The building itself feels completely vacant -- that emptiness places get when there’s no one inside. Friday night isn’t exactly the time when college classroom buildings are bustling with activity, but I’m used to seeing at least a few students in here. And, to make things even less inviting, most of the lights are already off. I can still see just fine by the ones that are on, but it’s not daytime in here.
I check my phone: enough time to make a quick stop in the restroom. As I leave, I hear a noise that sounds almost like a squeaky door being caught before it gets too loud.
I know that sound.
It’s not a squeaky door.
Phone in hand, screen on, ready to hit the emergency button, I stand by the bathroom door and listen for more noises.
Because I recognized that sound. It was a scream, cut off abruptly by someone -- or something -- clamping a hand over someone's mouth.
Silence. A long thirty seconds of it. I stand as still as possible, barely breathing, waiting to hear more, waiting to see if I’m going to be calling 911 or not.
Eleven years ago, I wouldn’t have bothered. I would’ve searched the building, listening at every door, until I found the person. Then I would’ve swooped in for the rescue, called an ambulance if needed, and gotten out of there just before the rescue teams arrived.
I miss those days. I miss that power. I miss--
No. I didn’t miss that noise. I know that noise well. It’s the little back-of-the-throat whimper that people make when there’s no way out, when the bad person is going to hurt them and there’s no way to stop it.
Even after all this time, my brain is hard-wired to react a certain way when I hear it.
I start walking down the hallway, toward the noise, trying to stay light on my feet. I put my phone back in my pocket, confident I’ll be able to get it out in time if I need it, and turn a corner into a little cul-de-sac of office doors.
One of them is open, just a crack. Just enough for me to press my face to the frame and look inside.
Acid floods my throat. Fire burns from the back of my neck down through my chest and into my arms and legs. My heart speeds up, pounding at my ribs. I can practically hear my teeth gritting together.
Fuck stealth.
I shoulder open the door and am across the office carpet before the guy even looks up. He can’t be a professor; he’s dressed like a dropout. Under him, over his desk, something shoved in her mouth to muffle her screams, is a younger woman. She clearly does not want to be there.
Well, that makes two of us. I don’t want her to be there either.
Before the man can speak, I grab him by the hair and yank him off her. He yells, trying to get my hand away, but I’ve had plenty of experience at this. With my other hand, I push the girl out of the way, barely registering her body thumping to the floor. I can help her later.
Right now, this bastard is the only thing on my mind.
“What the hell are you doing?” His breath is coming in gasps now; I’m pulling hard enough on his hair to stretch his neck backward. “Get the fuck out of here!”
I can’t even begin to speak. I just press my foot to the back of his knee until he’s forced to bend, crying out again -- and crying from the pain -- because I’m not letting go of his hair.
“Let me go!” he yells. “Please, let me--”
I don’t know what he might have said next, because I’m smashing his face into the dark wood of the desktop. The noise is like a giant slab of meat being thumped on a butcher’s block. He groans and his hands come up to his broken nose, which is bleeding down over his mouth and chin on its way to the floor.
Good.
I turn his head sideways and do it again, pressing his cheek hard against the desk, one hand pinning him in place. He squirms, trying to breathe through pursed lips, blood pooling on the wood.
I lean down close enough to talk to him in my quiet voice, my reasonable voice. “You were forcing that girl, weren’t you.” It’s not a question. “Don’t talk. Just nod.”
He’s not stupid. Well, okay, he’s a stupid bastard, but he’s not stupid-stupid. He nods.
“She said no?”
Nod.
“But you did it anyway?”
The enormity of his actions sinks in at that point; I can see it in his face. His eyes fill with tears and he nods. He tries to speak -- probably wants to apologize -- but he can’t. He can’t get out from under my hand.
“Are you ever... ever... going to do this again?”
I feel him trying to shake his head.
“Are you going to tell the police what you did?” Nodding. “And you’re going to plead guilty?” More nodding. The fear in his face makes my blood sing. “And you’re not going to appeal whatever sentence the judge hands down?” Shaking. Not just his head, but his whole body.
“Good.”
I pull him up by the back of his shirt, prepared to hit him, just once more, when I hear a quiet voice. “Stop.”
It’s the girl. She’s sitting as far away from me as she can get, curled up into a ball, hugging her knees. She’s pretty, I guess -- or, at least, she would be if she wasn’t crying. I barely make out dark eyes and delicate cheekbones; the rest of her face is hidden by her knees. “Are you okay?”
“I... I...” Fresh tears, and she shakes her head.
I make the man look at her. “This is what you did,” I say, feeling hotter than ever, burning with fury, with sheer, unadulterated hatred for this man. “And nothing you can say, nothing you can do, will ever make it go away.”
“I’m--”
“Don’t apologize. Your words aren’t good enough for her ears.” I focus on the girl again. “I’m going to call for help, okay?”
“O... okay.”
I must have loosened my grip just a bit, because the man tries to get away. I don’t know where he’d even go -- two witnesses, and even if the girl is too afraid to stand up for herself when the cops come, I was here. I saw what he was doing. And this sorry excuse for a human doesn’t scare me.
I sling him against the desk. Hard. His throat hits the edge.
I hear a crunch.
Then he topples backward, clutching his neck.
He can’t breathe.
“Oh, shit.”
By the time Professor Wedlund gets to the office, the man is dead. The girl ran off when her attacker stopped breathing, leaving me sitting, slumped, in one of the office chairs. “Andrea? What happened?”
I point at the dead man. “I heard someone in trouble. I found him... and a girl. I...” I swallow, and feel tears in my eyes. “I... I saved her.”
The Professor holds out his hand and helps me to my feet, and then he does something he hasn’t done in a long time.
He hugs me.
I hug him back, crying. “I saved her,” I whimper through the sobs. “I saved her!”
The Professor holds me, cradling my head against his chest. “You saved her,” he says.
But he doesn’t stop there.
“You saved her. But you killed him.”
Oh, no...
I...
I...
CHAPTER SIX
WRECKED
+++++
Professor Wedlund pulls away from me, not harshly, but in that sort of ‘okay, this hug has gone on long enough, and now it’s just getting weird’ way. “Andrea?”
I swallow hard. I’ve seen death -- I’ve caused it -- but it’s been a long time, and I’m a little unsteady on my feet. “Y... Yeah?”
“Andrea, you have to get out of here.”
I look up at him, and I know he sees the confusion on my face. “But... But I... and we have to... I mean, the police, and--”
“No,” he says, his tone flat. But he softens quickly. “No, Andrea, we can’t.”
“We... can’t?”
He shakes his head. “Not until you leave.”
“But I did it!”
“Don't worry about that right now.”
"How can I no
t?" I can hear the edge of panic in my voice.
He puts his arm around my shoulders and brings me over to the desk -- we both step carefully over the dead man. “Show me what you touched, how you did it.”
“W-what?”
The Professor sighs sharply. “We may not have much time, Andrea. I need to know what you touched, and how you killed him, and then you need to get out of here.”
I grit my teeth and do as he says, watching as he reproduces my movements in near-exact detail. He puts his hands where I put my hands; he bends over the man on the floor and grabs him where I grabbed him. He even cleans off the door frame and handle before touching them himself.
“Can you think of anything else?”
“I... I don’t think so.” I wasn’t here long enough to do much. Just enough time to save a girl who was being attacked and kill the man who was doing it by crushing his throat against a desk. “What do I do now?”
“Now?” He reaches into his pocket and takes out his wallet, then hands me three fifty-dollar bills. “Now you take this, and you go back to the train station, and you get in a cab, and you ride to the mall. I think there’s one off the Red Line.”
“In Dunwoody.” I slip the bills into my purse. “But why? How will that help?”
“You used your Breeze Card to get here?” When I nod, he shrugs, as if that explains it all. But it clearly doesn’t, and he has to use words instead. “It’s possible someone might look that deep, might put two and two together, might not believe that he’s just disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes.” The Professor starts ushering me toward the door. “Don’t touch anything. Just go north. Go shopping or something. Then take a cab back home. If this isn’t enough, take the train, but don’t -- do not -- use your card.”
“But... but what did you mean, ‘disappeared’?”
“No time.” He takes his phone out of his pocket. “I have to make a call, and you need to get going.” When I open my mouth to protest, he pushes my shoulder. It’s not hard enough to move me, but I get the point and step into the hallway. “I’ll call you this weekend, check up on you. Now go!”
Any further protests I might have made are stopped by the Professor closing the door in my face.
The taxi ride to Dunwoody doesn’t take long. I have the cab drop me off at the Barnes & Noble. It’s only a couple of blocks from the train station; I can catch a cab home from there. I guess if anyone is wondering what I’m doing here, I can always say I had a blind date and he never showed.
There’s a certain unpleasant irony in that statement, but I ignore it and go into the bookstore. I usually buy online these days, and usually it’s e-books; kind of strange to be in an actual bookshop. I meander around a bit, but end up in one of the big comfy chairs near the periodicals. I’m not so gauche as to actually read an entire magazine instead of buying it; instead, I take out my phone and check my e-mail and texts. Nothing much, just the Professor saying he’s going to call on Sunday, that something came up but he’s taking care of it. Innocuous.
I wonder what he’s doing that he needed me out of the way for.
The phone screen has a smudge on it; I rub it against my blouse, and that’s when I see the dried blood on my hand.
My body goes cold and hot at the same time. I bolt to my feet and figure out where the bathroom is. I go into the family restroom and lock the door, needing the privacy so I can scrub the blood off my skin.
It’s not a Lady Macbeth situation; the blood washes off with only a touch of soap and a little extra rubbing. But after I wash, I stare down at my hands, flexing my fingers, clenching and unclenching my fists. I remember the first time I had to kill something, and I remember the last time, and I remember all the times in between. Mostly it was regular people, possessed by minions of the Dark King, out to cause chaos or damage, or try to kill me at the King's order.
But once, it was a person. A person completely free of any influence whatsoever.
Danny had been a nice person, too. Under all the black clothes and emo behavior, all he really wanted was a friend: someone to talk to, someone to treat him like a human being. I didn’t understand it then, but I totally get it now. Back then, though, I was seventeen and I’d just learned to fly and the amount of power flowing through me had made it so ridiculously easy to destroy the minion that he'd allowed into himself.
If only it had been that easy. If only Danny hadn’t turned himself into an anchor for more minions. They’d have just kept on coming if I hadn’t done something.
If I hadn’t killed him.
Afterward, the Professor had told me I did the right thing, and he’d sent me away so he could clean up the mess. I’d gone home, bypassing the front door and sneaking in through my bedroom window to avoid my parents, and, alone in my room, I’d collapsed on my bed and cried.
Now, less than an hour after killing again, I’m staring at my blurry reflection through eyes filled with sudden tears, and all I want to do is take it back. The bastard may have been a rapist, but no one deserves to die. Not like that, not with his throat crushed, gasping for breath. And not like Danny died, caught from behind, his head in my hands. I’d thought breaking his neck would be quick, efficient, even painless, and maybe it was, technically.
But I felt the pain for him. And now I’m feeling the pain for the other man I killed.
I just want to go home.
I don’t care what Professor Wedlund said. Not right now. I buy train fare with cash and ride silently amid the rich kids slumming it on the train on their way to whatever club or concert is the thing to do. I get off at Five Points and take a cab to my apartment, not wanting to mess with buses or force myself to walk there. My apartment is dark -- I must’ve forgotten to turn any lights on -- and I don’t bother to change that. I’ve lived here long enough to find my way to the couch.
Thinking about Danny, though, makes me think about how I got over what I did to him. Ever since I’d first gotten my powers, Professor Wedlund had told me to meditate, to center myself, to allow the power to flow through me. It wasn’t until I’d killed Danny that I really understood why he was so insistent.
It worked then. It didn't take any superpowers, either -- people meditate every day.
I slip off my shoes and sit on the floor, my back against the couch. Lotus position isn’t comfortable, but it’s how I was taught. Eyes closed, I bring my hands together and make a small bow, then slowly lower them, palms up, until my knuckles rest on my knees. The most basic form of meditation I learned -- not from the Professor, but from a yoga instructor he sent me to -- involves imagining that I’m holding a triangle of light. The bottom points rest in my palms; the apex touches my forehead. I can’t quite remember what chakras or chi or whatever it’s supposed to unlock, but I do remember to breathe.
In.
Out.
In...
Out...
In...
And...
Out...
And...
And it takes a long time, and my legs are asleep when I get there, but I eventually manage to ‘drop in’ -- what my instructor called it. Instead of the muted sounds of the city, of the air conditioner, of the cats snoring on the couch, a heavy silence begins pressing on my ears. It’s like the just-on-the-edge-of-my-hearing high-pitched whine a television makes when it’s turned on, only ten times louder. A loud silence, one that doesn’t allow me to hear anything but the lack of noise.
My eyes finally start to relax, and my center of balance begins to float. When I was still Alexandra, I could force myself to stay sitting straight up, but I’m not her, and I think I’m starting to tilt to one side. Slow breath by slow breath, only moving on the inhalations, I bring myself into an upright position once more.
And I wait.
And I breathe.
And I meditate.
My instructor -- Lynn, that was her name; it comes to me like a cobweb floating on the wind -- said that the purpose of meditation wasn’
t to clear my mind, but to help me accept my thoughts. It took a lot of meditation to accept that killing Danny had been the right thing to do; it’s going to take a lot more now that I’ve killed again.
A cold hand clenches around my heart. Not a real one -- I know it’s not a real one -- but my fear, my anger, my guilt, and my shame are all closing around me. The ice spreads through my chest, through my arms, through the triangle of light. It would be in my legs and my ass if I had any feeling left there, and I’m thankful for small favors.
I can’t ignore the feelings. I have to let them happen. For the meditation to work, I have to experience them, acknowledge them, and let them move on when they’re ready.
Something breaks the silence before I get to that point. It’s a small voice, as if heard from far away. “Are you all right?” it asks.
I don’t answer. I simply accept it as part of the meditation.
Once more: “are you all right?”
I register Willow padding across the couch, dropping to the floor, and going off to do whatever cats do in the dark. The voice speaks again, even farther away this time, and I can’t make out the words.
I’m tilting again.
Breathe out.
Breathe in, straighten up.
The triangle of light is heavy where the apex presses against my forehead. I can almost see it in my mind’s eye, an Escher-esque thing with no beginning and no ending, three dimensions twisting, flowing with glittering lines of whiteness.
Then something bumps my right hand and my eyes flutter open.
After The Apocalypse Page 5