The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  I had been dozing on the floor with Adam, my head falling forward or lolling from side to side, when the door to the cell opened. The whine of the rusty hinges startled me so terribly that even once I was awakened, I felt the coursing of adrenaline through me, and as always, that coursing of adrenaline was coupled with a desire to fight, but because my body was so weak, I just had to ignore that feral urge, which had already been weak to begin with.

  “Brynna!”

  His voice startled me worse than the hinges. I jumped up, and Adam had been sleeping with his head rested against the wall, so he did not know that I was gone. To be honest, I forgot all about him when I saw James. Despite how our last conversation had broken my heart, my love for him was stronger than ever. I had missed him terribly over however many days had passed since I had seen him. Now, I could have been pursuant to his decision that we were broken up, but instead, I kissed him hard and squeezed my arms around him as tightly as I could. When he did not kiss me back, and his arms wrapped around me limply, I pulled away, my mind befuddled by his dedication to our separation.

  But after he looked at me for a second, he muttered, “Fuck it,” and grasped my face in both hands and kissed me just as hard as I had kissed him.

  “I was so honorable before…” I was still kissing him, even as he tried to talk, “It was the right thing to do… Now I’m… undoing it…”

  “It was honorable, but have you not realized that this can’t be undone? How many times have one or both of us tried to end it? Or done something that could end it…” My words stopped me. The feeling of my heart plummeting again, and that emptiness left in my chest were enough to make me pull away from him and turn away. There was a long silence between us. I felt his eyes on me, and then I felt them leave, and then they came back; I knew that in the interim, he was looking at Adam.

  “James…” I whispered.

  “I already know.” He said, and his voice was unreadable, but I could not bear to turn around and see the look of pain or anger on his face. I knew it had to be there; they would have told him that I did it voluntarily. That we were huddled together lovingly afterwards. That we had reconciled in the same way that James and I always did. But when I finally forced myself to turn and look at him, I saw that his face was as blank and shallow as his tone had been.

  “James, I’m not sorry. I am sorry that I am not sorry, but they wanted him to… Because we’re married now, they wanted him to… We’re married now.”

  “I know. I’m married to Janna apparently. I had no choice, and I know Adam didn’t have a choice, either.”

  “You didn’t…” My arms came up to wrap themselves around my middle, “…to Janna, did you?”

  “What?” He asked, and he was completely confused as to what I was referring, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “What?! Oh, my God, Brynna, you think I raped her?”

  “No! I am just assuming that since they sent Adam here to do that to me that they told you to do the same to Janna.”

  “We had to consummate it, they said, but she knew we had to do it, or they would kill us both. That doesn’t make it any better, for either one of us. But it’s over now.”

  “I thought she was with Elijah.”

  “They’re letting that continue because they think that her having both of us hurts you. With me, it’s because we’re together, and with him, it’s because you know she’s toxic and is going to hurt him eventually.”

  “He can do what he wants.” I said, but then I paused and gathered together the old feelings of affection for him that I once had. “Have you seen him? How does he look?”

  “We talked, believe it or not. All he kept saying is that he wants to make amends with you. He was so upset, Brynn. He misses you, and he wants to put things right when he sees you.”

  All of my anger at him faded away, and in its sudden absence, I found room to chastise myself for allowing our feud to go on for so long. Even though our lives were not short, as the old saying went, our times between peace and chaos were, and now, I was being kept from him, and we could not easily make amends, and if something happened to one or both of us, we would die knowing that we had never made peace. We had been so close on Earth, but being on Pangaea had torn us apart.

  “Baby…” He walked towards me and grasped my shoulders gently. His hands moved down to rub my arms and then came back up to rest on my shoulders. “I heard all about it from them. They wanted me to get angry. God, they were certainly pissed off.” He laughed softly, and I was reassured by that. “You showed them up. And he helped you do it, and I’m… God, I can’t believe I’m saying this… I’m grateful to him for that. The thought of him being with you like that, though…”

  “You think me envisioning you entwined with Janna Jameson does not make me want to scream?”

  “I know it does.” He kissed my shoulder, “I know, sweetheart. We did what we had to do. You did. I did. And it might have to keep happening. As long as we’re with these people, they’re going to keep screwing with us in whatever way possible…”

  “And in turn, we will have to screw people who are not each other.”

  “No. Not ‘in turn.’ Because they are screwing with us, we will have to screw people that are not each other.”

  “I need to confess to you that what happened between Adam and me was… not…” I unwrapped my arms from around his neck and rubbed my forehead, trying to think how best to phrase what I was trying to say. The best way to phrase it would be to not phrase it at all, but I had said that I wanted them both, and James needed to know that.

  “It was not… altogether… unpleasant.” I finished.

  “Well, no.” He said, and he looked almost as comical when he was confused as Adam did. “I didn’t think that it would be. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant with Janna, either.”

  Instantaneously, it was like a fist had landed squarely in my stomach with enough force to shatter concrete.

  “Did you just trick me?” He asked, panic-stricken, once I doubled over to put my hands on my knees. “You just tricked me. Shit!”

  “What do you mean I tricked you?”

  “You said that about Adam so I would tell you that about Janna. Oh, my God, I cannot believe I walked right into that! After we’ve been together for so long, and I thought I had learned to avoid these little traps you set up! Do you see what happens when we spend too much time apart? Two weeks, and I’ve lost all my skills!”

  “James, I was not tricking you! I meant what I said about Adam.” I looked up at him, though I was still doubled over, “My stars, honey, you wish.”

  He was silent, but he chuckled softly after a second.

  “You’re right. I do wish. I wish I hadn’t said what I said about Janna, too, though not as much… See, that doesn’t sound right. It sounds like I wished it had been unbearable with Adam, and that would mean the worst, and you know that’s not what I mean.”

  “I know.” I said, and he sat down on the cot next to Penny. Absent-mindedly, his hand came to rest on her back.

  “She’s out like a light.” He said, and he leaned over to kiss her forehead and her cheek, “God, it’s the first time I’ve seen her in…” His voice locked, and I walked over and sat behind him. Gently, I kissed his shoulder. My hands ran up his back, and through his thin white shirt, I felt ridges on his skin that I had not felt when I had first thrown my arms around him.

  “James…” I said, and when I went to pull his shirt up, he quickly turned away from me.

  “Don’t. It’s fine.”

  “What happened?!” I asked, and forcefully, I turned his shoulders so his back was to me again. I raised his shirt and wanted to gasp, but I knew from reading into his mind that he was unaware how badly it looked, so I forced myself to have no reaction.

  I do not know how many times they must have hit him, or with what, exactly, but if the lashes made on me with the thorn-covered vine were frightening, the lashes on his back were downright menacing. They
covered every inch of his back, slashed in every direction, longer than a foot each. Dried blood was caked around each cut, and when I looked down, I saw that it had saturated the top of his jeans. Though my knowledge on First Aid was only slightly above average, I could still tell that the cuts had been made within the past few days, and from the heat of his skin, I knew that an infection was beginning to set in.

  “Come here.” I stood up, and pulled him over to the sink.

  “What?”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “I don’t think now is the time or the place for ‘we’re-reunited-hooray’ sex.”

  I grinned only when my back was to him, but when I turned back around, I was frowning, one eyebrow raised, hands crossed over my chest, and one foot out in the newest reformation of my battle stance.

  “Oh, God…” He groaned, dragging the word out dramatically and covering his face for a second. He fell onto his knees in front of me, wrapped his arms around my middle, and rested the side of his face against my stomach.

  “You have no idea how much I missed the battle pose. The ‘James-you’re-an-asshole’ pose. The ‘you-better-do-what-I-say-or-I-will-have-your-head-decorating-my-fireplace-mantle’ pose. Oh, my God, I could cry. I’m feeling feelings right now.”

  “I did that unintentionally. You know it is a reflex for me to stand that way when you are angering me. But if I would have known what joy it brings you…”

  “I know. You would have done it sooner.”

  “No, I would not have done it all, because it does not have the desired effect. Now, take off your shirt.”

  He laughed, somewhat weakly, but there was a ghost of his usual raucous laughter. We both looked over at Adam and Penny to find that they were still sleeping soundly.

  “I don’t think it is advisable for us to do anything in here. Honey, our daughter is right there, and so is your husband!”

  “Oh, you make it sound like such a soap opera.”

  “Is it not a soap opera?”

  “I will rip your shirt off if you do not take it off.”

  “Fine,” He sighed, “I like this shirt. I would like to keep it.”

  He pulled his shirt off, and I was struck by how thin he had gotten.

  “That’s why they did it.” He whispered, and all traces of his joking mood from a second earlier were gone. “I told them I wouldn’t eat. Not until they let you and Penny go.”

  I gently ran my fingertips down his chest, stopping to brush them lightly over each one of his prominently exposed ribs. I wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him to me, kissing his neck, his shoulder, and then back up to his lips.

  “You must stop being so noble.” I whispered, and very gently, I kissed him again.

  “I have to make up for all the times when I was a dog, remember?” He asked, and I laughed softly, though doing so made the tears that had suddenly come into my eyes fall.

  With the cloth on the sink, I dabbed off his back as gently as I could. I prayed that there was some antibacterial qualities to the soap I was using, because I knew that if it went untreated, his infection would become severe within a few days.

  “Am I hurting you?” I asked him softly, though he gave me no reason to ask. He was so quiet and motionless I thought he had fallen asleep sitting up.

  He swallowed hard and shook his head.

  I stopped, realizing suddenly why he was so quiet and motionless.

  “Baby…” I turned him gently and eased his head onto my chest. I saw in his mind all his thoughts and fears, all his shame for breaking down. His tears ran freely, and the only sound he made was a deep breath every few minutes, and even that he tried to stifle by burying his face deeper into my chest. I did not say anything, because if he was crying that way, I knew he must have resisted it for a long time and I did not want to interrupt him. Besides that, I could no longer find words to reassure anyone. I was weakening more and more as each hour passed, and slowly, that weakness had drained my ability to See. For the first time since coming to Pangaea, I did not have my newly evolved sense of Foresight. I could still read into his mind, but the thoughts were hazy, fogged, tucked away from me; they were fading fast. For the first time, I felt human again.

  “I never wanted this.” He managed to say after many minutes of him crying had passed. Almost hastily, he added, “For you. For her,” He gestured to Penny, “For Violet. I just wanted…”

  “Shh…” I raised his head and kissed him gently, “I know, James. I know.”

  “Do you know what happens from here?” He asked, and his eyes were agleam with both hope and fear: hope that I might tell him we would escape, find Violet and the rest of our people, create a miraculous plan to counterstrike the Old Spirits, and win the war, freeing the rest of our people in the process and finally winning our place on Pangaea, and fear that none of those things would be true, could ever possibly be true.

  “It is better not to know, James.”

  “What happens? Is it…” His throat locked again, but he pushed through it, swiping at his eyes, “Is it me? Am I going to die?”

  “Of course not!” I grasped his face in both hands hard and spoke firmly. “Do you think I would be this calm if I were going to lose you? No. I have not seen any deaths, but that does not mean that it cannot happen. It just means that the transmission has not been received yet. James, it is better for you not to be burdened with the things that will happen. I know only one thing that will come to pass, and it is better that I know the depth of it alone. There is no point to both of us carrying it. There is no point in me pointlessly scaring you with it.”

  “Of course there is! I can…”

  “What?” I asked, “What, James?”

  He leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine.

  “You shouldn’t have to know alone. It scares you. I know it does. I could sense it when I first saw you. You get this look when it’s something that’s coming. I know that look. I dream about it. It scares me more than anything else, Brynna.”

  I did not know what to say, so I simply did not say anything. For a long time, we stayed there, our foreheads pressed together and his hand rested on my face, his thumb stroking my cheek.

  “What about them? Can you hear their thoughts?” He asked me later, “Tyre? The Bachums? Paul?”

  I had been hearing little snippets of their thoughts, but more than anything, I could feel the tension between them. There was dissent, and that dissent had grown from something to do with James, Adam, and me. It was violent, like a chemical reaction in which they and we were the two separate groups of reactive agents and together, we would cause a deadly explosion or a toxic, invisible gas. A rebellion would occur; I could see that. But how would they rebel?

  My heart, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, moved painfully and abruptly from its usual spot in my chest. This time, however, it shot upwards, beating wildly, trying to escape before it could be broken. My body was too drained; it could not force my mind to push further into the Sight. I could not see who it was, or how it happened, but I knew one of us would be hurt terribly. One of us would not be walking onto that ship.

  To avoid arousing more fear in him, I forced myself not to throw my arms around his back but merely to wrap them around him as though nothing was wrong. I closed my eyes, breathed in his scent, and allowed that warmth he always brought to me to fill me up, to consume me. I think I might have forgotten all about my vow not to cry anymore. If I can recall, I had tears sliding down my cheeks the entire time we stayed there, me with my arms and legs wrapped around his middle and my face nestled under his and him with his strong arms locked protectively around me, his face nestled against mine, and his lips gently kissing me every few seconds. I know he cried, too.

  “I still promise you a million years,” He whispered, “No matter what happens, I promise you that.”

  “I still promise you a million more.” I said, “No matter what happens.”

  “You’re so exh
austed. You need to sleep.”

  “Penny will be getting up soon.”

  “And I’ll take care of her. You need to get some rest.”

  “I can’t.” I said, “I have to stay awake. I have to make sure nothing happens. I don’t want them to take her away. I don’t want them to take you. I don’t want them to take Adam. I just want us all to stay together.”

  “I know. They won’t take them. I promise.”

  “James…” I whispered, and I paused for a long time as the tears ran down my eyes and over my nose. “I’m scared.”

  He kissed my head once, held his lips there, and then kissed it again.

  “I know.” He said, “But I’ll watch over you, baby.”