by Dean Murray
Chapter 14
Kat hung her head in shame. "It wasn't supposed to be you, Selene. I was the one who was supposed to die that night."
I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, but I couldn't have said for sure whether it was Sandra, or rather her previous incarnation, killing me that was the biggest shock, or if it was the fact that I'd sacrificed myself to save Kat.
"What happened, Kat?"
"We were being chased by a group from another pantheon. They were hoping to run us to ground so that they could capture you, or barring that get their hands on your research journals. There were three of them and three of us, but they were all known quantities and we were too closely matched.
"You and Jace were more powerful and skilled than any of them, but I was much, much weaker than even their weakest. Jace suggested splitting up as a way of trying to even the odds. He went one direction and we went the other. We figured Jace would be able to overwhelm whomever they sent after him, and then he was going to meet back up with us and ambush the last two of them."
It was surreal to hear someone talking about how I'd died. I couldn't remember any of it, but I could still feel a complex tide of emotions rising inside of me. Sorrow was part of it, but only part, and I couldn't even begin to untangle the rest of the feelings.
"It didn't work though."
"No. Jace ran into problems. The guy following him was cagier than we'd expected and it seemed like nothing Jace tried was sufficient to get the other guy to engage. Meanwhile we were running out of time. Sandra and Mephistoles were closing in on you and me. We went to a safe house and you called Jace…you called to tell him goodbye. I didn't realize it at the time. I thought you were just checking up on him, trying to figure out if there was any chance of turning the situation around, but you were saying goodbye."
Kat stopped talking. The tears were back. It physically hurt me to see her in so much pain, but I had to know what happened next.
"Please, Kat. I need to know."
"You pulled me aside and told me that you had a plan. You were going to engage Sandra and Mephistoles head on. While I circled around and came at them from the other side. It was risky. Even I realized that. I tried to convince you to trade places with me. It only made sense for me to take the most dangerous spot."
"You knew what I had planned?"
"No. I had some vague suspicions that you weren't telling me everything, but that wasn't anything new. Mostly it was just the fact that you were so much more important than me. You'd been telling us for months that your research was on the cusp of producing something that would change everything for us."
Kat made a fist and slammed her hand into the desk. The blow looked casual, but she shattered the ceramic upper surface and sent her book spinning to the ground.
"I don't know what you were thinking. You should have fed me into the meat grinder and saved yourself. If you'd spent the last eighteen years working on your research you could have finally made us untouchable."
"I expect that I was probably thinking that I loved you, Kat. I saw an option that gave us both a chance to save ourselves, but I knew there was a risk, so I did what I could to make sure that at least you would make it out alive."
"Then you were an idiot. You saved me, but what did that really accomplish? You saved someone who won't even remember your sacrifice in a few more years.
"I'll still have my journals, I'll still know that you died to save me, but I won't know what that felt like. Every time I burn a peak memory I worry I'm going to lose the memory of that day, but in a little while it won't even matter. I'm steadily losing the day-to-day stuff that defined our relationship. At some point it's just going to be a memory of a stranger who threw her life away to save mine."
"Oh, Kat. I finally understand. You're not just scared for your own life, you miss your friend, and you're in mourning for the day when you won't be able to remember her, for the day when her sacrifice will cease to have meaning. Why didn't you just tell me?"
"Because it sounds stupid to say that I miss you when you're sitting right here next to me."
"I'm not really her, and I know it. Maybe someday I'll be someone very much like her, but right now you and I don't even begin to have that kind of history together. It's okay, I don't expect you to feel any different than you do."
Something about that statement calmed Kat instantly. It was eerie, like the way that she'd short-circuited my anger so effortlessly just a few minutes before. The difference was that I didn't have any idea what it was that I'd said to reach her.
"You say that, but sometimes I wonder. Most of the time you're exactly what I expect you to be, but every so often you sound just like her."
"I know, Jace explained it to me. My body has changed over the last few years and now I'm basically a clone. Even my voice."
"No, that's not what I meant. Your voice is the same, but it's more than that. Sometimes the things you say are exactly the same things she would have said."
I shrugged. "You guys keep telling me that kind of thing is to be expected. I'm still her, just without her memories."
"Yeah, I know. It just seems sometimes like the similarities between the two of you go beyond even that."