The Felix Chronicles: Five Days in January

by R. T. Lowe

  Felix nodded. He’d thought Bill had been speculating and had reached for an answer to placate Allison’s anger since she’d just caught him in the first lie and had forced him to admit that monsters, and not wolves, were mutilating and killing in Lofton’s woods. He didn’t think Bill had necessarily lied about the Protectors and their head games, but if Allison said it was ‘total bullshit’, he had to believe her, even if it meant there was another reason to not trust him. Bill’s dishonesty annoyed Felix, there were just too many other things on his mind and he couldn’t dwell on it, not now anyway.

  “That was a total lie,” Allison said angrily. “I knew it then, I just didn’t realize I had this sixth sense thing going on or I would’ve beaten the truth out of him.” She looked at Felix and her face brightened. “Anyway, I’ve decided I’m an Empath, a Senser and a Fighter. You can just call me ‘triple threat’ for short.”

  “An Empath?”

  “I thought that was clever but I might’ve read it in a book once,” Allison said, grinning. “I feel what people are feeling—at least people close to me—so that makes me an Empath, right? And I sense when people are lying.”

  “That’s the Senser part?” Felix said and laughed.

  “The Fighter is really self-explanatory.” Allison shrugged. “I pretty much just kick ass.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Felix told her, still laughing.

  She smiled at him. “Probably, but what’s the point in having powers if you can’t give them cool names?”

  “Then what’s my cool name?” Felix asked. “What am I?”

  Allison watched him for a moment without saying anything. “Do you really want to know?”

  He nodded, fairly certain he wouldn’t appreciate her response.

  She narrowed her eyes and said, “You’re a Restrainer.”

  Felix straightened in his chair and blinked. “A Restrainer? What do you—?” He cut himself off and gave her a serious look. “That’s not very nice, Empath. It’s not as easy as it looks, you know.” He looked down at his palms. “Trying to control it is like—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Allison interrupted. “You can control it. You’re just afraid to cut loose. If I had your powers, you think I’d be up all night icing my knuckles?”

  Felix knew where this conversation was headed, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk about why it bothered him to kill people. He understood Allison’s perspective. When faced with a psychopath intent on murder it was either kill or be killed, the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. He understood that. He really did, but maybe he needed his self-indulgent guilt to feel human—maybe, unlike Lofton, the feeling of a cold wind on his skin and a beautiful girl in his arms wasn’t enough.

  “So what did you talk about?” Felix asked her, changing the subject. “You and Malone?”

  “I told him what happened to you. I think he was relieved when he heard about Kane and Lilly.”

  “Relieved?” Felix said, surprised Malone would feel relief upon hearing Felix had killed two members of the Order.

  “Yeah. He was thinking a Drestianite might have done it, and if they’d identified Kane and Lilly the rest of them might also be in danger. He feels really bad about what they did to you. Said he was sorry. That the Order knew those two were unhinged, but didn’t think they’d do something like…that. Said he’d like to talk to you whenever. I also told him you met with Lofton and had a long, um, conversation with him.” She went quiet, picking at her nail polish.

  “What else?” Felix prompted, knowing she was holding something back, something she thought he might not want to hear.

  “I told him I was confused, and, well, you were too.” She snatched his Western Civ text and flipped through a few pages. “Why wouldn’t you be? The Order tried to kill you and Lofton just wanted to chat.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Allison shrugged as if to say nothing helpful. “He said Lofton has never been known to meet with anyone on the outside and he thought that was really strange. He didn’t say it was strange, but he was thinking it. I felt it. Then he talked about lions. He said if you take a lion out of Africa and put it in a zoo, feed it, give it medicine and keep it safe, it’ll live a long time and nothing will hurt it. But when the lion finally dies of old age or whatever, if you asked that lion if it had lived, what would it say?”

  “I didn’t know lions could talk,” Felix quipped.

  Allison smiled and brought her ponytail over her shoulder, combing it through with her bandaged fingers, the result of breaking the cannibal’s teeth. “Malone said that’s what Lofton will do to all of us. We’ll all be in a zoo safe and protected in our cages and Lofton will be the zookeeper.” She shrugged again. “It’s the same thing Bill told us in his office. You know, Lofton is going to strip away our freedoms and force us to conform to a way of life that kills our humanity and our souls. That we should have the right to determine our own destiny, not some superpowered dictator guy.”

  “If you say so,” Felix sighed and looked around for a moment, realizing he’d turned on nearly every one of the sixteen lamps in the room. “Lofton was, like, I don’t know—normal. He was joking with me like I was his buddy or something.” He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin, thinking about their encounter in the alley. “When I read the Journal, I thought he’d be like, um, you know, like—”

  “Voldemort?” Allison offered. “A mindless snake-faced psychopath?”

  “I was thinking more like Darth Vader. You know, ‘join me and together we’ll wipe out a couple of planets.’” Felix frowned and scratched at a spot on his palm that used to callus from working out. Lofton was nothing like Voldemort. Or Darth. Is that what bothered him? Or was it something else? “He just told me I was different and special, and I had an obligation to make the world a better place.”

  “You’re such a dork,” Allison said to him with a shake of her head. “Darth Vader?”

  “I’m a dork? You brought up Harry Potter.”

  “You just did the Darth Vader voice. Darth is way dorkier than Harry.”

  Felix laughed. He rolled his shoulders to unkink his neck and dragged his hands through his hair. “Why couldn’t he be like Voldemort? Or Darth? I mean seriously. I’ve been thinking about what he said, and I think he’s, well…right. Aren’t we just fucking everything up? All of us? The shit we’re doing to each other is unbelievable. What the hell is wrong with everybody? It’s like all over the world, and there’s no reason for it. If Lofton can prevent people from doing all these terrible things to each other then maybe we should…let him.” Staring down at the table, his brow furrowed. “The Journal doesn’t say I’ll fix the Source. It says if I win, or whatever you want to call it, the people will determine whether it’ll get fixed or not. What if I win and nothing changes? What if everyone’s too fucked up to give a shit about making the world a better place and the Source just…dies? Then everyone dies and I’d be the one who did it. I’d be responsible. Billions of people. Billions.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I guess I don’t know what to believe.”

  They sat in silence.

  “Why don’t we just believe in each other and see what happens?” Allison said finally. She twitched a smile at him and her eyes sparkled.

  Felix stared at her, and something about the way she was looking at him brought him back to last spring. Their senior prom was held in the school’s gymnasium, and after the dance, he and Allison and a group of their classmates had continued the night at a beach house that belonged to the parents of one of Allison’s friends. They partied on the sand and got wildly drunk around the bonfire, throwing caution to the wind and diving into the freezing Pacific waters, the guys in their rented tuxes, the girls in their dresses. When everyone had gone back to the house to strip out of their wet clothes, Felix and Allison had stayed at the fire, just the two of them, warming themselves and passing a bottle of cranberry vodka back and forth between them. Felix recalled vividly the way she looked that ni
ght, her hair dripping saltwater down the back of a short strapless dress as green as her eyes. In his mind’s eye, the moment seemed perfect. They had no troubles then. No responsibilities. Their conversations were so different. It was just the two of them and the warmth of a fire.

  “We’re a long way from prom, aren’t we?” Felix said.

  “You didn’t take me to prom,” Allison reminded him, bringing her eyebrows together.

  “Because you went with cool artsy guy. I can’t remember his name.”

  “Neither can I, but at least he wasn’t a psycho bitch.”

  Felix groaned and muttered, “Really? Emma? You bringin’ her up now?” Emma, Felix’s high school girlfriend, had dumped him right after graduation because she was heading off to the University of Washington to spread her wings and do great things so she couldn’t be burdened with someone like Felix, a hometown football hero whose best days were in the past.

  “You kind of deserve it,” Allison said and laughed.

  Felix grunted and looked imploringly to the portraits of President Woodrow, as if hoping he would step out of the frames and come to his aid.

  Allison’s face grew serious. “You don’t even know why though, do you? You’re not picking them. They’re picking you. Emma picked you. Harper picks you whenever she’s in the mood and you go along with it like an attention starved puppy. You’re not making decisions for yourself. You’re letting other people, and situations, dictate your choices. What did Lofton tell you?” She paused, waiting for his eyes to meet hers. “You need to pick a side. Isn’t that what he said?” After Felix nodded, she added, “I agree.”

  “I didn’t even know I had a choice!” Felix exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Now everyone’s telling me to pick a side. You. Lofton. Even the goddamn ghost of Agatha is telling me the ‘choice is mine’. I’ve been thinking about that all day.” He took a breath, waiting until his eyes stopped bulging. “Everyone seems to know something I don’t, and I feel like I’m being manipulated, that I’m just clueless, a pawn, and I’m fucking tired of everyone lying to me and keeping me in the dark.”

  “You are in the dark,” she told him.

  Something about the tone of her voice unsettled him. He thought she was joking, but her expression dispelled that notion in an instant. He’d never seen her look more serious. “I am?” he said.

  “I was up all night and I wasn’t just icing my hands.” She cupped her elbows and rested her arms on Felix’s textbook. “I realized something, and when I tell you I fell out of my chair, I mean it. I was literally on the floor and I cried for probably an hour and I’m still not sure if they were tears of sadness or joy. I felt the truth of it in a place I didn’t know existed until recently. I felt it just like I felt Caitlin’s fear. Just like I knew your head was on fire. It’s the truth. I swear to you. The truest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

  Felix swallowed hard, fearful of what she was going to tell him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Why didn’t Lofton kill you?” Allison’s eyes narrowed in a way she usually reserved for other people—people she didn’t trust. “He clearly could have. You weren’t paying attention and he was on your back before you even knew he was there. Why? Why didn’t he do it?”

  “He wants me on his side,” Felix answered quickly. “He was recruiting me. I told you all that.”

  “You don’t think Lofton knows you’re the Belus, right?” Her voice was incredulous.

  Felix nodded uncomfortably. “Of course not. If he did, he’d have killed me.”

  “Right.” Allison frowned doubtfully. “Because The Warning says only the Belus can kill the Drestian. So Lofton would never allow his only true adversary to live, would he? That’s what you mean?”

  Felix nodded again, wondering why she was coming at him so aggressively all of a sudden.

  “You honestly believe Lofton doesn’t know you’re the Belus?” Allison sounded like she was challenging him to disagree with her.

  “You just asked me that!” Felix felt himself getting annoyed. “He couldn’t know. If he did, I’d be—”

  “Dead?” Allison finished. “Think about this, okay? Lofton knows what happened at the quarry. He knows you went nuclear and he was probably there himself watching you torch his little pets. Then the very next day, he introduces himself on the street. Malone said Lofton never does that sort of thing and he was telling the truth. So why would Lofton do it for you if he doesn’t think you’re the Belus? What makes you so special?”

  “I don’t know,” Felix admitted.

  “Why did he use Numbered Ones to test you?” Allison asked. “You think he’s done that before?” She waited a second. “I don’t think so”—she jabbed a finger at him—“and neither do you. The fact that he did means he had something very specific in mind for you. He was looking for something—and I think he found it.” Before Felix could ask her what Lofton was looking for she plowed ahead. “There’s no way he doesn’t know about your past, Felix. He’s probably had his eye on you for a while and once he started looking he wasn’t going to stop until he knew everything. Do you honestly think you can bury your history from a man like Lofton Ashfield?”

  “Bill said he’d erased it all. My records and my mom’s. I believed him. Why wouldn’t I?” Felix thought again about yesterday. “Lofton did say he knew everything about me, but I just thought he was bluffing.”

  “He wasn’t bluffing,” Allison said, shaking her head. “I’d bet my life he knows about your real mom, that you’re cousins, that you have no birth records—all of it.” She paused. “He knows you’re the Belus, Felix. But he chose to let you live. Why? Why would he let you live?”

  Felix’s mouth had gone dry. If that was true, there was no conceivable reason for Lofton allowing him to live. He wracked his brain, not coming up with anything remotely plausible.

  “I know why.” Allison held his gaze and her eyes seemed cold. “Lofton doesn’t believe in The Warning.”

  “What?” Felix stared at her, mouth falling open in shock, not believing what he’d just heard.

  “Just listen, okay?” She held up her hands in a gesture of no more questions. “You know what a prophecy is, don’t you? A tool, a goddamn tool! That’s all it is! People want to believe in prophecies because they’re desperate to have something in their lives that’s bigger than themselves, something that gives them hope for the future. The people in power use prophecies to control them. They give the little people something to believe in so the powerful people can tell them how to live. Then you know what happens? It becomes self-fulfilling. Everyone becomes so convinced the prophecy is true they convince themselves it’s happening. They see signs of it everywhere. In the clouds. On burned toast. It’s really pretty sad, you know, how everyone’s manipulated like that. But Lofton doesn’t believe any of it. He’s only relying on it to achieve his goals.”

  “What are you talking about?” Felix demanded. “Are you saying Lofton’s not the Drestian? You’re crazy! The Journal says he is. The Order thinks he is. His Drestianites definitely think he is.”

  “Lofton’s the Drestian because he chose to be the Drestian. He’s an opportunist. He’s using The Warning as a roadmap, and as long as he’s able to convince his followers he’s destined to save the Source, they’ll die for him. That’s it. The more fervently his Drestianites believe in the prophecy, the easier they are for Lofton to control, and the more willing they are to sacrifice themselves. He’s only using The Warning when it’s to his advantage, so he’s not going to kill you just because you think you’re the Belus?”

  Felix sucked in a sharp breath, feeling as though the floor was falling out from under him. “What? You mean…you mean I’m not the Belus?”

  “There is no Belus,” Alisson said with a note of dismissiveness. “It’s all about perception. If the Order believes you’re the Belus then you’re the Belus. The only thing that matters is what people believe. It’s the same with Lofton and his Drestianites. It’s per
ception. Here’s my point. Lofton didn’t kill you because he knows The Warning is garbage. He’s just being practical. He realizes you’re really powerful and he thinks you can help him.” She watched him for a moment, her eyes softening, and he realized the look on his face must have been pitiful. “I know this must come as a shock, but it’s actually a really good thing, Felix. Think about it. If Lofton doesn’t believe in The Warning, there’s no reason you should. You don’t have to worry about destroying the Source if you win and Lofton loses because there is no winning and losing. You can do whatever you want. You’re not going to cause billions of people to die.”

  “So The Warning…the…the whole goddamn thing’s just a lie?” Felix suddenly felt furious, like the world had been making an ass of him. “A 2,000-year-old mind fuck? How many people have died over this lie? Thousands? Millions? How come no one ever figured this out?”

  “I can’t possibly be the first. Maybe the others were too vested or too afraid to come forward.” Allison leaned back in her chair with her hands folded on the table beside Felix’s book. “I think the skepticism’s been trickling down to some degree. Didn’t you pick up on how cynical everyone was at the chapel? Kane and Lilly were practically making jokes about The Warning. They weren’t taking it seriously and there’s no way they’re the only ones.”

  “Some of them were playing games on their phones,” Felix said.

  “They were bored out of their minds,” Allison agreed. “Other than Malone, no one wanted to be there.”

  “So if the Order doesn’t believe in the Belus, what are they doing?”

  “I think finding the Belus has become secondary for them,” Allison said. “It’s not that they don’t believe in the Belus, it’s that they don’t believe they’ll find him. I think it’s obvious what they are though. The Order’s a bunch of outcasts who think of themselves as freedom fighters because they can’t stand the idea of taking orders from anyone. But if you pick their side—if you decide to take on Lofton—you’ll need to convince them you’re the Belus. They won’t fight for you if they don’t believe that. At the first whiff of adversity, they’d run and hide, which is pretty much what they’ve done for the last thousand years.”