Eminent Silence

by Tristan Carey

  I blinked at her. It took three whole seconds for me to register what she said, and in that time my gaze slipped away, wandering to the open door, the blinding white square in a cold black box. My thoughts were fleeting, soft and wispy, breaking apart and spinning away like flakes of ice.

  I wandered to the door, voice a cracked whisper. 'I think…I need to sit down.'

  The words had barely left my mouth when my legs practically crumbled beneath me. My muscles were jelly, and my knees smacked the wood with a hard thump. Arms limp at my sides, I wanted to stare into the outside, into the blinding wintry glare, until I couldn't see anymore. Until my whole world turned white, and I couldn't feel any of it.

  I kept seeing that man's face in my head. At the exact second the gun went off. His expression was something I didn't think I could ever forget.

  The surprise. The fear.

  Before the life died from his eyes. Pupils dilating. Muscles slacking, jaw falling open, before he fell out of my vision.

  A shudder passed down my spine. My finger twitched against the floor. It still felt like I was holding the trigger.

  I felt cold, but it wasn't the weather. It was a kind of cold where you wondered if you'd ever feel warm again. Maybe never.

  'Amelia?' A probing whisper invaded my thoughts. I looked up, caught off guard by Wanda standing next to me. I hadn't heard her approach. There was a frown on her lips, something flickering in her eyes. 'Are you okay?'

  I realized I hadn't answered her the first time. I still didn't know what I could say. None of the words in my head made much sense to me. I looked back down again, running my hand over the wood floor, tracing the knots by my foot. My words were barely a mumble. 'I thought I could escape it, Wanda. I thought I could escape from what the Crucible did to me.'

  'What do you mean?' Wanda asked, coming to kneel beside me. 'Escape from what?'

  'From what they made me.' I said, unable to look at her. 'What they turned me into. I wanted to prove Brandt wrong. But it turns out…I'm just like her. I'm just like the rest of them. A monster. A killer.'

  'Amelia,' Wanda said softly, kneeling down in front of me, hands lying in her lap. I picked up my head, trying not to flinch as I met her hazel eyes, her face blurring behind my tears. 'Amelia, you are not that person. I know you well, I have looked into your head a thousand times. There is something pure there…to me, it looks like a star, bright and shining. Something that the Chairman could never destroy.'

  I sniffed, bitterness in my voice. 'And it's still there? How can it still be shining after what I did?'

  'It has only dimmed, not gone,' Wanda said, tilting her head and closing her eyes. I wondered if that was her, picking through my thoughts. I couldn't feel it, and idly wondered if that meant she wasn't doing anything.

  As soon as it occurred to me, a small smile alighted upon Wanda's lips, and she opened her eyes again. 'No, I am not doing anything to your thoughts, Amelia. Not without your permission.'

  I've had my suspicions about the true extent of Wanda's powers, and after Brandt's accusation right before the skirmish, I had reserved the benefit of the doubt for Wanda. I wasn't angry at her, though — I was too angry at myself at the moment. But having those thoughts confirmed, that Wanda was really psychic? Well, it was kind of a relief.

  It was one less mystery I had to worry about.

  I nodded dumbly, wiping away at my face as I considered those words. Not just the fact of having my trust in her reconfirmed, but what her promise really meant. 'So…if I asked again, you could make me forget. Like you did to me in the forest.'

  Wanda's smile froze, before falling off her face. She looked away, biting her lip. 'Yes, I could, if that was what you wanted.'

  I wasn't worried that she'd ever control my mind, or make me do something I didn't want to do. That was the exact thing we've been running from. No, I trusted Wanda. Still.

  'But you don't want to,' I guessed from her demeanor. For whatever reason, Wanda seemed apprehensive to do something like that again. As it was, I wasn't too sure about it myself, but the possibility was tempting at the moment.

  'No,' Wanda admitted, bowing her head before picking it up to look at me again, her brow knitted together. She started playing with her fingers as she continued, 'I do not know how to remove memories entirely. I do not think it would be good if I did, and I don't want to do that to you. I…I only blocked your memories, from the Crucible. And even then, as you have already shown us, the effect is wearing off. Slowly, perhaps, but my power is not forever. And it is hurting you.'

  She sighed, and I could hear the pain and guilt in her words. Before I could say anything however, Wanda leaned forward and took my hands in hers, and her gaze was earnest as she met my eyes again. 'But I will do it, if you really want me to. You are my friend, and I want you to be happy. Be at peace. I just want you to be sure first.'

  Could I do that to myself again? Maybe. All I wanted right now was to rip the memory of killing that man from my head. It was just playing on repeat, and I was afraid I'd never be rid of it. Would I go crazy from this? I was a lot of things, but I never considered myself a…a murderer.

  That was a line you just didn't cross. I could never come back from that. 'Maybe…I don't know. It feels wrong, somehow.'

  Wanda thought this over a moment, tilting her head. 'I know Pietro and I are not normal. We view death differently from you. Killing is sometimes…it sometimes necessary for us. But I understand that it must have been…difficult for you to end that man's life.'

  'Except it wasn't,' I said, letting out a short, ironic laugh, although there was nothing funny about it. 'It wasn't hard at all. Killing him was so…it was easy. Too easy.'

  I shook my head, swallowing at the bile rising in my throat. 'I can't do that again. I won't.'

  'I would never ask you of that,' Wanda said, shaking her head. 'If there is one thing I have learned in the short time I have been on this earth, it is that sometimes, good people must do bad things, for the right reasons. It is not an easy burden. But it is one we must carry, so that others don't have to.'

  The notion was only mildly comforting. Burden was the correct word for this. I'd have to carry the weight of this for the rest of my life. People wouldn't look at me the same, knowing I'd willingly taken the life of another.

  My head hurt. The gunshot still echoed in my ears, a death knell. 'And what if I'm not strong enough?'

  Wanda bit her lip, glanced away. 'We cross that bridge when we get there, yes? One day at a time.'

  It took me a moment to realize she was echoing my words from a few days ago, and I gave her a small smile. Wanda returned the look with one final nod, before standing up and returning to Pietro, who seemed to have gone into a small stupor.

  I went back to tracing the woodwork. I was severely tempted by Wanda's offer, to erase my mind again. I knew well enough she could do it, but was it a good idea? Never mind if it was the right thing to do; could I survive without the proper memories? Wanda herself said she wasn't necessarily good at it — what if she took away more memories than intended? What if I was sent back to the first square, like waking up in the forest, thinking it was still April and not knowing anything of how I got here?

  I didn't want to go through the process of understanding myself, the Crucible, the super soldiers and the mutants. Over the course of a week, I could consider it all somewhat easily — but learning it all again would be a chore. It would slow us down. Would I even want to go home the second time?

  And what would I do, if this hypothetical amnesiac me of the future found out that past-me got rid of my memories out of a crushing guilt? Of an unforgivable crime?

  Would she think I was weak? Would she be stronger? Or would she just make the same choice again, and start this endless cycle of guilt and blind innocence?

  I had killed that man. How could I make myself forget that? It was awful. But I learned something very important about myself.

  I
could kill. I could kill anyone, easily. But it wouldn't get easier. I'd crossed the line, and I wasn't going to do it again if I could help it.

  It was a minor epiphany. It didn't absolve me of the guilt, nor did it shake the cold that had settled somewhere deep inside of me. I would still have to live, knowing that the Crucible had done irrevocable damage to me. I would live keeping this secret. How could I let anyone else besides the twins know about this? When I finally got home, I couldn't conceive the notion of telling Mom or Peter or anyone that I had killed someone.

  I couldn't.

  A soft gasp to right and my attention snapped to the twins. I'd forgotten they were here. I blinked rapidly, suddenly away of my sore knees, numb feet, and wondered how long I had been sitting there. It had only seemed like a few minutes, but my muscles protested as if they hadn't been used in hours.

  Then I saw what Wanda was doing and something in my mind clicked, and I jolted forward, throwing out a hand to stop her. 'No, no, don't make a tourniquet yet! If he's not bleeding out, then he'll only lose his leg.'

  'Wanda!' Pietro threw a startled look at her, who gasped and ripped her hands away from the cloth she'd been using to tie around his thigh. 'How am I supposed to run with only one leg?!'

  She threw her hands over her mouth. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know —!'

  'It's fine,' I said, not registering the panic in her tone. I dropped down on Pietro's other side, taking a finger a pulling the cloth away from the wound. It was too messy to see what was going on. 'Not everyone knows that. Wanda, I need water, salt, and bandages, if you can find them in here. It doesn't look like his femoral artery was severed, which is good.' I cast a wan smile at Pietro. 'You'll live.'

  He knocked his head back, relieved. 'Oh, thank god.'

  Wanda had gotten up and started a quick search through the crates around us. It was a little more crowded in here than our last boxcar hideout, but enough to keep us sheltered from the cold. Wanda sped up the process by blasting boxes open with her magic. Wood splinters flew into the air, until finally: 'Aha!'

  Wanda skidded back to Pietro's side, practically throwing the metal water bottle at my face. I just barely caught it. In her hands, she carried the other ingredients I asked — a package of fresh gauze and a whole sack of unprocessed salt. Offhand, I wondered how much that would be worth in Sokovia. Snapping open the lid, I said, 'Wanda, hold out the pant leg, please.'

  She did so, and I held the bottle over Pietro's leg, and slowly tilted it over. Pietro grunted, shifting slightly as the water poured over his skin. The blood, a little tacky, thinned away, revealing the wound embedded in Pietro's skin. In surprise, I said, 'What? It's already healing!'

  'Accelerated regeneration,' Pietro said with a little shrug, although he was smirking. 'Or so those KGB scientists say.'

  'Uh-huh.' I said, throwing him a skeptical look, then back at the wound. Normally, something like this would've made me squeamish, but after what just happened….no, I couldn't think about it. 'Well, you better hope it doesn't heal with the bullet still inside. We'll have to check and make sure.'

  Ripping open the hole wider in the pantleg, I carefully traced my fingers against the side of Pietro's leg, guessing at the path the bullet must've taken. No sooner had I started to check, however, did Pietro flinch with a loud yelp.

  'What?' I snapped my hand back, alarmed. Had I hurt him? I hadn't felt anything bad.

  'You have cold hands.' Pietro slumped back, giving me a chagrined smile.

  I cut him a glare, unamused, before returning to the task at hand. Pietro was skin, bone, and muscle — he always said he had to eat a lot, but it was my personal opinion that he wasn't eating enough. There were Olympic sprinters with more body fat than him.

  His skin was slick with water and blood, but I felt no alien objects underneath. As it was, we didn't have the tools to remove any bullet fragments. If there were any, they would have to remain in Pietro's leg. Considering everything had happened, that could've happened, a few pieces of metal in his body wasn't going to be a big deal.

  And if it did?

  I took a deep breath, released it. Well. One day at a time.

  'The bullet went clean through,' I said finally, with some relief, after finding the entry wound at the back his leg. It was deceptively small; Pietro had been shot from behind, perhaps with a handgun. 'I think it'll be fine. Just clean the wound and some bandaging and pressure, and your body will do the rest. Wanda, the salt?'

  She handed me the burlap sack, and I ripped open the top. With another water bottle, I took a handful of salt and carefully funneled it into the narrow top of the bottle. Then closing it, I shook the bottle, making sure it was mixed well before tossing the bottle back to Wanda. 'Can you heat this up? We need to sterilize it first.'

  Wanda nodded once, and her eyes flared red. The bottle rose in the air, suspended by flickering tendrils wafting from her fingers. I could hear the faint sound of water boiling, and plucked the bottle from suspension. 'Thanks,' I said, before pouring the contents back onto Pietro's leg.

  Pietro flinched in anticipation, but relaxed as the salt water washed over his leg. In surprise, he remarked, 'It…it doesn't sting.'

  'Of course not, it's saline, it's a disinfectant,' I said without looking up. I'd seen enough movies of rugged badass heroes pouring their flask of whiskey onto bullet wounds, that it was one of the dumbest things you could do with that kind of injury, especially when other, safer options were available. 'Homemade, sure, but the amount of salt is supposed to match the pH levels in your blood.'

  Wanda frowned at me. 'What's pH?'

  'A content's acidic level. Pure water is neutral, so it only stings a little. Saline is about point nine percent sodium chloride, which matches it to a human body's salinity levels. Like your tears, they're salty, right? Therefore, saline doesn't sting.' The answer rolled off my tongue as easily as if it had been Mr. Rand asking me that in Chemistry class. Huh. Who knew that knowledge would have such applicability in the field? Especially this field.

  'And sodium chloride is…' Wanda pursed her lips. 'Salt?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Ah!' Wanda smiled, pleased to understand. Then she tilted her head. 'How do you know all of this, Amelia?'

  'I spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up,' I explained, not really thinking about it as I rolled up two gauze pads, dabbed them lightly in saline, before placing them on either side of Pietro's leg. Wanda helped me wrap the gauze around. 'A lot of time in bed, sick, with nothing to do but read my mom's old nursing textbooks. I never thought I'd end up using that stuff later. At least not like this.'

  'So your mother is a nurse,' Pietro said, with a curious smile.

  I paused in the middle of tying the gauze into its finishing knot. I glanced up once at Pietro, then away again, the cold guilt rising in my gut.

  My tone was curt. 'No.'

  And with that, I got up and walked away.

  The thought of my mother, her memory and broken dreams, was a stab to the gut, opening an old wound. And with Pietro taken care of, my mind was now free to wander where it shouldn't.

  I had ruined Mom's life, just by existing. And now? I ended another life. I killed someone. I felt like a living, breathing curse.

  I settled back down in my corner again, closing my eyes, forcing my thoughts to drift, drift away from all of that. Instead, I listened to the rumble of the train-tracks, the whistling wind, the murmurs of the twin's conversation, and let it lull me to a dreamless sleep.

  Three days later, we entered France.

  The ride there had been anxious and boring. Absolutely nothing remarkable happened — no more attacks, no more surprises, but Wanda, Pietro and I were all on edge, just waiting for the worst to happen. The train had stopped that first night, when the train's crewmen took a gander at the destruction. They had lost nearly half of their cargo, but any signs of the fighting or stowaways were long gone. Wanda magicked the men's attention away from us w
hen they came to our car — their eyes glazed over us, huddled in the corner, as if we weren't even there, before moving on.

  It was impressive. Also, a little frightening.

  There was nothing the conductor could do about the lost shipments, so they just kept going. We finally left the mountains on the evening of the second day. The morning of the third, the three of us woke up to sunny grape fields and the warm French Riviera, with its Italian-esque terracotta rooftops and narrow streets.

  And the food. So much food.

  The train came to a stop in the center of a little town. The side of its battered cars drew a lot of gazes and scratching heads, so it took a little more magic and ingenuity to jump off unseen. I couldn't believe how warm it was when we stepped out into sunlight — I shed my coat, relishing the sensation of actually being somewhere.