“Destroy and Harm, Rush,” Jackson retorted with a quick and dismissive sneer. He opted for incredulity. “They probably thought it would be funny to prolong the Shift longer than necessary or to tamper with Keeping Time.” God, did he know their practices so well that they just came out of his mouth as if they were normal? “They probably—”
“Do you know how many gruesome acts, how much destruction, death and pain she’s brought to our house? And it’s like we’ve just gotten used to it. It’s like it’s okay in this house to mutilate, torture, murder another soul.” Rush stopped him. “She killed them on purpose. She fogged up the Energy so that I couldn’t pinpoint where she was or her intent immediately. She’s never done that before, so I wasn’t expecting it. Just that alone told me that she was up to something. She killed them.”
Jackson swallowed. That was murder. Maybe he had been unclear about what to call the other incidents, but this was not unclear. Bright Star had committed murder. He didn’t understand. Even as his stomach churned, he could only reach out to defend her. “They’ve done nothing but intimidate, sabotage, create distrust. They were evil.”
Rush winced as he turned to his brother. “It’s not up to you to decide that, just as much as it was not up to her.”
“Tell me that they weren’t.”
“They were kids,” Rush answered. But he didn’t argue with Jackson’s assessment. They both knew the twins had been angry and destructive. They had been destined from birth to inflict cruelty and violence on themselves and others. But where Jackson may call them evil, Rush had to ask himself what the difference was between them and Bright Star. She led people to their deaths every day.
Not to die. Her voice was stamped into his mind. It cut like a flashlight through the dark. I don’t want any of them to die.
Rush ignored the voice. Impossible to acknowledge when it had been such an incredible lie. If she thought the deaths would bring him around, she would use them. She killed two people, and somehow, she had prevented Rush from intervening. She killed two people.
“Jackson, get out,” Rush ordered with a lethal edge to his tone.
“What?” Jackson asked even as he stood looking around the room.
“Jackson get out, now,” Rush ordered again. Jackson left the room briskly, wondering if that had been his own will or a powerful suggestion.
My world, I said nothing when you allowed your Followers to drown beneath the ocean.
They aren’t mine and I didn’t put them there, Rush thought though his throat began to close and the pain between his shoulder blades became more pronounced.
And yet, you agonized over it. If you could have saved someone’s life and you chose not to, did you not murder them just the same?
“You led them there!” Rush roared. “You convinced them to endanger themselves.”
Bright Star materialized quickly before him. “I didn’t convince them, my world. You did.”
“I didn’t!”
“You did!” her voice went higher as she argued. Her eyes lit up the entire room. “Without their faith in you, the faith you have given them, without that would they have gone to the bottom of the sea with me? I am merely a Follower.”
Frustration pulsing through him, Rush contested, “You are not a Follower Bright Star, and what you have done is unforgivable.”
Her eyes went dim. Instead of hovering, she stood before him. She was still. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that what you’ve done has changed everything. You are right. Me allowing people to die could be considered the same as you murdering Destroy and Harm.”
Bright Star nodded warily.
“I’m already damned.”
“No!” A sharp protest bubbled from her lips.
“I’m already damned so I can forget saving my soul or anyone else’s.” The words were uttered calmly but they meant something profound. The gauntlet had been thrown and Rush knew that his anger, his proclamation could easily be ushering in the doom he had sought to avoid.
She reached out her hands and fisted them in his shirt. “You can’t do this.”
“It’s done,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“You can’t!” she gasped, and leaned up to press her lips firmly to his.
With broad hands, he forcefully pushed her away. Her bad leg gave and her hip connected painfully with the edge of a table. Rush vanished and left no Energy trail behind for her to follow. Quickly, she lifted herself into the air and sped from the room. She had to find Point.
*
“Jackson, what I have to say to you is very important.”
Jackson didn’t argue. He just sat down in one of the four chairs in the small gray room. There were no windows and… no door. They were inside a Shift.
“Amazing,” Jackson whistled. He had been able to maintain a place inside of a Shift before, but it had been the size of a small closet, completely non-descript and had lasted for less than ten seconds. The Spartan quality of the room identified it as a Shift, however, he knew it to be a major feat.
“It won’t last very long,” Rush told him. “And this is the only way we will be able to talk safely.”
That sharpened Jackson’s wits. There was something Rush had to tell him. Whatever it was was of utmost importance.
“Bright Star will destroy you, Jackson,”
“Is that it?” Jackson asked incredulously.
Rush hurled a loosely formed Energy ball at the wall. Nothing happened. Like just absorbed like. “You have to promise that you will stay as far away from her as possible.”
“Rush, you should know better than anyone,” Jackson stated deadly serious, “I can’t be hurt.”
“Not physically, no,” Rush agreed. “But there are other ways, and she won’t hesitate to use them.”
Jackson did nothing to deny the implication that Bright Star had the ability or capacity to hurt him emotionally. “She has no interest in me,” was his bitter counter.
“She has an interest in everything I care about!” Rush returned in a frustrated shout. It wasn’t what Jackson wanted to hear. He knew that his and Bright Star’s relationship was only a bi-product of her relationship with Rush. “You have to be able to take care of everything after. You have to be steady and sane the way you have always been steady and sane. This thing is about to come to a head and I have to be able to depend on you. Stay away from her, I’m begging you.”
Then the Shift ended and they were back in Jackson’s bedroom
“Then why do you let her continue to do this? Why not let her die like you let the others die?”
Rush balled up his fist and with all of his physical strength he slammed that fist into Jackson’s jaw. His brother staggered, but that was it. He was stunned, and he stayed stunned longer than he felt the effects of the blow. He had only felt the sharp sting, then the pain was gone. But, though he no longer felt the pain, he felt a release. Something inside of him swelled, then popped and he had swung at Rush before he knew it. Rush jumped back in time to avoid the blow. But Jackson, in a smooth movement, lowered his shoulder and rammed his brother in the stomach, taking him down to the ground. Once Rush was on his back, Jackson drew back his fist to hit him, but found that he could not. As much as he struggled to bring his fist down, he couldn’t hit him.
“Let him go!” Rush boomed, his voice carrying down the hall.
Immediately, Jackson felt the grip on his arm release. As soon as it did, Rush put his palms flat against Jackson’s chest and pushed him over. He followed with a swift roll to raise his hand and punch Jackson again.
“You can’t hurt me!” Jackson yelled as he grabbed his brother by the throat and rolled over on top of him.
Then Rush went still. He just lay there beneath Jackson’s hands. Jackson’s rage took a moment to subside. It took a moment for what was happening to register. There was no pulse under his fingers. Shocked eyes fell to his brother’s face which had gone pasty in pallor.
A great wail wen
t up in the walls and everywhere around him, in him, Jackson felt pain. It made his lungs and heart seize. It knocked him over until his mouth came open and he tried to wretch but found that nothing would come out. He had never, even when his parents died, felt the level of grief he felt at that one distinct moment. He rolled from side to side, holding his eyes and willing the sob to come out, but it never did.
And then, just as quickly, the suggestion lifted. It lifted from the whole house until even the walls and ceilings sagged in relief. Rush wasn’t dead.
Jackson’s brother stood up and looked down at him. “Bright Star can hurt you.”
Anguish; Pall
The grieving wouldn’t stop.
Black flags hung from every window. Every hall, every room went dim. The walls were damp and rapidly darkening with mildew. The air was stale and sour. Bowed heads. Hunched bodies in black cloaks shuffled silently through the halls. Usually in groups, the Followers cleaved to each other, giving support even as they struggled to make it from dusk to dawn. Sometimes, they would pass each other, acknowledge the red rimmed eyes, then feel their chapped cheeks stinging with new tears. Their hearts were broken, and they grieved without denial, without nuance, without pride.
The anguish bled into the world beyond the compound. The air outside for miles was both cold and heavy. It lodged like ice in the lungs. The sky was worn gray splotched with sooty clouds. The streets were lethargic with cars moving in slow processions. Bars, coffee shops, newsstands, subway cars, arenas even: silent. Silent. Silent. As if speech was a vulgar and unforgivable sacrilege. All of this, all of this even though the Followers knew, the cosmos knew, that in truth Rush was not dead.
Jackson felt it. A dull thud made his ribs too tight and too delicate to stop his lungs and heart from bursting out. His whole chest was sore from it. He hadn’t slept soundly in what felt like months. Every time he’d tried those first couple of days had just ended in him waking up to sheets that were dripping wet with perspiration. He was also aware that he had been sobbing uncontrollably. His throat was always dry and he found himself swallowing convulsively. His eyes always burned. They burned until moisture collected in the corners and spilled down his cheeks.
In his waking hours, Jackson hadn’t had the energy to report to the Service. His only desire had been to stare out of the window from his bed and watch the black clouds’ slow roll. When he didn’t report, they’d sent some men around to evaluate him. They had always monitored him closely. This change in his behavior would definitely put them on alert. Before, Jackson had not considered their perpetual presence and perpetual studies as invasive. Now, he hated them. He hated that they did not understand Shift any more than he could. He hated the humiliation he felt at their inability to truly comprehend the context of their own questions. He hated their limitations and the fact that they would never understand what was happening around them. Uncharacteristically and with anger, Jackson had used a Shift beyond any they’d known—one he wouldn’t have thought possible before the last few months—to ensure that their report would be satisfactory. He’d never used his Talents on those from the Service before. This time, he just didn’t care. He couldn’t go back. The pain wouldn’t let him.
Instead, he spent most of his time out of bed wandering aimlessly through the labyrinth halls of his home. Jackson noticed the change in the environment. The entire compound which had usually been sunny and warm appeared to have been washed in gray. Everything looked dull and neglected, listless. Sometimes there was no color. Jackson considered that it may have been some collective and subconscious Shift, but he hadn’t cared enough to investigate the phenomena. It suited his mood.
*
Rush had not intended for his Shift to have such a profound effect on this household. He had only wanted to show his brother the danger. Instead, he could not move through his own home without someone falling to their knees and clasping him around the waist. The extreme relief was in their eyes. It was in their words. It was in the strength of their holds and they worked both physically and psychically to hold him close, to reassure themselves that he had not been lost.
He still could not get used to the way they continuously reached out to him, even in their subconscious, just to be certain that he was there. Alive. Well. Alive.
Rush hadn’t wanted that, but here it was. He’d been trying to prove a point to his baby brother. It didn’t take him long to decide that the motive had not been worth the residual effects. He didn’t want this. God knew he didn’t want this.
“If you don’t want this,” Jackson interrupted Rush’s reverie as he sat at the kitchen table. “If you truly don’t want this world that has been created for you, then you know all you have to do is tell them to leave. All you have to do is tell them to stop killing themselves every day just to gain your notice, and they will do it. Rush, why won’t you do the small thing that could end this?”
“He can’t,” Monk answered for him as he entered the room. Rush rolled his eyes. “He can’t. If he tells us to leave, if he gives such a… a… lofty edict, then he has to accept his power.”
Rush was silent save for a ragged sigh of frustration. Jackson contemplated Monk’s words. Both of the brothers recognized the wisdom they held.
“Where is Bright Star?” Jackson asked.
Monk and Rush exchanged a glance, the meaning of which Jackson could not begin to guess. Jackson was surprised at the realization that he had not seen Bright Star for more than a month. Not since that day.
*
Bright Star sat in the chair next to the window in the dark room illuminated only by the light of the moon. She held four large, shiny silver coins in her hands. She tried to maintain the silent uninterrupted peace of the night but could not. She found she could not arrest the cough that started deep in her chest though she clamped her mouth shut and squeezed her arms in closer to her body to control it. When the attack subsided and she’d wiped hot tears from her bloodless cheek, she held her palm open, focusing on the glow of the coins. As she concentrated, the cicadas and the crickets came to life outside her window. She could hear all sorts of things crushing brittle leaves and twigs as they rushed through her woods. The lights flashed on, then off again. She couldn’t stop the spillover of energy no matter how hard she tried to focus. The crease in her brow sharpened and sweat beaded in the small of her back and at her temples. The tears slipped out again, even hotter.
The coins wobbled in her palm until they became precariously balanced on their sides. She sucked in her breath, ignoring the light’s incessant flicker. She sucked in her upper lip, catching it in her front teeth. The coins then started to roll against her skin, circling the upraised hand. Her brow relaxed only slightly as she watched the coins orbit her hand only lightly brushing her skin. And as she watched the quarters moved slower and made indentations in her flesh as they circled. Then they turned even slower as they bore even deeper into her skin, leaving redness in their wake. The coins made four identical trails of blood on her hand. Her hold on her lip tightened as she watched in horror as those same trails paled, then disappeared as if she had never been cut.
She barely noticed the door opening and a shadow quickly enveloping her room, even usurping the moonlight. The coins fell to the ground. Blood evaporated before it dripped from her raised hand and her lips. Vacant eyes found bright ones in the night.
“Everything I do is tainted with her. Everything. Look at my hand. She’s stalking me. Even when I am vulnerable, quiet, she is ruthless and stalks me.” Jackson blinked at her. “Jackson, don’t you see, I die when he is not with me. I die. She finds a way to be with him. She’s killing me.”
“Who?”
“Elizabeth,” she answered in a plaintive whisper.
And though he could feel Bright Star fading away, his heart finally found resolution, and though he had never met her, he wanted Elizabeth back. He wanted to see her, to touch her, to stop her from hurting Bright Star.
He came to her side and knelt down
. He lifted her slight weight and laid her gently on the bed. Then he took her hand in his and pressed her palm to his lips. Lovingly, he bestowed kisses on each crimson path cutting her lifeline, her love line, and restored each one of them. Finally, he just held her hand in both of his and looked down at it. He raised his gaze to hers.
Her skin was tinged with yellow. Her bones pushed violently against her flesh, giving her the look of a thinly veiled skeleton. She was all teeth and brittle bone; a skull perched on caving shoulders. Jackson could not deny that death lie beside her in the bed stroking cold unto her brow. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop himself. He called for Rush as he always had.
Suddenly, he looked up. A sound. A sound that couldn’t convince him that it was a sound. Jackson knew it came from within him. And then again that sound. He felt the hand in his hand grow rigid and looked down at Bright Star. She had heard, too. The bones in her face squeezed to wrinkle the skin above her brows. She jerked on her bed and he realized that she was sliding off it. She crumpled on the floor in front of him like a discarded dress and wrapped her arms around her head as she rocked back and forth like timorous child.
The laughter in Rush’s voice startled Jackson. His eyes moved from the fragile Bright Star to locate the voice.
Rush was perched in the window. He was smiling and somehow his wide, strong mouth had stretched even wider as he bore his teeth in a horrific smile.
“Bright Star, you’re back,” Rush stated plainly.
“Understatement,” she replied with her brows drawn together. The bravado was undercut by the moisture in her stark blue eyes and the way she had slipped to floor.
Rush hopped off of the sill and to the ground. He neared the bed, brown eyes turned golden. He stopped at the rocking heap on the floor before him. Bright Star had not moved from the ground.
He reached out a hand to smooth Bright Star’s hair. Bright Star shrank back, still covering her eyes. Laughter bubbled up from deep within Rush, then erupted like a geyser. He laughed so hard he wrapped his arms around his waist and fell backwards on the ground. He kicked his feet and thrashed violently on the floor. Then, abruptly, he stopped laughing and rose. He stood soberly then let her body hang in the air before them. Closed, immobile, his mouth seemed all the more threatening.
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