The Reckoning

by M. K. Easley

  Tristan smiled in spite of herself.

  “So I take it this is your family.” Rachel brushed a curl out of her eye as she checked Tristan’s IV placement, and then shot a smile towards the huddled Wallaces. “Nice to meet y’all. Also I understand you have a friend up in ICU, huh?”

  “Yes, this is my Mom and Dad and my sister and brother. And yes, my… Beckett is up in the ICU, yes.” Tristan’s heart beat a little faster, and she wondered why she was suddenly so nervous.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but I will when he gets down here. I know they’re hoping for tomorrow, but if not, definitely Tuesday,” Rachel beamed.

  “And when will I be here until?”

  Rachel pulled a clipboard off of the end of Tristan’s bed and flipped up the first page.

  “Probably tomorrow or Tuesday as well. It really depends on that burn on your side. It’s a nasty thing; the burn unit is going to want to look at it again before you get to go anywhere.”

  Tristan studied the frown on Rachel’s face.

  “It’s that bad?”

  “You know, it’s not even that it’s that bad as in deep,” Rachel said, her voice relentlessly chipper even though her smile had disappeared. “It’s that they’re having a real hard time seeing any change in it. We all know burns take forever to heal anyway, right, but usually after the immediate treatment they can see some sign of progress, and well…”

  Rachel trailed off, but Tristan didn’t need her to continue. The burn wasn’t healing because it was a magic burn, not a car fire burn, but how did you tell the hospital staff that?

  “But you’re in the best place with the best care team, so I reckon they’ll have you fixed up in no time. Your hands and your face, especially your cheek, are already looking better, so that's good news. How is your pain?”

  As Rachel finished her assessment, Tristan felt herself growing tired once again, but she gave herself a mental shake. She would not go to sleep until the previous night had been rehashed with her family. She needed to know everything she could so she could start to process everything that had happened, and the sooner she could get started on that, the better.

  “She was very cheerful,” Olivia observed, once the door had closed behind Rachel.

  “I think I’d like to tell you guys what I remember, and then maybe you can tell me what I’m missing. Does that work?” Tristan shifted, her tailbone aching, and gasped at the searing pain in her side. She closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again to four worried faces. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m going to see if I can get another chair.” Umbris left the room without waiting for a response, and Tristan looked at Sol.

  “I was right, wasn’t I? He was going to wipe Beckett’s memory back to September.”

  Sol nodded, fresh hurt filling her eyes.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I know he truly believed it would have been for the best.”

  “Yes, well.” Sol cleared her throat delicately, then squared her shoulders. “You let me worry about your father. Why don’t you start with when the guards brought Beckett into the clearing?”

  And so Tristan did, and true to their word, her family filled in the pieces she was missing. Olivia told her about her quick thinking in getting Celes to manipulate the scene, Sol revealed that when she'd disappeared she'd gone to clear the other guards from the perimeter, and Umbris described how he’d helped camouflage Dune so he could hide in the woods and help Celes with the manipulation he’d performed -- a true manipulation, it turned out, not just a mirage. Though Tristan knew it would mean nothing to him, a small surge of pride passed through her upon hearing that Celes had finally achieved his goal. Evander confessed to filling Beckett in on everything as he’d run him through the woods, including his destiny connection with Tristan, and how apprehensive he’d been when Thera Crenshaw had appeared to help them.

  “And then I ran back after I dropped Beckett off, and you were unconscious right on the edge of the clearing. I pulled you into the trees and woke you up, and that’s when I told you about Beckett.” Evander looked at Tristan regretfully. “I don’t know what happened after that. Everything went black and I couldn’t see or hear you or anyone else, so I took off running towards where I thought Oceana was. I thought if I could get to her I could get her out of there, but I guess I ran the wrong way.

  As soon as I made it about a hundred yards, I could see the woods again. The clearing was totally blacked out though. I ran into Celes, literally, and it took some convincing but he got on my back and I got him away as fast as I could. I knew they’d be after him if they weren’t already. Imagine my surprise, and everyone else’s, when I was suddenly running down the sidewalk in the French Quarter with him on my back.”

  Tristan smiled again.

  “And I don't remember anything but pain, and then waking up on the couch at home.” There was a faraway look in Olivia’s eyes, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Everything hurt. Everything. My skin, my muscles, my bones, my organs, my blood…”

  Sol put her arm around Olivia and kissed her temple, and then addressed Tristan.

  “After Ember left, we took Beckett back to Lavelle. I did the memory wiping on him on the way. We set up the accident scene and Axis brought you to us, and he posed as the good Samaritan who found you and called the ambulance.”

  “I know this is the part where I tell you about what happened between me and Orion, but I don't think I'm up for it right now.” Tristan rested her head back against her pillow, her eyes struggling to stay open. “I just… Can you just tell me… How many people died?”

  Sol and Umbris exchanged a glance.

  “Please.” Tristan closed her eyes. “I need to know.”

  “We don't know the exact number,” Sol replied eventually, her tone measured. “For instance, we don't know how many guards were killed just yet, and we may not. But if you mean outside of Orion and the guards, six.”

  Tristan nodded, tears escaping out from under her closed eyelids. Six deaths, at least. Seven, including Entros, who Tristan had worked out had been trying to save Beckett for some reason by bringing him to the clearing. Eleven, including Orion's personal guards she'd taken down herself. Twelve including Orion. And the number would climb. Senseless, preventable deaths, besides Orion; the worst loss the community had seen maybe ever. Try as she might, Tristan could not stop seeing Monse Telarie de Maragon reaching for her dead sister's hand. Innocent lives had been taken last night, and Tristan was partly at fault for that.

  Tristan sensed her family leaving as she quietly wept, somewhere on the edge of consciousness. She felt Sol take her hand, rubbing her thumb over Tristan's knuckles the way she'd done her whole life when Tristan was upset.

  “You did an incredibly brave thing, Tristan. I know it's cold comfort, but you saved so many lives last night. You saved the community. You rest now; I'm going to walk everyone out and then I'll be back to stay with you.”

  Tristan let the fatigue take over, only stirring when she felt a firm pressure on her burned side. There was a quick, sharp burst of pain, which felt like she was being sliced by thousands of tiny razors, but within seconds Tristan felt a cooling sensation that acted as a balm on her nerve endings. She wanted to wake up, to see what was going on, but Tristan didn't know when she'd feel so painless again, especially after experiencing so much in such a short time, and so she gave up, letting the relief carry her away.

  ***

  Tristan had a terrible night. Her nightmares, her memories, were ceaseless, and by the third time she’d woken up in the middle of a panic attack, her night nurse, Leon Sprague, brought her something that knocked her right into a blessedly dreamless sleep. To Tristan’s surprise, it was Umbris who had ended up staying in her room for the night, not Sol, and he was there each time she woke up taking big, gasping breaths, smoothing back her hair until she was able to calm down.

  The nightmares reminded her of after she’d
been attacked by Emmeline and her friends, something that felt like child’s play now, and how she’d never felt safer than when she’d fallen asleep in Beckett’s lap. What she wouldn’t give to do that now, to curl up beside him so they could hold each other until they’d both begun to heal on the inside.

  Tristan was exhausted by morning, and the white light that filtered through her blinds made her still sore eyes hurt. She couldn’t go back to sleep, however, so instead she watched Umbris sleeping in the chair beside her bed. At rest, he didn’t look nearly as intimidating as usual, and she could see the fine lines that had blossomed around his mouth and between his dark eyes, the salt that peppered the black hair at his temples. Though he was dressed as he usually was in a perfectly tailored suit, he looked exhausted, tinged with gray, and Tristan was nearly overwhelmed with guilt.

  In the stark hospital room with its unforgiving light and cold, endlessly beeping machines, Tristan had no choice but to face how irreparably she’d fucked things up. In her fear, her selfishness, she’d withheld a necessary honesty from her parents about the path she was going -- or rather, was not going -- to take. She’d known the right thing to do, but she’d let denial take the wheel and she’d convinced herself that the eleventh hour was an OK time to drop the bomb on them. Behind their backs, she’d applied to a multitude of colleges and universities across the states, keeping from them something they most likely would have been happy to be a part of, if only she had let them.

  Now that it was over, that the truth was out and had just been one more painful part of Saturday night’s horror show, Tristan was profoundly embarrassed by how silly it had been to not be forthcoming with Umbris and Sol. In her fear of disappointing them, she'd instead broken their hearts. And it didn't stop there -- she'd also embarrassed them, and the Crenshaws, and she'd deeply betrayed Celes who, despite everything else, had always been her friend, had always been a far better person than she, and had not deserved any of what Tristan had put him through.

  Tristan briefly wondered if Celes would visit her, but she knew the answer; the likelihood that he'd ever even speak to her again was slim to none, so of course he wouldn't be visiting her. Not that she wanted him to, not really. The only visitor Tristan wanted, now that she'd seen her family, was upstairs in the Intensive Care Unit. She closed her eyes, and in seconds she saw Beckett. He was still asleep, attached to all kinds of wires. There was a bandage around his head, and most of his face was the color of eggplant. Tristan could see the edge of another bandage beneath the neckline of his gown, likely the wrapping on his shoulder, and her heart contracted as she stared at him. In her mind she took one of his broad, flat hands in hers, holding it gently, and though she was no healer, she tried anyway to give him what pure energy she could.

  Tristan had forgotten that she was full of power now, however, and the surge that passed from her to Beckett was strong and soothing. So this is what it felt like to be a healer. They were common in the community -- Sol, Olivia, Celes, and Thera alone all healers themselves -- but, not being one herself, Tristan had never given much thought to what they could do or how they could do it.

  Beckett began to stir, tensing up, and Tristan went still, hoping she wasn't hurting him with her inexperience. Just because her intuition seemed to know what it was doing, that didn't mean it actually did.

  “Tristan?” Beckett whispered, his eyes still closed, and Tristan's eyes filled with tears as she very, very gently squeezed his hand.

  She concentrated on the task at hand, though the urge to interact with him was so strong it left her breathless. When he'd settled back down, his breathing even and deep and the tension leaving his hand and arm, Tristan let go, retreating back to her own room.

  Just seeing Beckett had calmed her in a way she didn’t know she’d been needing -- Tristan supposed part of her worried that he would be angry with her, that he wouldn’t want to see her, but then, as far as he knew, they’d been in a car accident. If he knew the truth, he might feel differently. Tristan sighed. One more thing to feel guilty about.

  Umbris stirred, and Tristan watched as he woke up, looking briefly disoriented before he remembered where he was.

  “Good morning.” Tristan’s voice still sounded metallic, like an old rusty gate scraping against a concrete floor. It was jarring, and she hoped she would sound like herself again soon.

  “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired.”

  Umbris leaned his elbows on his knees, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair, leaving it standing on end. The sight was more jarring than Tristan had found the sound of her voice -- if Umbris was anything, he was impeccably groomed. Always.

  “Dad, why don’t you go home? I’m fine, and I’m sure you want to sleep in your own bed.”

  “Your Mom is on her way. I’ll go when she gets here.” Umbris sounded as exhausted as he looked, and Tristan took a deep breath, knowing the sooner they got this out of the way, the better.

  “Dad, I am so sorry. I am so sorry for not telling you that I wasn’t going to join the community. I’m sorry I left it go so long. I’m sorry Orion was the one to give you the news, and that I embarrassed our family and the Crenshaws.” Tristan’s eyes filled with tears. “I know you expected so much more of me, and I disappointed you, and that’s killing me. I’m sorry.”

  Umbris stood, walking the short distance to Tristan’s bedside and taking her hand.

  “Trinity, listen to me.”

  Tristan braced herself.

  “I am the one who should apologize, to you. What kind of mixed messages did I send you over the years that you felt you couldn’t be honest with me? Your Mom and I, we’ve always told you and the twins that your path was your own and we’d support you no matter what you chose, but did I show that to you? Did I back up my own words over the years? I don’t believe I did. Somewhere along the way, I chose for you, and in choosing for you I made a grave error with both you and Mom.”

  Tristan stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

  “I wish you would have told me. I expected that you would have. But then, I’ve always had such high expectations of you, and maybe that’s been part of the problem.”

  Tears rolling down her cheeks, Tristan shook her head.

  “You haven’t.”

  “I love you, Trinity. I don’t tell you that enough. I don’t tell the twins that enough, either. If you ever decide to become a parent someday, I pray you’ll never know the fear that comes with the possibility of losing your child or your children. It’s a fear I hope to never feel again for the remainder of my life, but it also has a way of putting things in perspective.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Sol entered, taking in Tristan’s tearful face and Umbris holding her hand. She did a quick read, catching up, and she came to stand by Tristan’s other side, taking her other hand in silence.

  “I love you too. I love both of you.” Tristan sniffled, looking between Umbris and Sol. “Please don’t fall apart now, OK? Please don’t be mad at each other.”

  Sol and Umbris exchanged a look Tristan couldn’t read.

  “We’ll be fine.” Sol’s voice was truthful, reassuring, and Tristan nodded, letting go of the breath she’d been holding.

  “There’s one more thing.” Tristan looked down at her lap, shame creeping back into her heart. “Last summer, out of panic and the desire to have a backup plan in case I ever got the courage to actually deflect from the community instead of just dreaming about it, I applied to a bunch of colleges.”

  Her parents were silent, and Tristan looked up to find them both watching her expectantly, perhaps holding their reactions until she finished her thought.

  “I… I have been accepted to quite a few.” Tristan’s eyes darted between her parents, who looked surprised and, dare she hope?, maybe even proud. “Ward Livingston University, in Boston, was my dream choice, my longshot, long before I knew it was Beckett’s top choice, too, and I got in. And I didn’t just get in, I got
a pretty hefty scholarship.”

  In unison, her parents threw their arms around her, and Tristan bit back a yell of pain, not wanting to take this away from them when she’d already taken so much.

  “Trinity! We’re so proud of you!” Sol’s eyes were shining with tears, and even Umbris looked emotional, which set Tristan off all over again. She could feel their hurt through their excitement, but their reaction was genuine, and Tristan's heart filled to bursting.

  Chapter 40

  Tristan and her parents wept, holding each other, until Leon came in the room, looking at them awkwardly for a few beats before he cleared his throat. Sol and Umbris stepped back, Sol gently wiping Tristan’s face first, and Leon recovered swiftly, smiling at the trio.

  “I hope those are happy tears. It’s too early for sad tears.”

  Tristan laughed.

  “They’re happy.”

  “Good, good. How are you feeling this morning, Miss Tristan? Had kind of a rough night last night.”

  “Tired,” Tristan replied, nodding. “But my pain isn’t as bad today as it was yesterday, actually. I don’t feel like screaming every time I move.”

  Leon smiled.

  “That’s certainly an improvement. Your breakfast tray is going to be here shortly, and then a little while after that the burn team is going to come check you out. This afternoon we might try to get you up and walking somehow, but I’m not sure how that’s going to pan out since I think your side and hands aren’t going to allow for you to use crutches, but we’ll see. We are hoping to get you out of here tomorrow. My shift is just about over, so I’m going to say goodbye to you here. Rachel will be your next nurse. Can I get you anything before I go?”

  “Do you know how Beckett is? The boy I came in with, he’s up in the ICU?”

  Leon smiled.

  “Beckett is doing well. I believe they’re going to try to move him down to our floor today.”