were quiet the whole time, my only words being soft curses when a knot was particularly stubborn or apologies when I tugged too hard. An hour slipped away, maybe two, and by the time I was able to run a brush through her hair on any part of her head, my shoulders were aching.
But we weren’t done yet. I rolled them, doing a bit of a stretch, then grabbed the comb and water and started gently combing by her roots, getting all the dry scalp and other grit off. When I finished a section, I would rub it a bit with the wet cloth before switching to the dry. Once I was sure that the top of her head was feeling much better, I did my best to clean the excess conditioner off the rest before finally sliding out from under her.
“Thank you,” she breathed, clearly exhausted as she sank back.
“No problem.” That strange twisting feeling was back in my gut. “Maybe…when you’re feeling a bit better, we can have a real talk.”
“No problem. Probably just another couple of days. Doc says my fever should break soon.”
I sent her a soft smile. “I’d like that. I’ll see you around, Mallory.”
“Yeah… Yeah, you will.”
I headed out, my shoulders and biceps aching, but I felt better. There was still a bit of a rift between us, there were still bridges that needed to be built, but I was pretty sure we were on the road to do so.
And maybe, after her parents served their sentence, I could work toward forgiving them and moving on. Or maybe I wouldn’t. The only way to really find out was to end the whole mess with the anti-humanist dragons and live that long.
And for the first time in ages, with our plan in place, it seemed like that might actually happen.
7
Practice Makes Perfect
“Duck!”
I crouched down for a punch to go right over my head, but that put me at the perfect height for Mal to spin and slam me in the side of my face with her surprisingly hard butt cheek.
Well… That was embarrassing.
“Like I told you before, if you’re going to dodge a hit, you need to either get yourself to a safe distance or call up your shield. I have no idea how you’ve survived this long when you fight so terribly.”
“Luck, I guess,” I answered sourly, picking myself up. “Mallory always said I was pretty good for just being a rumbler.”
“Good for this world, maybe. In mine, you would have been eaten alive.”
“Uh… In yours, I was pretty much eaten alive.”
“Exactly. Point proven.”
I sighed, brushing off my knees and settling back into my stance. “Can we go again? Maybe a little slower so I can get the hang of it?”
“You sure? We’ve been going at it for about an hour.”
Had it been that long already? I had woken up far too early, which had resulted in the small woman dragging me to the small personal gym in the manor to practice sparring. Krisjian was watching from the corner, drawing idly in a coloring book while Mickey was upstairs with Sokhanya. It was the day after we found out about the elders and, according to the youngest oracle, they had just boarded their plane. In about three hours, they were going to be forced to land for a storm, and both he and the dragons had all sorts of plans to slow them down again.
Even after all the hours we had spent discussing it, I wasn’t sure on every single in and out. I knew that Bronn and the other generals had called in favors from specific people around the world, some of whom were police officers or border officials. It was a bit complicated, more than a bit convoluted, and felt like it was a little too good to be true.
But if it all went off right, soon the elders would be stuck in a human prison where they would be forced to obey human laws or violate the compromise while they were far away from any of their forces.
It was a gamble, that was for certain, but one that everyone seemed certain of.
Well, everyone but Mal, who was convinced I needed to learn even more physical self-defense.
“Remember that the world around you is a three-D plane. You’ll be attacked from above, behind, and any direction at multiple levels. You have the benefit of having magic, and calling up those fancy shields of yours, but you seem kinda spotty when it comes to the small-scale stuff.”
“I don’t know if it’s that I’m spotty or I just don’t think of using my shield when I hand to hand fight. I learned a lot of my fighting stuff in my teen years, and I didn’t really have an idea that I had…uh, abilities yet.”
“Really? How’s that work? I heard that oracles pretty much present with magic at an early age, or whenever they’re healthy enough to handle it.”
“I was on medication for the, uh, hallucinations, I was told they were. Turned out they were visions. Maybe a few specters too. You know, all the stuff that will make people think you’re crazy.”
“Wait, there’s medicine for that kind of stuff?”
F
or a moment, I thought she was kidding, but then I remembered the kind of world she came from.
“Yeah, there are medicines for a lot of things here. So let us know if you ever feel sick.”
“You mean like your world’s version of me is right now?”
“Exactly. She has something that we can’t cure, but we’re using other things to keep her comfortable and hydrated, and to make sure she doesn’t get sicker.”
“Huh. I feel bad for everyone I left behind. Did you at least hurt those dragons before you kicked the bucket?”
I grimaced. It had been a hard choice at the time—not just because I was electing to kill myself, but also because I knew that I was dooming every human in that world to permanently be in that world. No escape. No chance to come back and do a Hail Mary once I was stronger. Just the end for them.
“I tried to catch as many of them as I could in my death, but I had no way of telling how many. I hope at least a few.”
She nodded. “I suppose that’s all you can do. That world was teetering on some big stuff anyways. Hopefully, you managed to throw a big enough wrench into things that it tilted it a bit more towards my people and the few nice dragons there were.”
“One can but hope.”
“Alright, enough talking. Tighten your center and get ready.”
I did as she said, but still somehow ended up on my butt in the dirt again. The try after that didn’t do much better. Nor the try after that. Yet I was learning. Mal’s style was a lot different from mine. Less brawler and more quick, precise strikes. Dancing in and out of my range, whirling and switching directions. It made sense considering her smaller stature, and it would certainly help me considering the bigger opponents I usually ended up facing.
I mean… It wasn’t going to help me to sucker punch a dragon, but maybe if I surprised them in their human form, it would. I couldn’t go around kicking them in their crotches and expect that to always work.
Although, considering some of the people I was going up against, that strategy was really tempting.
Another hour passed, maybe two, before I had to call it. I was dripping in sweat, sore, and had fully transitioned from patient learning to irritation. I knew enough about to myself to be aware I’d reached my limit, and I limped over to one of the benches where I practically melted.